Crimson and Gold: Harvard’s Clash with Trump
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As you may know, President Trump and Harvard University have a disagreement. There are several facets to this, and it started before either Trump or current Harvard President Alan Garber were in office. Some say it has its roots in former Harvard president Claudine Gay’s abysmal congressional appearance, along with other Ivy League presidents, to address disturbing anti-Semitism and pro-Palestinian activism at some of America’s “elite” universities. Her appearance (combined with growing accusations of academic dishonesty) resulted in Gay resigning after only six months in office. The presidents of Columbia, Cornell and Penn also resigned after their weak testimony.
The Harvard administration’s letter lays out a variety of issues it believes should be addressed However, this is just the latest confrontation in a conflict that goes back almost a century.
Higher Education Against Western Civilization
Mainstream, “elite,” higher-education institutions do not see themselves as defenders and teachers of the Western Tradition. They focus on being hyper critics instead of being honest about its shortcomings but recognizing that biblically based culture with limited representative government and free market economics has been the greatest force for human flourishing in history. These institutions reject that historical truth and have for decades. In 1951, William F. Buckley, Jr. published God and Man at Yale chronicling how Yale University, his alma mater, essentially lied to alums and supporters about being a defender of the Western Tradition while actually teaching collectivism and undermining Christian beliefs.
Another confrontation took place on June 8, 1978, when Soviet dissident and Nobel Prize winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn surprised the Harvard community with a commencement address that took the West, in general, and “elite” education institutions, in particular, to task for abandoning the Western Tradition. In a speech he entitled “The Exhausted West,” Solzhenitsyn accused the West of losing courage, especially among the elites and intellectuals, and giving way to depression, passivity and weakness, allowing mediocrity to triumph.[1]
In this latest skirmish, the Trump administration threatened to withhold $2.2 billion in federal money Harvard gets each year. Dr. Garber, fashioning himself a resistance leader of sorts, wrote his own letter rejecting the administration’s conditions, which is interesting since some of the conditions reflect recommendations by Harvard’s own internal review from the Antisemitism (sic) Advisory Group established by Dr. Gay, who said “This group’s wisdom, experience, and moral conviction will help lead us forward. The Advisory Group… guided by Provost Alan Garber… [will]… develop a robust strategy for confronting antisemitism (sic) on campus”[2] The AAG found many problems and instances of anti-Semitism but Harvard administration, lead by now president Dr. Alan Garber, ignored its recommendations; “Harvard University failed to implement a sweeping set of recommendations from its in-house Antisemitism (sic) Advisory Group (AAG) and turned a blind eye to numerous instances of campus harassment.”[3] Maybe this is why the Trump administration felt the need to take action.
Does This Matter?
Yes. For better or worse, the Ivy League — and Harvard in particular — sets the tone for American higher education (except maybe in collegiate athletics, although — much to the chagrin of SEC and Big 10 fans — Yale has won more football championships than any other school with 17. Princeton is tied with Alabama for second with 15; and Harvard has eight).[4] What Harvard does, many schools follow. There already have been public calls for other schools to join the resistance.
Harvard prides itself on being the oldest American university, the alma mater of eight presidents and many notable alums and faculty in all fields. But it is like a superstar that knows it. The university is a bully, self-entitled institution that has a better reputation and history than current performance merits. It shows up at parties and demands of others (“Do you know who I am?”), as it cuts in line.
Harvard has a $53 billion endowment (the largest of any school in the world), a $48 billion annual budget[5] (larger than that of 173 countries), and is engaging in a high-profile standoff with the Trump administration over $2.2 billion in taxpayer money — money that has mostly come from people without college educations who will never see Harvard Yard. Yet, the university feels entitled to it. As the editors of the Harvard Crimson wrote, “The University announced it will not give in to the Trump administration’s expanded demands. Mere hours later, in a blatant act of retaliation, the federal government froze $2.2 billion of our funding”[6] (emphasis added).
This is a window into what’s wrong with American higher education. Dr. Garber, missing the irony, states that Harvard is a private university and is entitled to operate as it sees fit without interference from the government, in his defense of still getting taxpayer money from the government. After all, do you know who Harvard is? But sadly, there are less than 10 schools in the United States that completely shun taking government money, including student aid. The entire industry is beholden at some level to the government, which is nothing more than a way to transfer tax money from plumbers, farmers, waitresses, and store clerks to college faculty and administrators that, at Harvard, have an average salary of $211,000[7] and $103,000[8], respectively.
For Harvard to get indignant over all of this is the height of arrogance and entitlement. Harvard wants our money with no conditions. It’s more entitled elitism, showing how truly detached from reality they are. As a toiler in higher education, I think some of the administration’s conditions go too far, and I am sad that this is seen as needed. I do have concerns about the precedent, but Harvard and, by extension, American higher education has lost its way. Many good people are doing good research and teaching in American academia, but in the main, it has become a bureaucratic-laden (i.e. Stanford has as many administrators as students)[9] playground of anti-Western Culture elitists who feel entitled to the fruits of prosperity, while attacking and undermining the very institutions that create it.
Some want to fix this; they just don’t seem to work in higher education.
[1] Read the full speech here: https://singjupost.com/full-transcript-aleksandr-solzhenitsyns-commencement-address-at-harvard-university-8-june-1978/?singlepage=1
[2] https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/5.15.24_harvard_committee_report_final.pdf
[3] https://freebeacon.com/campus/harvard-ignored-its-in-house-anti-semitism-panel-and-failed-to-address-student-harassment-congressional-report-finds/
[4] https://collegefootballnews.com/rankings/college-football-national-champions-who-won-most
[5] https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/view_990/042103580/cb66cdc119c4808a3e99ccb9aac6a120
[6] https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/15/editorial-harvard-trump-stand-up-fight/
[7] https://www.univstats.com/salary/harvard-university/faculty/
[8] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Harvard-University-Administrator-Salaries-E2817_D_KO19,32.htm
[9] https://www.thecollegefix.com/at-stanford-administrators-nearly-outnumber-undergrads-enrolled-at-the-school/#:~:text=Stanford%20University%20employs%20nearly%20the%20same%20number%20of,an%20analysis%20conducted%20by%20The%20College%20Fix%20found.
