Below is my column on Fox.com on the escalating fight between Harvard and the Trump Administration. For Harvard, this could prove a case of winning battles and losing a war of attrition.
Here is the column:
Eighty-one years ago, on May 31, 1944, General George Patton walked before the 6th Armored Division before the D-Day invasion and told the troops a simple, inescapable fact about war: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
It is a cautionary speech that might well be given in Harvard Square this week as the fight between the university and the Trump administration escalates. By the end of this war (regardless of the outcome), the Trump administration is likely to win even if it loses in the courts.
The Trump administration has committed to total war with Harvard on multiple fronts. It is threatening the school’s tax-exempt status, denying the ability to admit foreign students, freezing grants, and launching a myriad of investigations.
Harvard has responded with its largest deployment since the “Harvard Regiment” left for the Civil War. (It is worth noting that the famed 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry suffered one of the highest casualty rates of any unit in the Union Army).
For the record, I have previously criticized the administration for some of these actions, including the attack on the school’s tax-exempt status, the wholesale freezing of grants, and the blocking of foreign students. These measures undermine both free speech and academic freedom in higher education.
Nevertheless, the Trump administration will prevail in some actions, particularly in the allocation of discretionary grants.
Harvard’s own recent study found that it created an unsafe environment for Jewish students. Harvard also has a documented history of racial discrimination that led to a major Supreme Court ruling a couple of years ago against the use of race in college admissions.
The administration is claiming that Harvard failed to turn over information to regulators on foreign students and has not fully addressed the antisemitism on campus.
Harvard has compelling arguments to make regarding due process and procedural protections.
However, in the end, this is a war of attrition that Harvard will lose.
President Donald Trump has already framed this fight in a way that is politically and financially lethal for Harvard. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have a son studying at Harvard Law School).
This week, Trump suggested that his administration may redirect billions from Harvard to trade schools.
His targeting of foreign students also shows an understanding of the soft underbelly of higher education. Foreign students are the meal ticket for universities. They generally pay full tuition, allowing universities to fund scholarships for other students. Over 27 percent of Harvard’s class is composed of foreign students.
Cutting off both grants and foreign enrollments is a devastating one-two punch, even for a school with Harvard’s massive endowment.
Even if these measures are ultimately rejected in the courts, many researchers and foreign students will view Harvard as a risky choice in the years to come.
More importantly, Harvard can hardly expect much support from the public after years of open hostility toward those who espouse conflicting viewpoints.
As I discuss in my book “The Indispensable Right,” Harvard is not just an academic echo chamber. It is a virtual academic sensory deprivation tank.
In a country with a majority of conservative and libertarian voters, fewer than 9 percent of the Harvard student body and less than 3 percent of the faculty members identify as conservative.
For years, Harvard faculty have brushed away complaints over its liberal orthodoxy, including purging conservative faculty. It has created one of the most hostile schools for free speech in the nation, ranking dead last among universities in annual studies by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
Only a third of students at Harvard feel comfortable speaking on campus despite being overwhelmingly liberal at an overwhelmingly liberal institution. (The percentage is much higher for the small number of conservative students).
Not long ago, I had a debate at Harvard Law School with Professor Randall Kennedy on the lack of ideological diversity at the school. I respect Kennedy and I do not view him as anti-free speech or intolerant. Yet when I noted the statistics on the vanishing number of conservative students and faculty in comparison to the nation, Kennedy responded that Harvard “is an elite university” and does not have to “look like America.”
The problem is that Harvard does not even look like Massachusetts, which is nearly 30 percent Republican.
The question is whether America will now support Harvard.
The school hopes that the public will rush to its side in this fight in the name of intellectual diversity.
Trump knows that this comes down to the numbers.
At the height of the Civil War, General (and future President) Ulysses S. Grant declared “I intend to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” Grant knew that he had a greater ability to absorb casualties, whereas even in successful battles, Lee was being drained of men and material.
Trump is clearly willing to fight this out if “it takes all summer” and indeed would be happy to do so if it takes his whole term.
“(It is worth noting that the famed 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry suffered one of the highest casualty rates of any unit in the Union Army).”
*****************************
The vast majority of the two brigades were Irish immigrants who wouldn’t be considered for membership now by the current dons of Harvard. Too European, too white and too patriotic – all the things Havad detests these days. Defund Havad seems a worthwhile goal. Sorta like defunding the KKK!
OT:
Watergate metastasized with the Ervin hearings and when Congress brought in guys like John Dean and others as well as special prosecutor investigations so why not get a special prosecutor and have committee hearings for Bidengate, a scandal far worse than Watergate?
