ILLEGITIMUM NON CARBORUNDUM
For most of my life, I have had a love-hate relationship with Harvard.
In 1974, I applied for admission to Harvard College and was rejected.
In 1978, I applied for admission to Harvard Law School and, after being put on a waiting list, was rejected there as well.
It was a simple case of unrequited love . . .
Times two.
In the spring of that year, months before Harvard's rejection, my application to Yale Law School was accepted.
Truth be told, Yale was always my first choice. Its classes were smaller and, in my opinion at least, it was more focused on the contribution its trained lawyers could later make to public service and public policy.
But still . . .
I was that rare Yale Law student Harvard Law had turned down.
I could flatter myself knowing Yale's smaller entering class made admission there more difficult than at its Cambridge competitor. And when I shared the good news of Yale's "yes" with a priest who had taught me in high school and had become one of my best friends, I heartily endorsed his less than religious response . . .
Which was . . .
"F--k Harvard".
In truth, of course, none of this mattered.
Harvard, long accustomed to the jealousy expressed by those it turned down, went happily about its business of being America's premier institution of higher learning. Because the list of those of us rejected exceeded by orders of magnitude the fortunate few accepted, that exercise called for an enormous amount of fortitude. Especially on the football field, where those rooting against the Crimson inevitably included many more than those who were simply for the other team. In that respect, Harvard resembled the New York Yankees.
They were in a league of their own . . .
Despised by the multitudes not on their team.
Harvard had an answer for all this. The answer was in the first three words of its fight song. And, being Harvard, the answer was in Latin.
Illegitimum Non Carborundum.
Or . . .
Don't let the bastards get you down.
Over the years, most of us haters, myself included, have made peace with our adolescent disappointment. Admiration has replaced jealousy. We tip our hats to Harvard's renowned excellence, its Nobel laureates, its cutting-edge science, the medical miracles it regularly creates with that science, the advanced technologies and new businesses it births, the worldwide leaders it produces. When we see Harvard on a resume, we want that excellence to be part of our own enterprises, public or private.
If our kids are there . . .
We brag about it.
We regularly travel to (some of us even live in) Boston. The city itself has become a technological hub thanks in large part to its institutions of higher learning, none more central to that status than Harvard. We don't avoid the Coop or the Yard, and among Democrats, we don't keep score. Clinton's — neither Bill’s nor Hillary’s— Yale Law degree does not trump Obama's from Harvard. Or vice versa. We love them all. We revel in the fact that all were smart enough to get their respective degree. We like that they are smart. Even very smart. Even smarter than many of us. We reject the anti-elitism some have for the Ivy League, an anti-elitism many of its GOP graduates hypocritically enflame just to get votes.
Some adolescents, however, have not moved on.
One of them is now the President of the United States.
Most of the indefensible illegality, trauma, tragedy and stupidity of Trump’s second term was unfortunately predictable. He either told us explicitly what he’d do, as in the case of his mindless tariffs (against allies and enemies alike) and disgusting assaults on immigrants and birthright citizenship, or pretty clearly hinted at what he’d do, as in the case of his J6 pardons and Munich-like sacrifice of Ukraine. Even his Cabinet of suck-ups, loyalty oaths, shakedowns, self-dealing and contempt for the rule of law, aided and abetted by the Supreme Court's asinine criminal immunity decision and a supine GOP, were more than foreseeable, each in its own way the natural result of a pathological dishonesty and insecure narcissism that demands fealty and praise above all else, ignores reality and makes accountability and personal responsibility impossible.
But . . .
Could any of us have foreseen the utter idiocy of his now months-long effort to destroy one of American pluralism’s crown jewels — its universities in general and Harvard in particular?
As with most things Trump, the current attack on Harvard has its genesis in a lie. And like most of Trump's lies, this one rests upon a patina of fact, distorted into an exaggerated and demonstrably false reality, which is then endlessly repeated, idiotically defended and never amended, any and all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
The lie is that Harvard is a bastion of anti-semitism.
In a May 23 "guest essay" in The New York Times, Harvard Professor (and one of its foremost critics) Dr. Steven Pinker observed that "alleged antisemitism" is "the most painful indictment of Harvard" to date.
He explained that this anti-semitism is "not the old money WASP snobbery of Oliver Barrett III", but rather "a spillover of anti-Zionist zealotry." In the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, he noted, it took the form of "anti-Israeli protests that . . . disrupted classes, ceremonies and everyday campus life", "gratuitously injected pro-Palestinian activism into courses or university programming", and "many Jewish students . . . being ostracized or demonized by their peers."
