(AFP) – The Trump administration is attacking higher education institutions in the United States as authoritarian governments seek to quash independent thought, the former president of Harvard University said Wednesday. The prestigious university is at loggerheads with Trump, who believes Ivy League schools are unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and anti-Semitism, particularly around the protests against Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Trump has sought to cut more than $2.6 billion of funding to Harvard and has moved to block the entry of international students, a quarter of its student body.
“The truth here is that our government, the American government, is attacking higher ed and universities,” Claudine Gay told the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences in Amsterdam. “The agenda here is about destroying knowledge institutions because they are centres of independent thought and information,” she added. “That is the story. Nothing justifies that. Nothing explains that. Other than authoritarians don’t like independent centres of thought and information,” said Gay in rare public comments.
Gay, the first black woman to lead Harvard in its 368-year history, stepped down in January 2024 amid a row over alleged anti-Semitism on campus following protests about the Gaza war. Her resignation followed a heated appearance at a Capitol Hill hearing. Republican lawmaker Elise Stefanik likened student calls for a new intifada — an Arabic word for uprising that harks back to the first Palestinian revolt against Israel in 1987 — to inciting “genocide against the Jewish people in Israel and globally.”
When Stefanik asked Gay whether such calls would violate Harvard’s code of conduct, Gay replied: “We embrace a commitment to free expression even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful.” She added, “When speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies, including policies against bullying, harassment or intimidation, we take action,” she said during the hearing.
The blowback to the Congress hearing was rapid and intense. Former Harvard student and multi-million-dollar donor Bill Ackman claimed that the high-profile row had led to “billions of dollars of cancelled, paused, and withdrawn donations to the university.” Gay apologised but eventually resigned in January 2024 after allegations that she improperly cited scholarly sources in her academic work added to the pressure.
In her comments in the Netherlands, she said Harvard appeared to be moving towards a policy of “compliance” with Trump’s demands. “This is distressing… Not only for those of us who are on campus and face the consequences directly, but also for all of those in higher ed who look to Harvard for leadership and guidance.”
© 2024 AFP