What did you know and when did you know it?
It wouldn’t work as they believe in tricks of rhetoric.
Wittingly or unwittingly, Harvard and many other universities pose a national threat to the security of the United States. Let that sink in for a moment.
In 2022, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray told NBC News that “Chinese spying in the U.S. has become so widespread that the FBI is launching an average of two counterintelligence investigations a day to counter the onslaught.” Wray added that “the sheer scale of Chinese efforts to steal U.S. technology shocked him.”
OK, let’s put two and two together and see what we get. According to government records, 290,000 Chinese “students” are in the U.S. on student visas, many of whom are enrolled at high-tech universities like Harvard. How many are full-time or part-time spies? Who knows?
In 2018, the first Trump administration’s Department of Justice launched its “China Initiative” to curb economic espionage. Of concern were American faculty members being “recruited” by the Chinese government through what was called “China’s Thousand Talents Plan,” a program that generously paid American professors for sharing their “talents” with China.
In January 2020, Charles Lieber, Harvard’s Chair of its department of chemistry and chemical biology and recognized as a world leader in nanotechnology – the technology of the future – was arrested by the FBI at Logan Airport in Boston, along with two Chinese colleagues, as they attempted to smuggle 21 vials of biological research to China. Lieber, it was learned, had received millions of dollars in secret payments and had helped the Chinese government establish a lab in Wuhan, the infamous city known for COVID-19.
A jury trial of Lieber ended with his conviction for making false statements to the FBI, filing false tax returns, and failing to file reports for a bank account in China. Lieber had lied about earning $50,000 a month from the Wuhan University of Technology, receiving up to $158,000 in living expenses, and a $1.5 million in grants from the Chinese government. He was sentenced to two days in prison and a fine of $83,000. Last month, Lieber left the U.S. for China where he is employed as the Chair of Tsinghua University’s Medical Academy of Research and Translation.
Trump’s first term uncovered the extent of Chinese espionage and how it was insidiously corrupting our best and brightest scientists, for example, people like Lieber. If the courts and colleges themselves were not going to take this threat seriously, then it must be addressed by the Executive Branch. The antisemitism and pro-Hamas riots are convenient in galvanizing public support for Trump’s initiatives. Still, the real target here is the Chinese students and the infiltration of spies from China and elsewhere into our universities, where they steal our technology and recruit our best professors and scientists.
Trump’s lawyers may lose some of these cases at the district court level. Still, he should prevail if and when these cases get before the SCOTUS, which will focus more on the responsibilities of the POTUS under Article II of the Constitution and less on individual due process claims or the merits of the underlying cases. Harvard is a convenient and well-known vehicle for the President to address the foreign espionage threatening our country and its future. The more it fights back, the more it enables and empowers the POTUS to defend and protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
In Good Will Hunting, didn’t Will and his friends go to a Harvard bar and have an interaction with a long haired Harvard Student? The the student was book learned and lost the debate horribly. Perhaps that was the beginning of the downfall?
In all the talk about Harvard’s rights, they have no right to espouse their despicable brand of Nazism on the public dime. The greatest rights violation is being forced to pay for positions anathema to ones conscience. Harvard is a private institution and should be treated as such. No funding, no tax exemptions, no foreign students not vetted, and prosecution for violating the civil right of their students.
In all this talk about the Constitution, the greatest violation is that of Enumerated powers. The Congress has no authority to spend one penny on any educational institution. This goes for every school in the land. If everyone at Harvard wore MAGA hats and had pictures of President Trump on their wall, they still should be cut off.
I’m really not sure that Harvard is being realistic in thinking that the public will come to their aid. Much if not must of the rest of the US does not look like or sound like Harvard.
Over the last 25 years of my medical practice I went to Harvard Medical School’s CME. Mainly I went because it was the best and most comprehensive I ever encountered. And previously I had been to CME in all parts of the country.
As good as the Harvard CME was, it preached to a small and restricted area of the country. They always had a list of each attendee and where they practiced. Virtually no one came from outside the Northeast or New York. Some attendees came from other nations and there were foreign service doctors. Basically no one from the South, Midwest, Mountain States or the West Coast were on the list. It was striking how restricted it was compared to other sites I had attended. I can only surmise that has only become worse.
The other problem for Harvard is that there are many well endowed private universities all over the US and state supported schools profiles are rising, especially in research and more importantly research grants and money. The Midwest and the Big 10 have massive schools with huge amounts of funding and are tremendous research powerhouses. They’re cheaper also. They are growing while Harvard fights its battle for relevance. Harvard may win the battles and lose the war and when then poke their head up after the war is over, Harvard will likely find that their competitors have picked their bones clean.
