Harvard Should Emulate Hillsdale College, Reject Federal Money

Harvard has until recently been receiving $2.2 billion in federal funding, largely for research grants for medical research. The Trump administration has now withheld that amount, and promises it will continue to withhold that sum as long as Harvard does not explain how it is now, and how it intends in the future, to protect Jewish students on campus from manifestations of antisemitism. A second request from the government is that Harvard end its DEI programs that make race and ethnicity, not merit, the bases upon which decisions as to admission and faculty hiring and promotion are made. These requests seem eminently reasonable to me, but not to the grand panjandrums in Massachusetts Hall.

The historian Victor Davis Hanson takes Harvard to task for its refusal to comply with those requests from the administration, and if Harvard continues with its refusal, he suggests that the university should at least end its reliance on $2.2 billion in federal grants when it has so much money — more than $50 billion — in its endowment, that could easily fund whatever programs the federal government’s cuts would now endanger.

More on Victor Davis Hanson’s suggestion to Harvard can be found here: “Opinion: Harvard could go full Hillsdale College and set itself free,” by Victor Davis Hanson, Tribune Content Agency, April 20, 2025

Harvard University has rejected various demands of a presidential commission on antisemitism.

The task force wants to persuade Harvard to ensure Jewish students on its campus are no longer harassed, or else lose its federal funding.

Harvard retorts that it won’t be bullied by Washington.

Among its other requirements, the Trump administration also warned Harvard to cease using race as a criterion in its admissions, hiring and promotion, contrary to law….

Despite all of Harvard’s platitudes, its classrooms are still being disrupted. Jewish students remain fearful.

And what would Obama say if, for example, African-American students at Harvard were harassed on campus by masked disrupters?

Or Black studies classes were crashed by students wearing scarves over their faces as they vented their hatred? Would he press the Trump administration to force Harvard to honor federal civil rights protections?

Remember, Harvard is a private university with a largely untaxed endowment of over $50.2 billion. Yet again, it still receives some $2.2 billion — now suspended — in federal funds.

The administration task force is not forcing Harvard to run its university according to its version of federal dictates.

Instead, the Trump commission is simply warning Harvard that if, in addition to its huge sources of private funding, it still wishes continuance of some $2.2 billion in public money from the federal government, then it must comply with existing laws and executive orders.

Does Harvard remember the embarrassing testimony of its former president, Claudine Gay?

She failed to assure a congressional committee that Harvard had taken action against openly hostile antisemitic student protesters during its growing protest movements.

Claudine Gay also turned out to be a serial plagiarist, whose scholarly works consisted of four short articles, at least two of which contained large bits written by, but not credited to, others. Claudine Gay is black; might DEI explain her otherwise incomprehensible appointment as Harvard’s president? And why, one wonders, after she was forced to resign in disgrace, did Harvard agree to continue to pay her the presidential salary she had been receiving of $900,000 a year?

Apparently Harvard does not care enough about the wellbeing and safety of its Jewish students to assure them, and the federal government that has asked for such information, of all the ways it is now, or will in the future, be combatting antisemitism on its campus.

And Harvard cares so little for the notion — now so truly brave and even revolutionary — that merit alone should determine which students are admitted, and which faculty are hired, and then promoted. Apparently Harvard thinks it is worth the loss of $2.2 billion in federal money so as to be able to discriminate on the basis of race and ethnicity. What a victory!

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