Harvard Chooses Defiance

Rose Horowitch - The Atlantic - 15/04
Columbia found out the hard way that capitulation doesn’t work. So why should other universities give in to the Trump administration’s demands?

The richest university in the world has decided that some things are more important than money.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration threatened to revoke $9 billion in federal grants and contracts if Harvard did not agree to a long list of demands, including screening foreign applicants “hostile to the American values and institutions” and allowing an external body to audit university departments for viewpoint diversity. (How screening international students for their beliefs would contribute to viewpoint diversity was not specified.) Today, Harvard announced that it would not agree to the Trump administration’s terms. “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government,” the university’s lawyers wrote in a letter to administration officials. “...
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