GEB
Once again GEB proves that Black Russians are not conducive to rational thought.
You state that the CME attendees at Harvard were mostly from the Northeast.
Perhaps that is because Harvard is in the Northeast and it is more convenient for doctors in the Northeast to get their CME in the Northeast without having to travel too far.
Perhaps doctors in the West and Midwest find it more convenient to get their CME locally.
You even make the point that there are powerhouse schools in the West and Midwest.
Perhaps it is more convenient for doctors in those regions to get their CME from these “powerhouses”.
You are trying to jump on the MAGA bandwagon of impugning Harvard by drawing absurd conclusions that Harvard is some kind of insular institution based on observations of attendance at CME.
You simultaneously make the observation that there are powerhouse institutions elsewhere that provide the same quality of CME.
This observation accurately explains why the attendees at Harvard CME were mostly from the Northeast, and thus you refute your own absurd conclusions about the insularity of Harvard.
I highly recommend that you reduce your intake of Black Russians.
You focus on one point while failing to address a more significant point: the content of the Harvard CME was “restricted compared to other sites” he attended. To me that’s the nub of the issue, and I would like to hear more details about that.
Repeat yourself much?
Anonymous10:35 am-You missed the part where I said that I have been to many other CME courses all through the country and national centers similar to Harvard generally had attendees from all around the country and just not local physicians. At Harvard it far more confined to the local area and it has nothing to do with MAGA. Boston is a relatively easy place to reach and the quality of Harvard CME should have had a national audience but did not seem to as judged by the attendees. My expertise is medicine, not engineering, or math, or other areas of research so i restricted myself to what I know. You jumped to conclusions that I did not even refer to or made assumptions and arguments that were not valid. In other words, your usual trolling.
That particular “anonymous: is the resident troll, incapable of rational discourse. Ignore it.
GEB
UCSD medical for me. (-:
* Harvard and others have become foreign outposts within the body of the United States. They are anti Jewish of domestic and foreign Islam. They are anti United States, anti white Anglo Saxon, anti Constitution.
The strategy is and was to overwhelm internal systems both economic and political from the universities to the border. The similarity to Ulysses Grant is appropriate. It’s complete win as to collapse leaving rubble in its wake.
It is and was a matter of national security. DJT is meeting the strategy by militarizing the border and isolating the university outposts and forever vigilant. If he succeeds and others follow you’ll still have a bandaged soldier, leg missing and leaning on a crutch as the US symbol of the law. Go back and re-read the dissent in Kelo and reclaim a partial understanding of what the law is.
How do you treat cancer?
With aggressive surgical precision.
-Rabble
Or you could consider the CAR-T cell immunotherapy for cancer developed at Harvard.
They dramatically improved the efficacy of this treatment and developed mechanisms to personalize the treatment based on the patient’s specific tumor antigens.
They also dramatically reduced the potential side effects by creating molecular switches that they could use to switch the T cells on and off as needed.
The initial CAR-T protocol had significant risk of severe side effects because once activated the T cells sometimes went out of control and would attack normal cells as well as the tumor cells.
Harvard scientists developed molecular switches to turn off the T cells if needed.
Of course, all the research for this was funded by the government through the NIH.
The breakthrough research to develop CAR-T therapy was originally done at University of Pennsylvania, also with federal research grants.
Harvard greatly improved the methodology to make it accessible to many more patients.
* continue funding of medical …
It’s interesting that you note the lack of ideological diversity and conservative exclusion resulting in a non-equitable atmosphere at Harvard. I guess you and the Trump administration are suggesting that Harvard embark on a program to diversify its faculty politically, be more inclusive of conservative ideals and create a learning environment that upholds ideological equity. They could even call it a ‘DEI’ initiative, maybe. See how that works?
Turley is writing about ideological, political diversity and inclusion, not racial, gender or any other characteristic of birth.
A football team needs a mix of strong lineman, fast wide receivers and a quarterback who can throw. The team does not address their needs by signing 70% caucasian players, 20% Black players, 10% others.
See how that works?
And in your analogy, there’s a good chance that 54% of those players are Black, despite the American population being only 14% Black. The best rise to the top in a system of meritocracy, as you suggest is the best way to assemble a team. So what if it just so happens that the best law professors and scholars are overrepresented by left-leaning individuals, like Black athletes are overrepresented in the NFL?
But what if the opposite is true and the best law professors and scholars aren’t liberal? Besides, don’t you want two points of view considering you are training LAWYERS that need to see all sides of an argument?
Then you just made an argument for affirmative action.
Ano
54% of those players are Black, despite the American population being only 14% Black.
