In the light of attacks by the Trump administration on elite US universities, such as Harvard, the Guardian published an interesting story a couple of days ago distinguishing those heads of state/senior political figures with courage from those without. And by courage, author Alexander Hurst means, in the words of French philosopher, Jean Jaurès, “seeking the truth and speaking it”. He mentions Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Pope Francis as examples of people with courage, but that they stand out when compared with “so many high-profile examples of political cowardice in recent months”.
Among the courageous he also mentions Harvard University, who’s decision to oppose the demands being placed on them by the Trump administration, has helped “hundreds of college and university presidents” to decide that “sticking together is better than falling one by one”.
Read the Guardian story here.
The case against Harvard seems almost incredible. In the words of Thursday’s statement the US Department of Homeland Security,
“Harvard’s leadership has created an unsafe campus environment by permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students, and otherwise obstruct its once-venerable learning environment. Many of these agitators are foreign students. Harvard’s leadership further facilitated, and engaged in coordinated activity with the [Chinese Communist party], including hosting and training members of a CCP paramilitary group complicit in the Uyghur genocide.”
As a result, the Department has ruled that Harvard can no longer enrol international students and those that are already there need to move to other institutions. This is a big deal: there are around 6,800 international students at Harvard, who make up more than 27% of its enrolments this year.
But the university has courageously refused to give in. In their own statement, they replied that: “The government’s action is unlawful. We are fully committed to maintaining its ability to host international students and scholars from more than 140 countries and enrich the university. This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission.”
And more courageously still, US District Judge Allison Burroughs has ordered a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump Administration from revoking Harvard University’s certification to enrol international students.
This is clearly about much more than it appears to be on the surface. According to the BBC, “The Trump administration has taken aim at Harvard and other elite institutions, not only arguing that they should do more to clamp down on pro-Palestinian activists but also claiming they discriminate against conservative viewpoints”. And further, that “The Trump administration has launched investigations into dozens of universities across the country and wrung concessions from other major US institutions like Columbia University in New York.”
Why is Donald Trump threatening academic institutions, particularly some of the most outstanding among America’s Ivy League? But this is not the first time that a head of state has targeted institutions of this kind. Similar stories can be found about Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro (here), Robert Mugabe (here), Russia (here) and Nazi Germany (here).
Is it a fear of clever people, those who can see through the unthought out politics and economics on the leaders of their day? Even in the UK the same dread of academic challenge became obvious during the Brexit campaign. In early June 2016, when former UK government minister and now former MP, Michael Gove, appeared on Sky News to make the case for Brexit in the forthcoming referendum, he was asked why he thought Brexit would be so good for the economy, and indeed whether he could name any economists who supported it. But he failed to do so, and instead he attacked economic forecasters for their previous failings: “The people in this country have had enough of experts”, he said. That was cowardly, and demonstrated a reluctance to take seriously those with in-depth knowledge of a subject, when their knowledge conflicted with those who are driven by populist opinions.
As Christians we should embrace the insights of our great academic institutions and help to bring those insights forward, so as to add value to our world. Good universities offer challenge to their students and provide an open climate for students to grow. And rightly they also offer challenge to the more extreme and less workable political philosophies. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. In fact it is education that enables us to develop and begin to understand the world around us, and to have a positive impact upon it. Education breeds courage.
But to be effective, education needs access to a wide range of insights, so that the student can weigh up different views and begin to formulate their own. That’s how challenge works. Christ challenged people’s views. He didn´t tell them what to believe but challenged them with stories of people caught up in particular situations so they could make their own minds up.
Locking away certain views and arguments will have the opposite effect. Eden MacLean, writing in Scientific American back in 2023 about the restrictions being placed on many books in today’s Florida, said: “Being part of a democratic republic – embracing our pluralistic society – requires diverse views and their educated assessment. To avoid difference, controversy and discomfort as Florida’s new laws require will stunt not only our children’s ability to evaluate and articulate arguments, but also to see our world as it is. In the end, that is the greatest danger.”
Or to quote entrepreneur and former Republican New Jersey State Senator, Malcolm Forbes, “Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.”