Is Harvard worth saving?

Garber deserves our support

Yesterday, when I received the community-wide letter from Harvard President Alan Garber explaining why the University is rejecting the Trump Administration’s “proposal”—a thinly disguised extortion letter you can read here—I felt the release of an enormous amount of tension I’d been holding.

I’d dreaded that Harvard would comply, too addicted to money to say “stuff it.”

Look at that. I underestimated my alma mater. I felt a physical response in my body that brought to mind that trite saying about your heart lifting. I think mine actually did. A small bit of hope was restored in me.

Then I read the Harvard lawyers’ response to the Trump administration, and felt a breath of fresh air course through me. (These things really did happen, even if I sound like a penny novelist here.)

Yes, indeed, what the administration is trying to do to universities violates the U.S. Constitution in multiple ways. I read a letter written by lawyers and pumped my fist in the air.

I had to read the Constitution in my first semester at Harvard. And now they’re defending the Constitution. Wow, wow, wow. Circles. Spins.

Photo by MARIOLA GROBELSKA on Unsplash

Harvard Privilege becomes Harvard Courage

Most people don’t like Harvard. For me, attending Harvard was a huge gift—an education I couldn’t have afforded otherwise. But even I have divided feelings about the place, because my experiences there were mixed. The education was priceless, however …

The patriarchal culture that was prevalent in the '70s when I was a student was palpable and corrosive, and still exists, if to a slightly lesser degree. I had unfortunate experiences resulting from toxic masculinity and white boy privilege which changed my life for the worse for decades (and resulted in a lot of income for multiple psychotherapists).

Race was also a huge issue in those days. In the dining hall, there were Black tables and white tables, and never the two should mix. But ... there were Black students and women in a previously all-male dorm and cafeteria. In class and activities, we were integrated and equals. Not bad for a school next to Boston, which had just been violently torn apart by the forced desegregation of schools through busing.

There was a time when I was publicly critical of Harvard for what I saw as their disciminatory policies regarding on-campus sexual assault. I did that daring thing called “making a stink” and became a persona non grata in the alumni association. Oops. They should have known I was feisty when they admitted me.

Today, my pride in the institution is restored. Just as we are about to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Harvard has taken the lead in rejecting tyranny.

Leadership qualities

Since 1636, long before the U.S. even existed, Harvard College sought truth, regardless of various biases that permeated the campus in ways unique to their historical periods. But as time passed, the university evolved. In 2022, Harvard owned up to a legacy of racism and pledged millions of dollars to address that history.

Harvard research and innovation has benefitted and continues to benefit local, national and global communities in everything from job creation to cures for fatal diseases and progress in social justice and international relations. The positive influences of Harvard University cannot be denied, no matter what critics have to say about the university’s elitism or imbalance of student, faculty, and administration political perspectives.

Harvard has also been a leader in supporting students from families with limited resources. Although in the '70s there were plenty of privileged students who were legacy and/or had attended pricey private schools, I was one of a large population of “wicked smaht” public high school grads who had busted their butts to get there. Over the past decades, Harvard has worked hard to eliminate barriers for students whose family finances would otherwise have prevented their ability to attend college at all. Harvard’s leadership in making tuition free to families with earnings under a particular level (recently increased to $200,000/year) influenced other universities to do the same.

Now, Harvard is leading the academic community in refusing to compromise its independence. Just today, Columbia is taking a stronger stance against the Trump administration’s takeover attempt.

Photo by Rohit Farmer on Unsplash

Veritas v. MAGA

Recently, many of my classmates reconnected via a freshman dorm Zoom reunion. Little by little, we all got back in touch, and in past days, have shared opinions that have re-established alliances that existed back when. Many of us recall late-night debates over politics and philosophy when we thought we should instead be studying or sleeping—and now I know that those debates were one of the best parts of being at Harvard.

We were hard-headed and opinionated, and we’re still at it. Yesterday, I opened up a can of worms when I emailed the group my enthusiastic response to Garber’s announcement.

Yes, still two (or more!) sides exist in our group. I learned right off the bat that some among us see preserving independent universities as a political act. In these crazy times, I guess it is, but it’s an act of rejecting dictatorship and defending democracy. Americans, no matter where they stand politically, might consider being pro saving our democracy and retaining our hard won freedoms as outlined in the Constitution. Hell, we might consider defending the Constitution the Trump administration is trampling all over. Full stop.

Others in the group feel Harvard hasn’t done enough to address antisemitism during students' response to Israel's attacks on civilians and infrastructure in Gaza, after the horrific Hamas attack on Israelis on October 7, 2023. Apparently many students did not feel safe on campus because the outrage of some students transitioned from anti-violence to anti-Zionist to antisemitism. Students deserve to feel safe at their schools, or as safe as anyone can be in a messed up world. But antisemitism isn’t going to be fixed by the Trump administration. It’s just a smokescreen for them to eliminate anti-Trump sentiment. Plain and simple.

One friend wrote that full support of Harvard at this juncture is premature, as we have yet to see how they will continue to assure personal safety for Jewish students. This position is completely valid, and several other of my classmates argue that Garber, who is Jewish, is well suited to addressing these concerns, but they’re in wait-and-see mode. Still another classmate posited that if Harvard feels unsafe to so many, do we really want to preserve it?

To that, I said a resounding yes. We’ve yanked these institutions into modernity and improved them in so many ways. It’s foolish to give up now!

