turkeybr Professors Pushed Harvard to Resist Trump. Now Billions Are on the Line.
The Trump administration has turned campaign promises to target universities into devastating actionturkeybr, pulling hundreds of millions in federal funds from Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.
On Monday, the Trump administration went after Harvard, the world’s wealthiest university, announcing that it would review about $9 billion in contracts and multiyear grants. It accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students and promoting “divisive ideologies over free inquiry.”
Harvard had been bracing for the development. In recent months, it had moved cautiously, seeking compromise and, critics said, cracking down on speech. The approach riled some who worried that Harvard was capitulating at a moment of creeping authoritarianism.
Though it remains unclear how much the university will actually lose, if anything, the move on Monday shows that the conciliatory approach hasn’t fended off its critics yet.
In the days leading up to the Trump administration’s announcement, faculty members called on the university instead to more forcefully defend itself and higher education more broadly. In a letter,66br.com more than 700 faculty members called for Harvard to “mount a coordinated opposition to these anti-democratic attacks.”
“As much as a body blow from the administration would hurt us, Harvard has the capacity to withstand the blow,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political science professor who circulated the letter.
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Among national universities, Princeton was ranked No. 1 again, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard. Stanford, which tied for third last year, fell to No. 4. U.S. News again judged Williams College the best among national liberal arts colleges. Spelman College was declared the country’s top historically Black institution.
Calls for school crackdowns have mounted with reports of cyberbullying among adolescents and studies indicating that smartphones, which offer round-the-clock distraction and social media access, have hindered academic instruction and the mental health of children.
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