Trump targets Harvard’s foreign students and grants in politically calculated fight

Eighty-one years ago, on May 31, 1944, General George Patton walked before the 6th Armored Division before the D-Day invasion and told the troops a simple, inescapable fact about war: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

It is a cautionary speech that might well be given in Harvard Square this week as the fight between the university and the Trump administration escalates. By the end of this war (regardless of the outcome), the Trump administration is likely to win even if it loses in the courts.

The Trump administration has committed to total war with Harvard on multiple fronts. It is threatening the school’s tax-exempt status, denying the ability to admit foreign students, freezing grants, and launching a myriad of investigations.

TRUMP ADMIN ASKING FEDERAL AGENCIES TO CANCEL REMAINING HARVARD CONTRACTS

Harvard has responded with its largest deployment since the “Harvard Regiment” left for the Civil War. (It is worth noting that the famed 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry suffered one of the highest casualty rates of any unit in the Union Army).

For the record, I have previously criticized the administration for some of these actions, including the attack on the school’s tax-exempt status, the wholesale freezing of grants, and the blocking of foreign students. These measures undermine both free speech and academic freedom in higher education.  

Nevertheless, the Trump administration will prevail in some actions, particularly in the allocation of discretionary grants. 

Harvard’s own recent study found that it created an unsafe environment for Jewish students.  Harvard also has a documented history of racial discrimination that led to a major Supreme Court ruling a couple of years ago against the use of race in college admissions. 

The administration is claiming that Harvard failed to turn over information to regulators on foreign students and has not fully addressed the antisemitism on campus.

Harvard has compelling arguments to make regarding due process and procedural protections. 

However, in the end, this is a war of attrition that Harvard will lose.

President Donald Trump has already framed this fight in a way that is politically and financially lethal for Harvard. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have a son studying at Harvard Law School).

This week, Trump suggested that his administration may redirect billions from Harvard to trade schools.

His targeting of foreign students also shows an understanding of the soft underbelly of higher education. Foreign students are the meal ticket for universities. They generally pay full tuition, allowing universities to fund scholarships for other students. Over 27 percent of Harvard’s class is composed of foreign students.

Cutting off both grants and foreign enrollments is a devastating one-two punch, even for a school with Harvard’s massive endowment.

Even if these measures are ultimately rejected in the courts, many researchers and foreign students will view Harvard as a risky choice in the years to come. 

More importantly, Harvard can hardly expect much support from the public after years of open hostility toward those who espouse conflicting viewpoints.  

As I discuss in my book “The Indispensable Right,” Harvard is not just an academic echo chamber. It is a virtual academic sensory deprivation tank.

In a country with a majority of conservative and libertarian voters, fewer than 9 percent of the Harvard student body and less than 3 percent of the faculty members identify as conservative.

For years, Harvard faculty have brushed away complaints over its liberal orthodoxy, including purging conservative faculty. It has created one of the most hostile schools for free speech in the nation, ranking dead last among universities in annual studies by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). 

Only a third of students at Harvard feel comfortable speaking on campus despite being overwhelmingly liberal at an overwhelmingly liberal institution. (The percentage is much higher for the small number of conservative students).

Not long ago, I had a debate at Harvard Law School with Professor Randall Kennedy on the lack of ideological diversity at the school. I respect Kennedy and I do not view him as anti-free speech or intolerant. Yet when I noted the statistics on the vanishing number of conservative students and faculty in comparison to the nation, Kennedy responded that Harvard “is an elite university” and does not have to “look like America.”

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The problem is that Harvard does not even look like Massachusetts, which is nearly 30 percent Republican.

The question is whether America will now support Harvard.

The school hopes that the public will rush to its side in this fight in the name of intellectual diversity.  

Trump knows that this comes down to the numbers. 

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At the height of the Civil War, General (and future President) Ulysses S. Grant declared “I intend to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” Grant knew that he had a greater ability to absorb casualties, whereas even in successful battles, Lee was being drained of men and material.

Trump is clearly willing to fight this out if “it takes all summer” and indeed would be happy to do so if it takes his whole term.