Scott Gurvey's Public Offerings

Whether it was a high school football game on a Friday night or a college matchup you have probably all participated in a roaring cheer at one time or another. Anyone who has been following these posts for a while knows that I earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton many years ago where I cheered on many a Princeton team. The college cheer was in fact heard for the first time at the famous first ever college football game between Princeton and Rutgers in 1869.

I write that preamble so that you get the significance of my rousing cheer for Harvard, Princeton’s rival among rivals in the league of elite universities. It is special when a Princeton tiger is moved to compliment people who wear crimson robes. Harvard does have a mascot I am told. But it appears to be an inanimate statue of the school’s founder, which must look strange along the sidelines. I digress.

I applaud Harvard, our nation’s oldest university, for taking a stand against the marauding Trump administration, which has taken to bullying anyone with the nerve to stand up to its authoritarian acts. The Trumpies say Harvard’s “offense” has been its treatment of Jewish students. This is a smokescreen. Feel free to substitute a stronger word.

Like many universities, Harvard has been challenged by campus demonstrations centered on the unrest in the Mideast. I have had some questions about Harvard’s handling of these matters myself. But I do take note that a group called “Students Against Antisemitism,” which sued Harvard, reached a settlement with the school and Jewish groups have condemned the Trump administrator’s recent actions. I am encouraged that Harvard is genuinely seeking to address the issues of antisemitism.

But rushing to the aid of Jewish students is not the real intent of the Trumpies. Power and control is the intent. Universities are places where truth is the goal. Harvard’s motto is “Veritas.” Truth in Latin. But truth is the last thing Trump wants to hear. Lying is part of Trump’s daily routine. And lying is second nature to members of the Trump organization from cabinet members to lawyers to the press secretary. I will not be surprised one day to hear that Trump has issued an executive order creating a Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. That’s what Hitler called his agents tasked with shaping German public opinion and behavior.

Anyone or anything that stands in the way of Trump’s universe of “alternate facts” must be crushed. That includes judges who might rule against his illegal, autocratic, unconstitutional actions. Trumpies say those judges must be impeached. It includes news reporters, their publishers, and networks who dare to report what is really happening rather than Trump’s fractured fairy tale “truthiness.” Trump says these publishers must be destroyed. It includes lawyers and law firms who take seriously their obligation to be truthful when they appear in court. Trump wants those firms blocked from government courts and buildings and wants to force them to work for Trump causes for free. And it most certainly includes universities where people are free to think the facts are something other than the Trump line. Those academics must bend to Trump and kiss the ring.

His claim of acting to protect the rights of Jewish students is just a ruse Trump is using as an excuse for his attempt to take control over the schools.  I don’t think Trump’s actions will serve Jewish students well in the long run. The proof is clear in the unbelievable chutzpah, to use a Yiddish word, of the demand letter the Trump administration wrote to Harvard. What started out as a demand that Harvard take additional steps to protect Jewish students had morphed into a smorgasbord of demands. That’s a Swedish word by the way.

One of Trump’s demands is to have the school appoint or allow him to appoint a federal overseer who would audit every course on campus and every department to determine if it met the ideological balance that is preferred by the administration. That federal overseer would then order Harvard to hire new teachers to teach the way that Trump wants taught. This is an absolute, outright effort by the federal government to take over what is taught on American campuses. It is a move that we see in countries across the globe where dictators are trying to come into power. And where is no such thing as the First Amendment.

Harvard’s letter responding to Trump reminds me of the story of American Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe. In December of 1944 McAuliffe was in command of the U.S. Army’s 101 Airborne Division, which was battling 400,000 German troops, who were trying to break through American lines in the Ardennes near the city of Bastogne. The Germans demanded the U.S. forces surrender. McAuliffe responded, “Nuts!” Harvard pretty much did the same to Trump. And it did so ever though much is at stake. I am proud of them for it.

Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a letter to the campus community that Trump’s demands violate the university’s First Amendment rights and overstep the statutory limits of the government’s authority under federal civil rights law. “No government,” he wrote, “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.”

Hip hip hooray for Harvard.

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