Harvard University is providing a lesson that most children learn in elementary school but many leaders of America’s most important institutions have forgotten: The only effective way to deal with a bully is to fight back.
Trump’s Pretext
Columbia University was the first target in U.S. President Donald Trump’s disingenuous crusade against antisemitism. Disingenuous because he claimed that the school’s failures caused Jewish students to feel unsafe. His supposed remedy—withholding $400 million in federal funds—is a non sequitur.
And it’s hypocritical. Did any of these Trump antisemitic episodes make Jewish students feel safer?
- He angrily defended his 2016 campaign Twitter post, “Crooked Hillary—Makes History.” It showed the image of a six-pointed star that included the tagline, “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever.” Evoking a longstanding historical smear against Judaism, dollar bills rained down in the background behind Clinton’s photo.
- He narrated a 2016 campaign ad saying, “The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake… For those who control the levers of power in Washington and for the global special interests—they partner with these people that don’t have your good in mind… that have bled our country dry.” As examples, the ad cut together video clips of billionaire George Soros, former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, and former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein—all of whom are Jewish.
- In August 2017, after counterprotesters in Charlottesville clashed with torch-wielding white nationalists and neo-Nazis chanting the Nazi-associated phrase “blood-and-soil” and “Jews will not replace us,” Trump said, “I think there is blame on both sides. You look at both sides… You also had some very fine people on both sides.”
- In October 2018, Trump hosted white nationalist and Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes, who spews antisemitic rhetoric, at Mar-a-Lago. Performer Ye (formerly Kanye West), whose antisemitic comments resulted in his suspension from social media platforms, appeared with Trump at a press appearance in the Oval Office.
- And in February 2025, Trump praised as “brilliant” Vice President JD Vance’s Munich speech, which embraced Germany’s far-right political candidate.
“We’re really watching an attack on higher education under the guise of fighting antisemitism, but I cannot emphasize enough how much it will not actually protect Jewish students,” according to Erin Beiner, director of the student wing of J Street, a liberal Jewish-American lobbying group.
Trump’s Real Agenda
Trump’s attack on elite universities seeks to replace academic freedom of thought and speech with Trump-determined ideology and personal fealty to him. He’s working from a role model’s template.
In a February 2024 interview, Vice President JD Vance held out Hungary as an example to emulate: “The closest that conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with left-wing domination of universities is Viktor Orbán’s approach in Hungary. I think his way has to be the model for us: not to eliminate universities, but to give them a choice between survival or taking a much less biased approach to teaching.”
But Orbán is not offering a “much less biased approach to teaching.” He is demanding instruction centered on his view of history and the world.
Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who has championed Trump’s strategy of attacking America’s universities, observed that when Orbán assumed power in 2010, he wanted “to strengthen Hungary’s cultural foundations—family life, Christian faith, and historical memory—and to create a conservative elite capable of maintaining them.” His “starting point” was education:
- Orbán signed legislation effectively banning Central European University, a liberal-arts institution founded by the financier George Soros to help rebuild academic life after the fall of Communism;
- He closed gender and women’s studies departments at Hungarian universities;
- He took control of the budget of the Hungarian Academy of Science, which funds research institutes in history, literature, and science; and
- He put loyalists on boards that control public university oversight.
As Rufo explained, Orbán is “using muscular state policy to achieve conservative ends.”
Sound familiar?
Columbia Folded
Columbia rolled over on Trump’s demands, including a requirement that went to the heart of university governance and academic freedom: a review of the university’s department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies; the Center for Palestine Studies; and similar academic entities.
On March 23, after giving Trump everything he wanted, even Trump’s secretary of education believed that Columbia was “on the right track so that we can now move forward.” She was optimistic that the $400 million would be released soon.
Three weeks later Trump wanted more. With the $400 million still in limbo, the Department of Health and Human services froze another $250 million of funding from the National Institutes of Health.
Harvard Fought
When Trump made even more draconian demands on Harvard University, it said, “No”—even as Trump threatened to withhold $9 billion in federal funds. Seeking functional control of the university, Trump wanted:
- An outside auditor to ensure that each and every academic department is “viewpoint diverse”—which the Trump administration has not defined;
- Plagiarism checks on all current and prospective faculty members;
- All hiring data and subjecting it to federal government audit through at least 2028;
- All admissions data for admitted students and applicants, sorted by race, national origin, grade-point average, and performance on standardized tests, and subjecting it to federal government audit through at least 2028;
- Cessation of all programming related to diversity, equity, and inclusion; and
- Overhauling academic programs that the Trump administration says have “egregious records on antisemitism” and subjecting certain departments and programs to external audit, including the Divinity School, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Public Health, and the Medical School, among others.
Harvard’s President Alan M. Garber responded:
The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights…
No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.
Hours later, Trump suspended $2.2 billion in federal multiyear grants to Harvard—an especially devastating blow to Harvard-affiliated hospitals. The next day, he threatened Harvard’s tax-exempt status, even though federal law prohibits the president from “directly or indirectly” telling the Internal Revenue Service to conduct specific tax investigations.
Harvard’s final outcome remains uncertain, but capitulation produces certain disaster.
Meanwhile, Harvard is showing the world how to beat a bully.
