You would think that if Donald Trump really wanted to make America great again, he might avoid taking steps that could irreparably damage its most famous university, one which has contributed more than any other to the prestige of American science and learning. But he is doing precisely that. His administration has cancelled or frozen more than $3 billion in federal research funding for Harvard University. It has also demanded that the university agree to a long list of changes in its governance, disciplinary procedures, and the composition of its faculty and student body. Harvard has refused to comply, filing suit against the government to unblock the funds. The battle is likely to have enormous consequences for the future of American higher education.
Trump’s supporters have been repeating a series of arguments which seem, at first glance, perfectly reasonable. Harvard, they point out, has an endowment of more than $53 billion. Why does it need government subsidies? And if the university does need outside funds, why can’t private enterprises provide them? Isn’t it hypocritical for Harvard to take government money while refusing any government oversight, especially when the university faculty and student body lean so very heavily to the Left? Finally, doesn’t the government have a responsibility to withhold funds when the university lets antisemitism run wild on campus?
But like many superficially reasonable arguments, these are all in fact incorrect. If they have been widely accepted in US public opinion, it is in part because until this year universities like Harvard never needed to explain to the public how they operated. The basic system of research funding had been in place for decades, for the most part quite uncontroversially. And, since January, the universities have been caught flat-footed, uncertain whether to negotiate with the administration (as Harvard initially tried to do), or to defy it, even while trying to apologise for and staunch the very real spread of antisemitism on their campuses over the past year. Harvard arguably has quite a lot to answer for, but not in the way the Trump administration thinks. The administration’s actions are both unlawful and destructive.
“Like many superficially reasonable arguments, these are all in fact incorrect.”
Consider the issue of government support. It’s correct that Harvard, the wealthiest university in the world, doesn’t need “subsidies”. But the research funding that it receives is not a subsidy. For many decades now, the US Congress has held that it is in the national interest for the government to invest in long-term scientific research. It has mandated, through legislation, that federal agencies, most importantly the National Institutes of Health (NIH), allocate research funds for the purpose of investigating issues such as cancer, infectious diseases, cardiac disease, ageing, drug addiction, and the like. Each year, Congress appropriates funds specifically for these purposes, and charges NIH and other agencies with choosing the best research projects, and then monitoring the results. In other words, Congress, working through the agencies, is paying universities to carry out research in the national interest. It is not handing over funds that the universities can use for any whatever purpose they choose; these funds are more akin to fees paid for specific services.
It’s true that in addition to the direct funding of research, the NIH also pays hefty “indirect costs” to universities to cover expenses shared between many different individual projects, including infrastructure in particular, as well as some equipment and labour costs. This is a long-standing practice that the agency has negotiated with universities, in large part to avoid having to split the expenses in question among many individual research projects. In the past, universities abused the “indirect cost” system, but more recently NIH has established much closer oversight.
Could private companies take over the role currently played by the federal government? In some cases, yes, but in most, not. The research Congress and agencies like the NIH fund is the sort that private companies will likely shy away from, because the discoveries in question might not generate revenue for decades — or the payoff might come in the form of improved public health, rather than in monetary form. Understandably, companies want a return on their investment.
Could a university like Harvard pay for the research itself out of its endowment? For a time, but only with difficulty. Like most universities, Harvard’s endowment is not a single pot of money, but a collection of thousands of different accounts, most of which have been donated for specific purposes: financial aid; an overseas study centre; a professorship etc. At most elite US universities, no more than 15% of the endowment is “unrestricted” — legally capable of being used for any purpose. And these universities also consider it their fiduciary responsibility not to spend down the endowment, but only to use the annual return, which can average out to as little as 4%. In other words, even if Harvard decided to use all the returns from its unrestricted endowment to fund scientific research (starving other areas of the university in the process), it would be unlikely to come up with much more than $320 million a year. This is a lot, but it is much less than the sum the government is currently paying Harvard to conduct research in the national interest.
In any case, this spending has been mandated by Congress — a democratically elected body. The sole responsibility of the government’s executive branch is to ensure that Congress’s stated goals are being pursued in the most effective manner possible. Congress has never required that scientific research needs to accord with the president’s ideological agenda, and it has not given the president, nor the executive branch he oversees, permission to cut funding arbitrarily.
But surely universities need to accept government oversight if they take government funds? Indeed — and they have done so, for decades. This oversight was established by Congress in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which states that universities accepting federal funds cannot knowingly allow the civil rights of their students, faculty and staff to be violated. If other forms of government oversight are to be imposed beyond this, it is for Congress to do, not the president.
The Trump administration knows this, and so it has justified its actions by referring to the Civil Rights Act. It has accused Harvard of violating Titles VI and VII, which forbid discrimination on the basis of race and religion. And it points to student protests that in many cases undoubtedly did cross the line between criticism of Israel and antisemitism, and made many Jewish students fear for their safety. Just this week, Harvard released a report that portrayed the university struggling to contain expressions of hatred and intimidation that frequently crossed far over the blurry line separating anti-Zionism and antisemitism. (A companion report found that 47% of Muslim respondents at the university did not feel physically safe on campus.)
But the Civil Rights Act also lays out a procedure for the federal government to follow if it believes that Titles VI or VII have been violated. It must start a formal inquiry, produce a formal report, and give the university a chance to respond. If, after the conclusion of this procedure, the government finds against the university, then it can withhold funds — but only to the parts of the university in which the violation took place.
The Trump administration has not followed any aspect of this legislatively mandated procedure. It has not produced a formal report, nor has it given Harvard a chance to respond. It has above all cut off funds to Harvard Medical School, which was the site of virtually no protests or antisemitic incidents. Moreover, the list of demands it sent to Harvard in mid-April did not only include addressing issues of campus antisemitism. As noted, it called for Harvard to overhaul its governance, disciplinary mechanisms, admissions procedures and hiring procedures. It called for steps to be taken to ensure “viewpoint diversity” on the campus — meaning the hiring of conservatives to offset the faculty’s overwhelmingly liberal political stance.
Now, there is a case to be made that Harvard could use a greater degree of viewpoint diversity than it currently enjoys. Its faculty indeed lean pretty far Left, and the intellectual climate could benefit from less groupthink, more real debate. The university also needs to squelch the sort of horrid antisemitic activity that took place last year. It needs to ensure that the harassment and intimidation of Jews described in this week’s report are ended, along with the harassment and intimidation of Muslims. If President Trump wants to urge Harvard in this direction, fine. But he should do so in a lawful manner.
And, in any case, while the Harvard faculty and student body do lean pretty far Left, that does not mean that the entire university is somehow in thrall to “woke” ideology, as Trump’s supporters seem to believe. Harvard is a massive operation. It has schools of medicine, dentistry, engineering, and business — none of them known as bastions of wokeness. They barely featured in the report, and yet they will still be penalised.
Indeed, the destructive effects of Trump’s actions will fall most heavily on the least political parts of the university. It will be hard for Harvard to replace the funds that the federal government is taking away, and even harder for institutions with smaller endowments. The result is that research programmes that have contributed immeasurably to scientific knowledge, technological advancement and public health will be pruned back or shut down altogether. Harvard and other leading universities will no longer attract some of the best minds from around the world. Thousands of people at Harvard alone — people who had nothing to do with the protests — could lose their jobs, while companies that supply equipment to university researchers could go bankrupt. This level of harm is wildly disproportionate to whatever faults the university allegedly committed, and it is not lawful. Even if you think “Harvard had it coming”, the Trump administration’s assault is not the answer.