Another old friend, Michael, shared what he and his wife Amy stated in a letter of thanks to Garber: that they’d stopped donating to Harvard when they were disappointed in the university’s response to antisemitism on campus during that fraught time, but that they now see the administration taking “concrete steps to curb and control antisemitism” and recognize, as I’ve said, that the Trump administration’s demands have nothing to do with combatting antisemitism. They wrote that they’d now increase their donation to help with Harvard’s legal costs in fighting the U.S. government. (How crazy has life become, please?) They also wrote that they felt new pride in their alma mater and they praised Garber for defending academic freedom and the Constitution of the United States.

My friend Dan, who did graduate work in multiple European countries, shared with me a letter he'd sent last week supporting the hundreds of faculty members urging the University to reject Trump’s demands. Because of my lifelong interest in the machinations of dictators, his letter touched me personally. In part, he wrote that at Harvard he "was taught by professors who had fled the Nazis … and others ... deeply influenced by European intellectuals who had suffered under authoritarian regimes in the mid-20th century.” He went on to explain that it was at Harvard that he read authors such as Hannah Arendt and Elie Wiesel, as well as “many others … who warned us of illiberalism's lethal dangers.” He added that when studying abroad as a graduate student, he "heard over and over again how brightly the American university system—especially the private research institutions such as Harvard—shone as a beacon of independent thought and inquiry."

He concluded that solving intolerance on campus is not mutually exclusive from maintaining academic excellence, and I agree with him. Whatever missteps individuals feel the University has taken, it’s now the University that needs our support. Without our great research universities, where would America be?

Wealthy Anglo-Saxon white men founded schools like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and it’s a damn good thing they did. These schools have evolved to admit and support minorities and women, bending the arc of history toward justice.

That’s what the MAGA crew wants not just to stop, but also to reverse.

Just imagine a university run by these people, a student body shaped by Steven Miller, the faculty hired and fired by Elon Musk. Does anyone really believe that would result in a diversity of points of view? Guess who the commencement speaker would be! Maybe we’d even get a new motto: MAGA.

We’re talking here about Trump, who said after the Neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, VA, that there were “very good people” on both sides. Trump, who gleefully pardoned January 6th insurrectionists who wore shirts with the slogan, “Camp Auschwitz,” and argued that “Hitler should have finished the job.” If anyone believes for one minute that he is seriously concerned about antisemitism, I have a bridge to sell.

Even if in some parallel universe Trump were truly concerned about antisemitism, taking over our universities isn’t the way to fix it.

In fact, the first person who has a suggestion on how to fix the kind of hatred that has ebbed and flowed for centuries, please let me know. I wanna hear it. Could part of that plan be moderated discussions in respectful groups of impassioned students? A true learning experience?

Democracy first

As President Obama recently stated, no one person is going to solve this mess. We all need to rise up. But leaders like Garber model courage and resistance, and that step is vitally important. Courage is contagious.

I grew up a white Roman Catholic girl in a Greater Boston school district with very few minority students. By going to Harvard, my knowledge of other cultural and religious traditions, lifestyles, and possibilities grew from my first day on campus, well before the phrase Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion was invented. I awakened to my own implicit biases and with the help of friends of other races, religions, and social privilege—before the word “woke” was used as a slur or at all—worked to overcome them. That was another benefit of attending Harvard.

Today, through our “discussions,” most of my prior classmates are able to disagree while modeling tolerance and mutual respect. The hideous divisiveness and confusion of priorities that MAGA has flung at us makes it more difficult than ever to do so. But we learned back in the day that debate is healthy, and we’re still at it now. It leads to understanding. It is the only thing that leads to progress.

I’m proud to stand with all them—some in their hesitancy to re-embrace our still evolving alma mater, and others in their new vote of confidence for a historical institution willing to address its limits and shortcomings, and grow.

Attending a university with great diversity of race, religion, nationality, and economic background, a university with high aspirations of inclusivity and fairness, has empowered our fight for social justice and will continue to do so. We can, by following Garber’s lead, inspire others to do the right thing.

Shout out to Garber

Garber wrote yesterday, "Seeking truth is a journey without end. It requires us to be open to new information and different perspectives, to subject our beliefs to ongoing scrutiny, and to be ready to change our minds.” He also wrote, “No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

That humility, courage, and straightforwardness are what I am celebrating today, and I hope you can, too. Many are. Lawrence O’Donnell reported tonight that people everywhere are eager to donate small amounts to support Harvard in standing strong. That’s strange. Even Harvard grads resist doing that. But support in any way is now important, and maybe Harvard should set up a legal defense fund. I’m willing to bet none of the funds in that $50 billion endowment are directed to fighting the government (all those funds are directed and can’t just be cashed in like people think). Harvard might need a few extra bucks?

I’m not suggesting non-Harvard alums should invest in this cause—send donations to Ukraine, freedom fighters of a different sort?—but letters, emails, and/or calls to President Garber will carry impact. Even if you are not affiliated with Harvard in any way, even if you’re a Yalie and hate Harvard, commending him for resisting tyranny will help in this fight. Maybe you don’t even believe in these expensive Ivy League institutions—that still doesn’t matter. Garber’s stand will inspire others, and already has. And maybe it will be a turning point in this dismal period we’re living through.

Garber’s contact information is public and available here.