In 2021, extreme right blogger Curtis YarvinThat supports the abolition of American democracy and replacing it with a dictatorship, continued A podcast Discuss how a hypothetical “American César” could successfully carry out a power take -out if he chose president.
Its interlocutor, then trainer (and now, current) Trump Michael Anton official argued that any effort of this effort fights because “the centers of real power” in the United States, elite media and academic institutes exemplified by “Harvard and the New York Times,” they would fight.
“That’s right,” Yarvin agreed. “Therefore, basically, you cannot continually have a Harvard or a New York Times in early April.”
Now is April, and Harvard suddenly faces an unprecedented assault of the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump already revoked $ 2.2 billion in federal research funds for the university. He and his AIDS have suggested that more weapons of state power can soon, revoking the non -profit state of Harvard Through the IRSTaking off certification To organize international students, and Examining their revelations Or foreign donations.
Harvard assault is part of a broader Trump assault against elite universitieswhich is its own part of an even broader federal assault on progressive institutions and groups considered enemies of the president (of Great law firms to Liberal non -profit organizations to Conventional media).
The attacks have several pretexts, but they fit a bigger strategy That right -wing lawyer. They believe that the best way to strengthen the cultural power of the right is to force liberal and left institutions to bend the knee or be destroyed. And he thought that destroying Harvard will be a difficult task, tactics as these will probably have massive long -term consequences, forever transforming the relationship between the federal government and the academy.
Harvard became Trump’s main objective because he faced him in a high profile manner, Announcing last Monday He would not give in to his demands. The school has gained praise of Trump’s critics for resisting where Columbia University no Last month. But in reality, Harvard had no choice but to defend himself, because the demands of Trump’s officials had become much more extreme.
Most Trump’s officials required That each department and teaching unit of Harvard, as well as the student body, face audits approved by the federal government for the “diversity of views” every year until 2028. This essential tonsía of fleshy meat had moved sufficiently to the right: an impressive federal intrusion in a private university.
Much of this seems clearly illegal, and Harvard will surely fight in court. But this can be the beginning. Assistants to Trump, the New York Times recently reported“They have spoken in deprived of knocking down a high profile university to indicate their gravity.” That is: not only want to change Harvard roads, they may want to destroy it.
That is easier to say it. Harvard is well positioned to defend himself, both in the Court and in the collection of funds between his rich network of alumni, and the school has A great endowment. But the long -term trajectory for the relationship between universities and the federal government seems gloomy.
Now that Trump has been a pioneer in the tactics of getting funds to coerce and try to control universities, it seems difficult to put that genius in the considerable: the threat will last the republican presidency. Universities are likely to discover how to live without the federal government or become more acceptable to the right.
Trump vs. “The Cathedral”
The impressive Trump weapon of government power against universities is occurring partly due to their own revenge. But it is also a strategy that certain thinkers and activists on the right have long been legalized.
The conservatives have complained for a long time that elite conferences and universities poison the minds of the youth of the United States with their extreme left forms. But during the last decade, the decade of Great uncomfortable – This has become increasingly central in the narrative of the right of what Aila America. Influenting voices on the right, such as activist Christopher Rufo, argued “Wokess” was created by elite universities largely.
Yarvin, meanwhile, It began to concentrate In this long before Wokess wars. For a long time he has affirmed that progressives dominate the culture of the United States due to what he calls “the cathedral”: academic and elite media institutions that, in their nation, establish the limits of acceptable political discourse and distort reality so that they fit their favorites.
To people persuaded by this story, such as vice president JD Vance, the answer seemed obvious: Vance said in 2021 that conservatives should “honestly and aggressively stroke Universities in this country. “
Several developments in the 2020s made the universities more vulnerable to these right -wing attacks. The Covid-19 pandemic returned many to the right against the medical establishment, making them more open to threatening the financing of scientific and medical research (which is most direct federal funds for universities). The Supreme Court Declared illegal practices of affirmative action based on Harvard’s career In 2023, opening federal scrutiny for the future about whether Harvard or other universities fulfilled the ruling.
Above all, there was the eruption of the Israel-Gaza War and pro-palestinian protests that caused controversy on many campuses. They thought that many students and members of the Faculty supported the protests, others, including the main donors, opposed them, arguing that Jewish students had recently made them insecure on the campus. Protest supporters have argued that this was an obvious effort to cool criticism or Israel. But the issue was bitterly divisive, Congress Joined the frayand the presidents of the Ivy League (including Harvard’s) were soon forced.
The Trump administration cited those protests in the creation of a “Working group to combat anti -Semitism“What has assumed the main role in the threat of Harvard’s financing and other universities. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his allies, have been equally aggressive in Taking a demolition ball To the status quo of medical research that involves subsidies to universities. And recent reports suggest that Trump himself is Personally involved in And excited about effort.
The real work of Trump’s tactics, against Harvard, specifically or “the cathedral” in general?
Trump can clearly damage Harvard. Dismissal They are already starting At the Harvard Public Health School. The school can compensate for some loss of subsidies with a new collection of funds, but it will be quite difficult to evoke $ 2 billion or much more, if the IRS revokes the non -profit state of Harvard, which forces it to pay taxes and eliminate the fiscal deductions of its donations.
But Harvard seems to have good prospects in court. Law teachers They have argued That Trump’s rapid revocations of funds can be illegal, and a political use of any IRS will probably also bring judicial scrutiny. The conservatives of the Supreme Court certainly have their complaints about elite universities, but they can bland Trump’s seemingly illegal attempts to burn them on the ground. (For what is worth, four of the nine judges of the Supreme Court went to Harvard’s Law School, and another four went to Yale Law).
In addition, Harvard’s influence does not express mainly from his federal funds, it comes from his prestige. And that prestige gained disappear due to raw political assaults; In fact, it can be improved by the university’s vote to face Trump. While Harvard’s reputation has It has been somewhat injured in the midst of the controversions of recent yearsA position of principles against an unpopular and antidemocratic president could be rejuvenating.
Defenders as Rufo look at universities as the enemy who must be attacked or revised to crush the cultural power of progressives. But in doing so, they overestimate the power of intimidation tactics and underestimate the importance of persuasion. If Trump’s attacks against Harvard are widely seen as an illegal abuse of power, they will not work. In other words: university power runners were deeply divided in Israel and Gaza, but now they are united against Donald Trump.
And although elite universities are clearly important and influential, the right -wing worldview in which they conceptualized and imposed Wokess to the United States seems extremely simplified. Was Harvard radicalized his students to wake up? Or a new generation of Harvard students who consumed many social networks simply found recently attractive left opinions and acted accordingly? Harvard changed children or children changed to Harvard?
It may not have returned to the previous era.
Beyond Harvard, thought, other universities may be in a harder place. It seems clear that the federal government is no longer a partner in which federal financing can be trusted. If Trump can eliminate billions of dollars in subsidies for political reasons, we must expect future Republican presidents, potentially, for example, Vance, do the same.
The previous status quo was that elite universities did not have to worry particularly about what the conservatives thought of them. The spectrum of the relevant opinion that they took into account varying from extreme left activists to social centrist social donors. Trump has changed that, and now all those who expect federal funds have to look over their shoulder.
Of course, although Harvard critics are more excited about Wokeness and Israel, the final victims of all this will be scientific and medical researchers, as well as any person who had benefited from their findings. Funds For Harvard studies In tuberculosis, cancer treatment and how has done a leg that has been reduced. The last result of this agenda is to crush the scientific and medical experience of the United States to own Libs.
