Tom Philp: Harvard is defending academic freedom in California, too. Fight, Harvard!

Tom Philp, The Sacramento Bee on Apr 17, 2025

Published in Op Eds

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

I’ve never been much of a Harvard fan because I’ve never been able to get beyond the snob factor. But suddenly I find myself cheering for the Crimson. It is facing a takeover attempt by the Trump Administration that, if successful, could befall Sacramento State and other California institutions.

In the administration’s guise of opposing anti-semitism, diversity, equity and inclusion, Harvard stands to lose billions of federal dollars unless it cedes control of how it hires staff and faculty and who gets admitted to campus. No university can surrender its core duties to one presidential administration after another and survive as a respected center of higher learning.

Harvard is the first to face this demand and also to say no. They are standing up for an academic principle that transcends one storied institution. It is standing up for the University of California, the California State University system and every other center of higher education in this nation.

In a country with dizzying change since Trump regained the White House, sometimes it’s hard to tell when some new Trump thing is a big deal. This one is. Our universities are the envy of the world. And now they are to be ideological subsidiaries of whoever is in the White House? It shouldn’t take a degree in rocket science to see what a dangerous idea this is.

Sacramento State, UC Davis and Harvard were among 60 universities nationwide to be investigated by the Trump administration for “relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year,” federal Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said at the time.

One of the first institutions in the crosshairs was Columbia University, with $400 million in federal grants suddenly frozen. Columbia agreed to demands to hire a new security force, ban masks at protests and hire a new leader of its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department. Its president did not survive the resulting turmoil. But none of Columbia’s moves amounted to the invasive control Trump is attempting to force on Harvard.

In a letter from three federal officials sent to Harvard on Friday, here is how an unprecedented power grab was couched:

“The University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.” Departments determined to be “not capable of hiring for viewpoint diversity” are to be closed and merged into others.

Handing over power to an “external party” which “shall satisfy the federal government” is the same as turning over the keys of Harvard directly to Trump. This interference only begins with an “audit.” It only ends when everything about Harvard is changed to the administration’s satisfaction. The letter had a similar call for an “external party” to audit “those programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture,” with the outside recommendations to be implemented next year.

It took Harvard only two days to say no. Since then, Trump has frozen $2 billion in research support to Harvard while threatening on social media to go after the university’s tax-exempt status.

This isn’t about some burning passion for the stated issues. This is about power, and whether Trump, legally or not, can force universities to give up their academic independence in return for a continued flow of dollars for research.

College-educated Americans voted overwhelmingly against Trump in the November election. It’s not because liberal brain poisoning has lingered since these voters’ college years. The most conservative professor on the planet could teach the introductory macroeconomics course on market principles, and most students would come away concluding that Trump’s international taxation crusade through higher tariffs is absolutely nuts.

Our universities aren’t perfect, but this attack on their intellectual freedom isn’t about improving them. It’s about bending them to Trump’s will.

As they sing in a Harvard fight song: “Fight fiercely, Harvard. Fight, fight, fight. Demonstrate to them our skill. Albeit they possess the might. Nonetheless, we have the will.”

____

Tom Philp is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer and columnist who returned to The Sacramento Bee in 2023 after working in government for 16 years. Philp had previously written for The Bee from 1991 to 2007.