Following pressure from students, faculty and the greater community, Harvard president Alan Garber issued a strong statement Monday condemning the Donald Trump administration’s threat to freeze up to $9 billion in federal funding. In it he notes that the administration’s move “violates Harvard’s First Amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI,” the federal prohibition against discrimination.
Additionally, “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,” Garber said.
Statements of support rolled in quickly from both the Cambridge City Council and the governor’s office, demonstrating that city and state officials are in lockstep with Harvard. In her statement, Gov. Maura Healey congratulated Garber and the Harvard Corp. “for their leadership in standing against the Trump administration’s brazen attempt to bully schools and weaponize the U.S. Department of Justice under the false pretext of civil rights.”
Trump’s reaction was different: On Tuesday he threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status in a post on his social media platform.
“We are going to do what we can to support Harvard in this decision, because it is going to hurt them, hurt their workers, hurt their work, which is central to equity that we all care about,” councillor Patty Nolan said. Even as the city also faced hard times and threats, the goal was to be “true to the words that we heard on the Common: Harvard, you stand up and we will stand with you. You resist, and we will have your back. It’s critically important. It’s really easy to just dismiss and say, ‘Well, Harvard could just do it, they don’t even need our support.’ But I think this is a moment where they actually need our support. They need to know that the community will be with them, because there will be really, really hard times.”
Though schools such as Columbia have tried to deflect White House hostility toward academia by complying with demands to crack down on what it deems “antisemitism,” Harvard is not alone in resistance.
MIT followed Harvard’s lead. In a statement, president Sally Kornbluth reminded the campus community that the university joined several others, including Brown, Princeton, the University of Illinois and California Institute of Technology in filing a lawsuit to challenge cuts to research, which at MIT would constitute a loss of $30 million to $35 million.
Court battle is expected
City councillor Burhan Azeem, who co-organized a Saturday protest on Cambridge Common demanding that Harvard stand up to the administration, said the city and state “are now in lockstep with Harvard going forward.”
The council passed a resolution Monday to go “on record expressing its profound gratitude to Harvard University for its resolve, courage and dedication to safeguarding American democracy.” Additionally, the council resolved that “the City of Cambridge offers its full support to Harvard as it navigates this challenging political moment.”
Garber’s statement “was incredibly brave,” Azeem said. “The city is willing to stand with Harvard however we can.” Even so, he said that the loss of millions or billions of dollars in funding could hollow out entire academic departments as well as hospitals in Cambridge and Boston. But he said that “we shouldn’t just assume Trump’s move is the law of the land.”
Since Harvard’s stance is that the moves are unlawful, Azeem suggested that means they would need to be adjudicated in court and expects lawsuits will be filed.
Proud to be a Harvard student
Leo Gerdén, class of ’25, who is from Sweden, was among the three Harvard international students who spoke at Saturday’s protest. The two others were from Austria and Pakistan.
Garber’s statement was “a step in the right direction” and made him proud to be a Harvard student, Gerdén said, adding that “Harvard took a principled stand and I hope it will inspire other universities.”
At Harvard, Gerdén says that he and his international classmates are on alert. Thus far, a dozen members of the Harvard community have had their visas revoked, according to a Friday article in The Harvard Crimson. Gerdén has taken to carrying around a slip of paper with the phone numbers for the Harvard International Office and Harvard Representation Initiative, which offers pro bono counsel to non-U.S. Harvard community members. Students are worried their visas may be revoked, he said, but wonder, “Are you going to get an email saying that you have 10 days to leave, or are they going to be approached like Ozturk by ICE agents and taken to Louisiana?”
Tufts doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk was seized off the street in Somerville on March 25 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, apparently for co-writing a student newspaper opinion essay.
Harvard diploma promise
Gerdén and the other international students who spoke out did so at their own risk, he said. Despite his approval of Garber’s statement, he is concerned that now Harvard international students may have a target on their backs. “It has a chilling effect,” he said. Students are afraid to speak out, go to protests or write essays like the one he published in the April 8 Crimson titled “I’m an International Student. I Refuse to Be Silenced.”
Gerdén conceded that as a European, if he gets deported the consequences will not be so severe, but mentioned that the situation is frightening for students who come from unsafe countries, many of whom plan to graduate and continue their careers in the United States.
He and the others ask Harvard to condemn the potential deportation of community members, to provide the necessary legal representation to those individuals and to guarantee that any student who is deported or forced to leave will still be able to graduate. “One of the reasons that people don’t want to speak up is that they are justifiably worried about not getting the diploma they have worked so hard to earn,” he said.
Kornbluth also wrote that MIT is concerned about unexpected student visa revocations, affecting “nine members of our community” and that the university’s offices for international students and scholars will be available to respond to student concerns.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.