So what percentage of that group find themselves in front of law-enforcement because they can’t seen to control gang like attitude.
LOL. I don’t think we need to diversify Harvard at all. Let them do as they wish. However… they are clearly NOT deserving of public funding. They can be all they can be on their own dime.
I agree. They can hire who and what they want. I wouldn’t want my kid going to a school so ideologically homogenous, but that’s their problem.
It’s the government funding aspect that they don’t need. Don’t want us to say what they should do? Then don’t take our money.
Sounds great. In that case all of the major medical discoveries that are made at Harvard should ONLY be made available to Harvard alumni, correct? For example, in the past ten years, there have been breakthroughs in gene editing for disease treatment, cancer treatments, immune-mediated disorders and stem cell therapy that will quite literally help most of the American population. When the government gives grant dollars to a major research university, it’s a contract. We are paying them to do major medical research that will help everyone – and that will also drive industry in therapeutics.
You need some classes in gene editing and its results in 100 generations from Sapolski, Stanford.
Sapolsky studies the neuroendocrinology of baboons.
He is the world authority on the functioning of the MAGA mind.
* Every hair on your head is numbered.
Cite: Jesus Christ referencing genetics.
Whatever you do is a forgery.
Their own dime is from foreign sources. It’s unreported.
That’s not what Turley said. He merely point out factual statistics. You made assumptions regarding Turley that he did not state.
NO. Stop allowing HAMAS to attack the Jews on campus, and stop mistreating Asians.
Merit requires none of it.
Harvard has a terminal case of the woke mind virus. It can issue reports acknowledging that it has an antisemitism problem that needs to be addressed, but as Bill Ackman says (see link below), all the reports in the world are not going to solve the root problem, they are like spraying perfume on sewage. Ackman’s tweet is somewhat long but it has valuable insights. Bottom line, Penny Pritzger and the entire Harvard Corporation board need to be replaced, then they should also get a better and more self-aware president than Alan Garber.
https://x.com/BillAckman/status/1926871423789781233
Elite universities do not offer remedial math. harvard is a community college.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/
One thing this administration has brought to light is how many billions of taxpayer dollars are being given to colleges to perform “research”. Perhaps it is time for colleges to get out of the business of research and concentrate on teaching.
BillyG
Astoundly stupid and ignorant comment.
Where do you think scientific researchers come from ???
Do you think they grow on trees somewhere ???
Research is something that has to be learned.
Research is something that is taught.
Universities TEACH students how to do research.
Research and teaching are inextricably intertwined.
And before you inevitably answer with some stupid comment about not needing scientists and researchers, consider the following.
If not for scientists you would not currently be sitting in front of a computer, using the internet.
You would be living in a cave somewhere trying to make tools out of rocks.
OK child…
A negotiated settlement is unavoidable, because the financial and reputational damage is mounting every day.
The radical profs will then start looking for jobs at NYU, Columbia, Bezerkley, etc. The ones more loyal to the “cause” than their institutions?…..good riddance. I’ve heard that about half the Harvard faculty want the Admin to crack down on rule-breaking agitators. It’s about time.
Trump is proving himself a petty tyrant in oh so many ways. He does things because he can. Let’s not even pretend it’s about a newfound concern for Jewish people. He’s previously made clear his feelings in that regard.
“Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.”
In the last days of the 2016 campaign, he rolled out an ad featuring three rich Jews — then-Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and financier George Soros — over a narration decrying “those who control the levers of power in Washington,” and the “global special interests” who “partner with these people who don’t have your good in mind.”
Trump’s base is full of Neo-Nazis and skinheads, he isn’t fighting antisemitism, he’s trying to crush what he can’t control.
His use of the pardon power is another example. Rich frauds and cheats who kiss up to him (or whose mother buys tickets to a $1 million dollar dinner) go to the head of the line with those who committed crimes on Trump’s behalf.
“Trump’s base is full of Neo-Nazis and skinheads, …………..”
Here we go again.
The “petty tyrant” label only fits in areas where Trump is going against majority public opinion (e.g., his attempt to abandon Ukraine which he’s only recently put aside). As far as de-radicalizing our universities, the majority of the country is solidly behind this goal. That, and de-politicizing K-12 education, and instead teaching independent thinking and savvy media skills. These are gigantic challenges, and the correctives will be messy/controversial. The main thing is to do all this without overcorrection — letting our learning institutions become straightjacketed by right-wing radicals. We have to be ready to stop the pendulum when a sweet spot is reached, because the tendency is always for the reformers to overplay their hand.
Yeah, not like they are hung up on LEFT wing radicals,
Like wanting their way with kids.
