What we’re seeing in US universities is (like in other places) a clash of two ‘club rules’. In one ever-widening corner are the ruling political classes backed by their votaries, who want universities to mirror ‘values of the land’.
In the other ever-shrinking corner are safe havens of learning and thinking, whose independence has been integral to their special worth. Mismatch of campus and off-campus worlds, under Trump, is now up for ‘correction’.
Harvard’s pushback is notable on two counts. One, it has the financial heft through private patronage to keep itself relatively ‘un-Trumpled’ and ‘Harvarded’. Columbia – which was first sent a notice on March 13, its $400 mn federal grants held back ‘until’ it expelled some students who participated in anti-Israel protests, reformed its admissions policies, and placed its West Asia studies department into ‘academic receivership’ (read: federal scrutiny) – also had the heft. But it capitulated, preferring a Faustian deal.
Two, Harvard’s brand equity – considered ‘Lutyens-like’ and left-liberal incubators by its detractors – remains intact, unlike other Ivy Leaguers being weeded.
While perceived ‘antisemitism’ is being used as a crowbar to pry unis open, much like his unacknowledged role models, Xi Jinping and Vladmir Putin, Don of MAGA College wants total alignment – curtains of universities must match the White House carpet. This is an ongoing culture war where the baby of free-thinking is being thrown out with the water of ideological divergence. What is unfortunate is that while such practice has already damaged institutions elsewhere, vandalisation of universally-valued US institutions has started in earnest, with uninhibited speed now. That ‘elite’ is a qualitative term, and not just anti-establishment chic, is lost upon White House’s wise ones.
