Harvard University President Alan Garper decided Do not give in to the government’s requirements To change its policies, saying that the Foundation will not “give up its independence or constitutional rights.”
The university, which used to produce presidents more than their challenge to one of the most important clashes so far between President Donald Trump and the elite institution.
And when Trump depicts the academics of Cambridge, Massachusetts, as left -wing activists promoting “wake” policies about race and sex, it does not work on a vacuum. Millions of Americans agree with him.
Research shows lack of confidence in higher education institutions, especially among Republicans.
But the president’s attack on the leading universities in the country goes beyond an issue that would exclude his political base.
A Government pressure on major universities It is part of a wider effort to challenge the centers than what is the liberal power, which also includes the courts, the federal bureaucracy and the media.
After reformulating the Republican Party and the Supreme Court, the Republican hopes that its popular ideology will extend to higher education to challenge the systems of beliefs that contradict its faith in the magician and radically include the country to the right.
Trump not only attacks academics. The suppression of immigration was born a culture of fear in universities: some students It was removed from the streets by border agentsWhile hundreds of others have canceled their visas on the basis that their opinions are harmful to the interests of American foreign policy.
This feeling of repression threatens to strangle the open discussion atmosphere that activates a healthy university.
Republicans’ threats to suspend the financing of major educational institutions expose the country’s scientific and medical research about fatal diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.
White House requirements exceed allegations of anti -Semitism
Academics are often accused of living in the isolation bubble.
This was evident in December 2023, when Deputy Elles Stefanick criticized New York, the main universities for protests against universities that, according to critics, deteriorated in anti -Semitism after Hamas’s attacks to Israel.
Small answers to academics could have been accepted at the campus symposium, but it became a political catastrophe.
Stephenic’s moral discontent, who graduated from Harvard University, helped the resignation of the university dean, Claudine.
It also made Parliament in New York one of the stars in the Maga movement and the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives.
Stefanick led Harvard’s attack on Tuesday, after the government freezed $ 2.2 billion in federal funds when the university rejected its demands.
“If you look at the faculty members and the Holding College for all these institutions, you will find that they are completely separate from American values. Ninety -seven percent of faculty members call themselves democratic and progressive. They support these extremist radical ideas, and in fact, teaching anti -America,” said Stefanick from Fox News.
The government uses anti -Semitism accusations to feed both its broader attack on universities and their mass deportation.
Trump’s requirements
The White House, Harvard, requested the rental of an outdoor company to audit various programs, schools and university departments, which, according to it, were contaminated by the bright historical subordination or other biases.
But for you The list of impressive demands is endless there.
It requires the end of all diversity, fair and integration programs, including cuts in the strength of the college; The end of any employment based on race, religion or sex; The new repression against student protests, groups and students, including those who support Palestinian sovereignty – an old policy, despite the expression of the US government.
The Trump administration also ordered investigations into the previous protests and occupations on the campus, which occurred after Hamas attacks in Israel.
The list of wishes is an extraordinary attempt by a presidential government to exercise power on an independent university.
The confrontation that occurs yet An agreement from other universities – including Colombia – In surrendering to similar pressure, it will certainly reach the courts.
When universities surrender, afraid to lose billions of dollars in public financing, their strength increases – and can put more.
When they defend themselves, they offer him a conflict that accepts it with pleasure.
And when Democrats criticize it, they take the party more than millions of Americans who consider elite figures from delay, most of the country hated.
This popular reaction against the evaluation institutions is at the root of Maga and “America at the beginning of the” province “, as well as the belief that the liberal colleges are responsible for spreading a system of anti -United States beliefs.
For example, at a national conference on the province in 2021, Vans graduated from Yale’s Law College, a campaign against “very hostile institutions” and added: “If any of us wants to do what they want for our country and the people who live in it, we must attack universities in this country honestly and honestly.”
During the election campaign for the past year, Trump criticized universities harshly, he said, he was crowded with “Marxist madmen”.
This very politicized approach does not leave little doubt that the causes of the government exceeded the elimination of the campus of the campus.
Fear on the university campus
Also, the intense application of the government immigration law closed a repressive atmosphere on the campus after that The detention of many students who participated in the protests against Israel And some who did not participate.
The government of Trump got The deportation of the immigration judge in Louisiana against Mahmoud KhalilHe graduated from Columbia University and permanent legal resident.
He was accused of undermining American policy to combat anti -Semitism, but the government was not cited any claim of criminal activity.
Khalil, married to an American citizen, He is a prominent Palestinian activist Those who played a major role in protests against the Israel war in Gaza on the campus last year.
In another case, Estudante also universidade tuffs, Rümeysa öztürkLast month, he was arrested by the convincing police near Summerille, Massachusetts.
She told a federal judge on Monday (14) that she was constitutionally arrested and subject to “unhealthy, inhuman and inhumane” conditions in the unit of immigration in Louisiana.
The government accused her of activities to “support Hamas”, but the Washington Post reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not find evidence of its arrangement to anti -Semitism or terrorism.
This week, and Palestinian student Mohsen MahdawiFrom the University of Colombia, he went to the Fairmont immigration office for a sexual interview.
But Mahdi – who was in the United States a decade ago – was transferred to the hands. Your lawyer said to CNN He was arrested “in direct revenge for his defense of the Palestinians and because of his identity as a Palestinian.”
Ranjani Serenivasan, another student at Columbia University, fled to Canada after receiving an email stating that a student visa had been canceled and that federal agents expelled his door.
I told Shimon Brocopik, who CNNWho was simply hunted by the police wire near an anti -Israel protest while trying to return to their homes.
Lawyers and civil rights advocates warn that these cases, and many other cases are symptoms of management that despise law and freedom of expression.
Sarah Politi, a professor and director of the National Legal Clinic of the Curry College at the University of Pennsylvania, warned of the danger of “due legal procedures and other basic and constitutional rights.”
“It is also the effect of silence and the neglect of a great deal of fear. There is an intention behind it. Many have long called on this government the idea of making the situation bad enough for people to rid them, and provide effort and money,” Paulti added. And you see this through these procedures, whose basic message is, “If you are not subjective, they are the consequences.”
Attractive universities can also strangle the free essence of American Higher Education, according to Jamil Jafar, Executive Director of the Persian Institute, the first amendment to the University of Colombia.
“People from all over the world come to study in American universities, partly due to the presence of others from all over the world … You hear people with experiences, experiences and political and religious visions. CNNIn your “important” podcast interview.
“But if non -residents are intimidated to speak or participate in public speeches, he has a cost not only for them, but for the rest of us.”