Ano
(e.g., his attempt to abandon Ukraine which he’s only recently put aside.
Who wish to join? They will take most anyone, even war-hawks like yourself.
This is a non-winning war for either side. I see Germany wants to jump in. Go for it fools, but their military is quite small.
Man, the 10 seconds of research you put into that reply is just breathtaking.
Is your point that it didn’t take longer? Are you arguing that Trump is a true champion of the fight against antisemitism, that Neo-Nazis and skinheads aren’t part of his base or that he doesn’t pardon criminals that like him and support him financially or criminally?
Yes, Trump is a true fighter against antisemitism. He fights against all racism while you polute the blog with your racist and leftist ideas.
Right………………… Jezz what a fool
antisemitism
Yes he is…………….. You just failed to notice.
Another Jew hater I see.
The tyrant is really going to blow a gasket now that his tariffs have been declared illegal.
You get your jollies from the unimportant. Trump made his point: tariffs will sort themselves out. This country’s never been without them. But you think if you tie a bear’s mouth shut, you’re safe. His paw says otherwise. You are not the answer to the black man’s problem. You are the cause.
Why is it that no matter the topic, my being Black is so important to you? Tariffs in and of themselves can serve a purpose and aren’t inherently illegal. Trump’s on the other hand. . .
Your being Black means nothing to me or many others, and it shouldn’t. What matters is character, not race. You’ve flipped MLK’s message on its head: he preached judging a man by his character, but you cling to race as if it’s a virtue.
Just scroll through your own posts. They’re saturated with identity politics. Even your name, enigmainblack, makes it clear. Like it or not, your obsession with race, especially coming from within, feeds into the very problems holding Black communities back.
The racist strikes again…. Nothing more to add
@Enigma
Uh-huh. You have been haunting this blog for years, and I am not convinced, and I don’t care how it sounds, I am not entirely certain that you are even ‘black’. Go blow. Nobody cares.
It’s not me you should care about, but the petty tyrant.
It is not in the national interest of the U. S. to support private schools such as Harvard – ANY private school should be just that – private! NO taxpayer money of any description. NO tax dispensations should be given. It is PRIVATE.
Mr. Turley, I’m not sure how restricting foreign students stifles academic free speech. Foreign policy is the domain of the federal government. My position is that there are too many foreign F1 visas. It is a problem analagous to outsourcing manufacturing.
We ougjt to zero out all legal immigration u til the mass deportation is 99% complete.
Professor Turley may be right about some things he writes as to the ultimate result of the “battle” between Harvard annd Trump as regards actions that Trump is taking. I also believe Harvard will lose the battle when you consider the views of American people. Americans are sick and tired of institutions like Harvard which is supposedly educating students but in effect is turning them into radical liberal activists. If Harvard suffers becasue of this I say all well and good and I hope it suffers in regard to the way America and the world looks at it. In my years in law school and graduate law school I was fortunate to have wonderful faculty who never said a word about his or her political preferences or the way lawyers should think or what type of social motivation they should have. To Harvard I would say “Educate yourself and stop being moronic.”
It’s time to tax the endowments of all schools that take public money. Perhaps a sliding proportional formula based upon the endowment sum and the taxpayer dollar amount is in order. This should help protect the public from institutions that become corrupt in time… It’s always going to happen, no oversight plus large sums of money virtually guarantee that corruption will eventually fester, like it has at these Harvard-like schools. Schools need to uphold basic safety of their students. A Presbyterian should be safe to walk to class and to live on camps, and not be harassed, verbally or in any manner, from a Lutheran. (Substitute any religions that you wish.)
Alan Dershowitz – knows Harvard well. He says the leadership may want to settle; in fact they had hired two lawyers who were close to Trump to work something out but the Harvard Faculty was very Left Wing and they opposed any negotiated deal, as well as the radical Left Students and etc. Believe they brought in new lawyers.
Harvard along with many other schools, with big endowments, need $$$$$ from the Government, for much of their investments, according to Bill Akerman, are in Real Estate, Private Equity/Debt which are illiquid and if they were to sell, they could see substantial loss.
In the end, there will be a negotiated settlement with the Trump Admin. and suspect, even with the opposition, a workable settlement will be reached. For Harvard has NO Public backing except the Left Wing Woke DEMS/Woke crowd.
It could actually get much worse for Harvard than it is now. What if some Palestinian students at Harvard imitate what was done in DC last week, or even worse, an attack involving virology?
Perhaps Harvard should adopt Pogo as its new mascot
https://incommunion.org/2005/04/25/we-have-met-the-enemy-and-he-is-us/