Dr. Pinker conceded this was a "genuine" problem" that had to be "considered with a modicum of discernment." It was, however, by no means evidence that Harvard itself had become " a bastion of rampant anti-Jew hatred". The false and -- given the obvious facts on the ground -- stupid statement by 34 students holding Israel "entirely responsible" for Hamas's massacre had itself been met with an open letter of rebuttal signed by 400 Harvard faculty members, and last September a new group, Harvard Faculty for Israel, was formed specifically designed to support Israeli students on campus. 450 Harvard faculty immediately joined.
Pinker himself is Jewish and noted, "for what it's worth", that in his two decades at Harvard, he had "experienced no anti-semitism . . . nor [had] other prominent Jewish faculty members." Though "a few" of Harvard's more than "400 initiatives, centers and programs, which are distinct from its academic departments", had been captured by "activists lecturers", the university itself "offers more than 60 courses with Jewish themes" and on its own decided to exercise "greater professorial and decanal oversight over those distinct offerings", long before Trump's current assault
Similarly, on issues like "viewpoint diversity", he explained, Harvard is "far from a 'radical left institution'". The "majority of faculty . . . locate themselves to the right of 'very liberal', and they include dozens of prominent conservatives." And for all the focus on so-called "woke" courses on subjects like "heteronormativity, intersectionality, systemic racism and late-stage capitalism", those offerings "make-up at most 3% of the 5,000 courses in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences . . . and 6% of its larger General Education Courses".
All of which was also true long before Trump decided to threaten and destroy the entire school.
Threaten and destroy, however, is exactly what he has done.
Only January 29, Trump issued an executive order highlighting discrimination against Jewish students at American universities and colleges in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attack. A week later, DOJ created a multi-agency task force to combat anti-semitism and three weeks after that (on February 29) it sent Harvard's president a letter claiming it was "aware of allegations that" Harvard "may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination." On March 10, in yet another letter, the federal Department of Education's (DOE) Office of Civil Rights informed the university that it was being investigated for violation of the Civil Rights Act "relating to anti-semitic harassment and discrimination".
The March 10 letter expressly linked DOE's investigation to Harvard's receipt of "enormous public investments funded by US taxpayers" and on March 31, the General Services Administration (GSA) told Harvard it was reviewing all federal contracts and grants, including those with "greater than $8.7 billion of multi-year grant commitments", and "reserves the right to terminate for convenience any contracts it has with [Harvard] at any time during the period of performance." Two days later, it sent Harvard an email and an attached letter from lawyers at DOE and the Department of Health and Human Service (DHS) setting forth "the immediate next steps . . . necessary for Harvard University's continued financial relationship with the United States government." In this letter, and apparently for the first time, it added demands that, in addition to preventing anti-semitism and punishing those who had discriminated against Jews, Harvard "cease all [admission and hiring] preferences based on race, color , or national origin," and move to "shutter" DEI programs and improve "viewpoint diversity".
On April 11, GSA, along with DOE and DHS's attorneys, sent Harvard yet another letter.
This letter was a bombshell.
It literally demanded that Harvard agree to turn over the formation and content of its curriculum; its admission practices (including admission practices regarding international students) ; the hiring, firing and supervision of its faculty; and the enforcement of its student disciplinary processes to the federal government. The turnover was to take the form of certified commitments by the university to generic reforms supervised by monitors acceptable to the government and then subject to federal audits to insure compliance.
For example, on so-called "viewpoint diversity" it required that Harvard "commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse. This audit shall begin no later than the summer of 2025 and shall proceed on a department-by-department, field-by-field, or teaching-unit-by-teaching-unit basis as appropriate." Any "department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty . . . who will provide viewpoint diversity; every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity."
Among others, the letter also required that Harvard "reform its recruitment, screening, and admissions of international students to prevent admitting students hostile to American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence" and that it "report to federal authorities . . . any foreign students, including those on visas and with green cards, who commit a conduct violation."
On April 14, Harvard rejected the government's demands.
In a letter doing so, it noted that the government had "disregard[ed]" the policy and programmatic changes Harvard had implemented "over the past 15 months" to "address bias", "promote ideological diversity and civil discourse", "combat hate" and "impose meaningful discipline for those who violate university policies". Instead, it explained, the government's demands "contra[vene] the First Amendment, invade university freedoms long recognized by the Supreme Court" and "circumvent Harvard's statutory rights by requiring unsupported and disruptive remedies for alleged harms that the government has not proven through mandatory processes established by Congress and required by law."
"No less objectionable," it continued, " is the condition . . . that Harvard accede to these terms or risk the loss of billions of dollars in federal funding critical to vital research and innovation that has saved and improved lives and allowed Harvard to play a central role in making our country's scientific, medical and other research communities the standard-bearers for the world."
It concluded: "The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish is constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be overtaken by the federal government."
