Harvard is far from perfect. But Trump’s attack on it isn’t about fixing Harvard. It’s about breaking it - and with it, all of American higher education.
They claim it’s about antisemitism. But that’s an obvious pretext - because the Department of Education letter cutting Harvard off never even mentions it. Instead it attacks Harvard for hosting Democratic officials. Just today Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that universities would only be allowed to do research if they were “in sync with the Trump Administration."
Let’s call this what it is: a stress test for American institutions. When governments go after universities, we’ve seen what happens—in places like Hungary and Turkey. Independent thought is the first casualty.
Harvard educates the children of the global elite, who pay for the privilege of sending their children to America to be indoctrinated in American values. Just as important, it’s the world’s leading research university. It is, literally, the American institution doing the most to maintain America’s lead in science and technology, even as every other school in the US has slowly fallen behind.
We should debate how universities handle protest, speech, and governance. But political revenge dressed up as moral outrage? That’s a road to disaster.
🔗 Read more about this in my article on Bloomberg Opinion: https://lnkd.in/eZf4we_K
🎥 Or watch the video: https://lnkd.in/erQEUDTB
My question for you today is this: Is this how we lose what made America exceptional—one institution at a time?
