How Harvard Can Restore Trust and Retain Funding
The Trump administration and Harvard University are headed to court, which is one of many conflicts between rich and famous universities and the voters and politicians who fund them. It is unclear whether the administration seeks real reform, political revenge, or both. For its part, if uber-wealthy Harvard wants continued taxpayer support, the university must see public dollars as a privilege, not a right. That means Harvard must protect free speech rights not just for Hamas supporters, for also for normal students and professors.
Fortunately, other prestigious institutions like the University of Virginia and Claremont McKenna College have shown how.
Last week, in an effort to block federal funding cuts and an IRS inquiry into his university’s tax-exempt status, Harvard President Alan Garber issued a simultaneously cooperative and defiant response to the Trump administration. Cooperatively, Garber pledges that from this day forward Harvard will protect free speech, promote viewpoint diversity, end systematic intimidation of Jewish students, and comply with the Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard Supreme Court ruling prohibiting discrimination against Asians.
In short, America’s wealthiest university promises to follow the law rather than consider itself above the law.
Garber simultaneously, and in my view correctly, defied Trump administration demands to micromanage teaching and personnel practices including faculty hiring, refusing to “surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” Harvard likely coordinated its response with a speech by its most famous alumnus, former President Barack Obama.
I sympathize with Garber. I too distrust President Trump. Yet taxpayers need assurances that Harvard’s promises are more than empty rhetoric. As President Reagan once said of the Soviet Union, Harvard’s record suggests we should trust but verify. After all, only recently Harvard allowed organized chanting calling for killing Jews, even while using regulations “protecting” the vulnerable to drive out biology instructor Carol Hooven for allegedly creating a hostile climate for trans students and their supporters by portraying biological sex as binary.
Harvard used overbroad diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and other rules to sanction numerous professors including superstar economist Roland Fryer. Fryer’s alleged crime was inappropriate sexual banter; his real offense was publishing research indicating that police do not disproportionately kill African Americans, findings offending leftist activists.
Cases like these led 70 Harvard professors to form the Council on Academic Freedom two years ago, banding together so administrators could not pick them off one by one. Yet Harvard still did not get the message. Last year, writing in the Harvard Crimson, Dean of Social Sciences Lawrence Bobo threatened to sanction professors guilty of “behaviors that plainly incite external actors — be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government — to intervene in Harvard’s affairs.” Bobo referred to those criticizing the mistreatment of Jewish students.
Such intimidation explains why in both 2024 and 2025 Harvard ranked dead last out of over 200 campuses on the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) annual free speech rankings, which reflect student surveys and campus policies. Some Russian universities might do better. American taxpayers certainly deserve better.
I am no fan of the Trump administration, but only government financial pressure could get Harvard to reform to restore taxpayer trust. So along with suing the administration, here is what Harvard should do.
First, Harvard should acknowledge that federal funds always have strings attached. As political scientist Shep Melnick details in The Transformation of Title IX, the Obama administration used executive orders, nontransparent regulatory guidance, and threatened funding cuts to force universities to erase the biological definition of sex and enlarge Title IX bureaucracies for enforcement, enabling purges of professors like Carole Hooven. Rather than enforcing federal intervention imposing leftist speech and complaining when it protects normal speech, Harvard must apply the First Amendment consistently if it wants to keep public funding no matter which political party is in power.
Second, Harvard should embrace the Chicago Principles signed by 112 other institutions (starting with the University of Chicago) clarifying that free speech without disruption is essential to academia. Harvard must write clear rules allowing nondisruptive speech and enforce those rules fairly. A related step would be sponsoring regular campus debates, as Claremont McKenna College has for years. In addition, Harvard’s public policy school could try recruiting a few conservative faculty to expose students to a range of views.
To repeat, Harvard ranks dead last, 251st, on FIRE’s free speech rankings. Two other elite institutions, the University of Virginia and Claremont McKenna College, have reformed, and now rank in the top ten. President Garber can set a realistic goal for Harvard to earn a top 50 free speech ranking in three years, before the end of the Trump administration.
Harvard is not going to go away---nor will taxpayer demands for fair rules fairly enforced. If Harvard chooses reform, I and many others are ready to help.