Since the exchange of these letters, the Trump Administration has followed through on its threats to freeze, cut or end federal funding for Harvard and otherwise cripple the institution's financial foundation.
On April 14, mere hours after Harvard rejected its April 11 demands, Trump froze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants to Harvard and $60 million in multi-year contracts.
On April 15, Trump floated the idea of Harvard losing its tax-exempt status and shortly thereafter the IRS began planning to do so.
On April 16, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) threatened to revoke Harvard's certification to participate in the Student and Exchange Visa Program (SEVP).
On April 21, Harvard sued the Trump administration, claiming Trump's funding threats violate the First Amendment and are also "arbitrary and capricious". Two days later, it asked the Court to fast track its challenge, explaining that the freeze threatened critical research and "chilled Harvard's exercise of its First Amendment rights." Five days after that, the Court set July 21 as the date for oral argument.
On May 2, Trump repeated his threat to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status.
On May 5, the administration announced it was cutting off all new federal research grants to Harvard.
On May 13, the government's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism froze an additional $450 million.
On May 15, the Department of Energy issued a notice terminating $89 million in funding from its Office of Science and Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
On May 22, DHS made good on its April 16 threat and in fact revoked Harvard's certification to participate in the Student and Exchange Visa Program (SEVP). This effectively knee-capped Harvard's ability to admit foreign students, the vast majority of whom pay the full cost of their education and thus help subsidize grants and aid to domestic students. 27% of Harvard's entire student body are foreign nationals. The majority of them are in the university's graduate programs. 40% of Harvard's Medical School students, for example, are foreigners.
On May 23, Harvard sued to stop DHS from revoking the SEVP certification. Within four hours of the suit being filed, the court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) doing so.
On May 27, two senior Trump officials claimed GSA was about to cancel another $100 million in contracts to Harvard.
On June 2, Harvard filed a motion for summary judgment in the funding case. In its motion papers, it provided evidence that cuts to grants from the Defense Department were made on orders from the Secretary of Defense over official objections that Harvard was the "top performing team" and the cuts posed "grave and immediate harm to national security."
On June 4, Trump issued a proclamation suspending international visas for new students at Harvard.
On June 5, Harvard sued to block that proclamation and later that day the federal court in Boston issued a temporary restraining order doing so.
In his "guest essay" deriding what he labelled as Trump's "Harvard Derangement Syndrome", Dr. Pinker explained that "Contrary to a widespread misunderstanding, a federal grant is not alms to the university, nor may the executive branch dangle it to force grantees to do whatever it wants. It is a fee for a service -- namely, a research project that the government decides (after fierce competitive review) would benefit the country. The grant pays for the people and equipment needed to carry out the research, which would not be done otherwise."
The impact of Trump's assault, therefore, cannot be gainsaid.
46% of Harvard's budget for its School of Public Health comes from federal funding for research and federal reimbursements. According to the school's Dean, that "funding has enabled breakthrough research on deadly diseases from cancer to Alzheimer's to stroke to HIV" and its "faculty's research into environmental pollutants, occupational hazards, and the relationship between diet and health have shaped policies and programs that protect the health of every American -- and so many others around the world."
The cuts also killed research at the Sinclair Labs at Harvard Medical School. That lab studies aging and treatment for Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, cancer, infertility and immune disorders. Its founder, David Sinclair, explained that "The loss of funding not only halts ongoing experiments that cannot simply be restarted, but also jeopardizes the contributions of international scholars who are integral to the lab's operation and the wealth of the US."
"For all its foibles," as Dr. Pinker explained, "Harvard (together with other universities) has made the world a better place, significantly so. Fifty-two faculty members have won Nobel prizes, and more than 5,800 patents are held by Harvard. Its researchers invented baking powder, the first organ transplant, the programmable computer, the defibrillator, the syphilis test and oral rehydration . . . They developed the theory of nuclear stability that has saved the world from Armageddon . . . Ongoing research . . . includes methane-tracking satellites, robotic catheters, next-generation batteries and wearable robotics for stroke victims."
"Federal grants," he continued, "are supporting research in metastasis, tumor suppression, radiation and chemotherapy in children, multi-drug resistant infections, pandemic prevention, dementia, anesthesia, toxin reduction in firefighting and the military, the physiological effects of spaceflight and battlefield wounded care."
Other than write this piece, protest and oppose Trump's idiocy, there is little I can do.
But the little I can do includes this:
Each year I send modest donations to my high school, college and law school.
This year I will send all that money to Harvard.
As Dr. Pinker puts it:
"To cripple the institutions that acquire and transmit knowledge is a tragic blunder and a crime against future generations."
Today, Harvard is the front-line in the fight against that crime.
So I stand with it.
And you should too.
Illegitimum Non Carborundum.
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