Harvard university, the oldest and most prestigious college in America, is currently under fire from the Trump administration regarding admission processes and antisemitism on campus. After a careful overview of Harvard’s campus activism, the Trump administration decided that admissions were unfair towards certain demographics, and that pro-palestine protests were getting out of hand and causing an uproar of antisemitism.
This is not the first time Trump has targeted formidable universities in America. Ivy leagues such as Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Cornell, Northwestern, and the University of Pennsylvania. The total budget cuts to these universities would total to around $14.3 billion dollars if the administration follows through with their claims. The largest of these cuts falls on Harvard, totaling up to $11.2 billion dollars in federal funding. While this may not seem like a pressing issue for the university’s endowment of over $50 billion, Harvard spends an astonishing amount of money on medical research that has contributed towards the smallpox vaccine, gene-editing medicine and contemporary MRIs. With nearly a 5th of its funding being removed, Harvard will be forced to either find this money elsewhere, or scrap research that has significantly impacted modern society.
The next complaint on the chopping block is the frequency of pro-palestine protests on Harvard’s campus. The Trump administration claims that the amount and severity of pro- palestine protests is fostering anti semitic behavior against jewish students attending Harvard. Another stipulation regarding federal funding is that Harvard must ban wearing masks during protests to prevent protesters from hiding their identity. While these sound like valid arguments, the issue arises that Harvard is a private university and is not subject to abide by unlawful orders from the government. By attempting to limit protests the government is technically violating the first amendment and limiting Harvard’s right to protest.
Sophomore Alyssa Benson agrees with this statement, saying, “I think that the government should absolutely not be able to dictate what private universities can and cannot teach, it is a clear example of a higher authority abusing their power in office.”
The final topic of discussion is Harvard’s interesting admissions process. Current administration claims that Harvard’s use of personality, race, sex, and other character traits is unfair when determining qualified applicants. In the past, Harvard has considered race during their admissions process. The reason for this was to create a diverse array of students from all sorts of backgrounds, but some feel that race should not be considered during the admissions process. The next issue is Harvard’s reliance on donations to continue their work as a university. Harvard is expensive, and relies heavily on the usage of donations from wealthy individuals to maintain their prosperous academic environment. Some feel that because of the need for donations, Harvard provides special treatment for individuals who are more likely to donate.
When asked about an opinion about the admissions process, computer science teacher Ryan Denney had this to say, “I would lean more towards no, and the only reason I say this is because apart from acting, almost every job should be based on merit rather than race.
Although this may seem like the end of free speech and game over for private universities, Harvard is fighting back. Harvard has decided to sue the Trump administration. On April 21 Harvard filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration claiming that the withholding of federal funds is unlawful and unconstitutional. All in all, when one of the major so-called “superpowers” can’t decide whether or not to help their citizens or target private universities and violate their constitutional rights, individuals may start to question the integrity of the country and how it will look moving forward.
