President Trump Bickers With Harvard
DURING the last few months Harvard, America’s globally prestigious top-ranking university, and the world’s most powerful political official, the U.S. President, Donald Trump, have been bitterly engaged in indecorous averments, uncompromising language, struggling to sort out umpteen petty, inessential and rather unacademic, administrative and measly politically-tinged issues. And the President’s rather ingenuous actions towards Harvard have upset plentiful global academics and intellectuals.
Harvard is one of the oldest and wealthiest universities in the world that has a fantastic record in creating new knowledge, innovating nearly 170 original scientific processes and procedures amply facilitating and interpreting innumerable challenges. Though Harvard’s origin goes back to the17th century, 1636, but the Harvard-US government feuds and dissensions are known to go back to the mid-1970s when the university ‘adapted to race and gender equity mandates.’ The university has been accused of having ‘Communist ties.’ That allegation regrettably seems to be alive till today. It’s so sad that such wranglings have not been dissolved. Instead, the disagreements have expanded inexorably.
But when the altercations between President Trump and Harvard first flared up, Harvard’s President Alan Garber shot back: the Trump Administration was bent upon destroying the university by ‘imposing unprecedented and improper control over the university.’ President Alan Garber also added that Harvard had a ‘moral imperative’ as well as ‘legal obligation’ to fight back such an effort.
But coincidentally, Harvard University is not alone in taking on President Trump in his unexalted attempt to weaken and disrate several other reputed American universities. There are over a dozen U.S. Ivy league, top-ranking academic and research institutions that have fallen prey to the Trump administration’s watertight stranglehold. These have not yet fallen in line to conform to the Trump regime’s terms and conditions. These are University of California at Berkley, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Southern California (USC), Northwestern University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Cornell University, Columbia University, Pennsylvania University, George Washington University, Brown University, M.I.T., Princeton University, Brown University, University of Minnesota. Numerous other acclaimed research institutions that are threatened losing federal funding: the National Institute of Health, and the National Institute of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences, etc.
Moreover, unfortunately, the Trump Administration has escalated a vicious war particularly with Harvard University announcing, ‘it will claw back the university’s remaining $100 million in federal funding – effectively ending all financial ties with Ivy league institution.’ These conditions in addition to others laid down by the Trump administration are: checking hostile environment for Jewish students; academic bias; worsening political divide- pro-Palestinian, anti-Jewish feelings; admission process not to lead to dwindling Jewish population; finally, lack of educational oversight. Earlier conditions were seen flouting some ideals of the university autonomy and contradicting basic principles of academic freedom: hiring of an external auditor to evaluate the “viewpoint diversity’’ of its students, faculty, staff and leadership; second, the federal government froze funding without following procedures set out in civil rights laws; the notice that Trump’s team sent to Harvard described no specific civil rights violations.
The university also did not get its entitled hearing; and Congress was supposed to be notified 30 days before any penalty was applied. Besides, the White House has authority to restrict money for university programmes beyond those that fail to comply with civil rights laws. Another unacceptable demand was that Harvard would have to share all its hiring and admission data with the federal government – with the information subjected to government audits – until at least till the end of academic year 2028.
All existing and prospective faculty would need to be reviewed for plagiarism. Harvard would have to hire an external auditor to examine the programmes and departments the task force said “most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture”. Harvard would have to reform recruitment, screening and admissions to weed out international students “hostile to the American values and institutions.’’
However, the prevailing conflicts between Donald Trump and the Harvard establishment have ‘brought attention to the historical significance of this Ivy League institution’s huge contributions towards education and the political challenges it has faced for many years.’
The fact is that Harvard University has been a sort of ‘unyoke’ an ‘uncoupling’ for President Trump’ political maneuverings, both national and international. The fact is that President Trump’s deeply conservative overtures have most often clashed with the Democratic zealot liberals. Last year’s political rallies and ideologues’ relentless harangues added fuel to the fire that continue to simmer till today.
Meanwhile, as the Trump Administration had threatened to revoke Harvard University’s tax- exempt status; the President announced that the university should be taxed “as a Political Entity,’’ if it continues to push what Trump described as political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting sickness.’’ Currently, Harvard is exempt from federal and state income-tax. It’s worth stating here that the President doesn’t have the unilateral authority to revoke an organization’s tax exemptions.
Be that as it may, the President continues issuing new diktats / executive orders pursuing the university’s daily routine with all the powers at his command. According to the news agency, Associated Press, the Trump administration announced on June 5 moving to block nearly all foreign students from entering the country to attend Harvard University. This has been termed as Trump’s latest attempt ‘to choke the Ivy League school from an international pipeline that accounts for a quarter of the student body.’ The order added that ‘it would jeopardize national security to allow Harvard to continue hosting foreign students on its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The executive order added: “I have determined that the entry of the class of foreign nationals described above is detrimental to the U.S. because, in my judgment, Harvard’s conduct has rendered it an unsuitable destination for foreign students and researchers.’’
The President’s June 5 executive order ‘further escalates the White House’s fight with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university.’ It stems from Harvard’s refusal to submit to a series of conditions and demands related to misconduct by foreign students made by the federal government. Harvard has said that it has complied with the request but deemed ‘insufficient’ by the federal government. Non-entry of nearly 7,000 international students, said to account for half the enrolment at graduate (masters/phd levels). The order is to last six months; next course to be determined if the order should be renewed. At stake is a large surfeit of unsurmountable uncertainties looming large for the hundreds of ambitious young boys and girls dreaming of joining Harvard, the world’s top-ranking university.
