Will Harvard Go Full Hillsdale?
Victor Davis Hanson | April 18, 2025
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But what academic freedom are Harvard and Obama talking about? The freedom to discriminate and segregate by race in hiring, admissions, dorms, and graduations?
The freedom of 500 Harvard students to crash the classes of others, shut down traffic, and harass students on the basis of their religion or views on Israel?
Despite all of Harvard’s platitudes, its classrooms are still being disrupted. Jewish students remain fearful.
And what would Obama say if, for example, African-American students at Harvard were harassed on campus by masked disrupters?
Or black studies classes were crashed by students wearing scarves over their faces as they vented their hatred? Would he press the Trump administration to force Harvard to honor federal civil rights protections?
Remember, Harvard is a private university with a largely untaxed endowment of over $50.2 billion. Yet again, it still receives some $2.2 billion—now suspended—in federal funds.
The administration task force is not forcing Harvard to run its university according to its version of federal dictates.
Instead, the Trump commission is simply warning Harvard that if, in addition to its huge sources of private funding, it still wishes continuance of some $2.2 billion in public money from the federal government, then it must comply with existing laws and executive orders.
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Perhaps Harvard should follow the strategy of independent Hillsdale College, which long ago wished to be free of federal dictates.
So, unlike Harvard, the college put its proverbial money where its mouth was and agreed unilaterally to give up all federal funding to be free of Washington’s octopus tentacles.
Yet, there is one critical distinction between Hillsdale and Harvard.
Hillsdale does not take federal money, period—whether doled out by either a Democratic or Republican administration.
It sincerely believes that too often the federal government itself does not follow the Constitution, impinges on freedom, and forces colleges to violate equality under the law when discriminating by race and gender.
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Harvard University has rejected various demands of a presidential commission on antisemitism. The task force wants to persuade Harvard to ensure Jewish students on its... Read More
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