At a critical juncture for Harvard and America, a second Trump term would prove disastrous for both.
Over the past year, Republican lawmakers have taken aim at higher education, proposing crushing endowment taxes, forceful crackdowns on student protest, and slashing cuts to federal university funding.
Harvard and its peers are far from perfect. But if Trump wins four more years in the White House, he and his party won’t try to improve higher education, so much as bend it to their will.
Take the conservative call for a federal endowment tax on Harvard and our peer institutions. It would be one thing if the revenue it generated was redistributed to public institutions and community colleges.
But based on The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 agenda, we doubt that’s the plan.
The 900-page manifesto calls for the elimination of “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” from “every public school in the country,” the curtailment of Title I funding for low-income elementary and secondary schools, and the abolishment of the Department of Education entirely. For universities, the document proposes cutting public funding for area studies programs and rolling back Title IX protections.
Proposals like these are less about improving education than making it another casualty in America’s culture wars.
Trump himself has said that higher education institutions turn students into “communists and terrorists” and called to “fire the radical left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs.”
To put forward a radical, anti-education agenda and target students is to threaten the very foundations of American democracy. Our nation’s educational institutions bear the sacred responsibility of preparing citizens to engage in civic life. Trump’s rhetoric — and the platform his party peddles — endanger that mission, and our country’s future with it.
That does not mean American higher education is perfect. Public confidence in higher education is declining precipitously, and a Morning Consult poll found Harvard’s favorability reached a record low in January. Congressional Republicans have intensified investigations into the University, and Democrats don’t plan to interfere — House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has pledged to let the inquiries “run their course.”
Indeed, we’ve written repeatedly about Harvard’s mistakes. But our school’s real flaws are far afield from the ones you hear about on Fox News.
For example, antisemitism is a grave issue at Harvard and many top universities. But to suggest “antisemitic mobs rule over” Harvard, as Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) recently intimated, is gross hyperbole.
Then, there is exclusivity. While Fox News might have you believe Harvard shut the door on conservatism, the campus elitism problem runs socioeconomic: An analysis by economics professor Raj Chetty ’00 found that a whopping two-thirds of Harvard undergraduates come from the top 20 percent of the income distribution.
All of these shortcomings demand remediation. But don’t think for a second that Trump’s Republican party can be trusted to improve American higher education — or much anything else for that matter.
Higher education is far from the most important issue at stake in this year’s election. The future of immigration, abortion, and access to healthcare all hang in the balance.
And if Trump follows through on his promise to deport student protesters or congressional Republicans restrict abortion and contraception, our peers and fellow Americans alike will feel the effects.
Students: Do thorough research on the issues that matter to you, be critical of the narratives you encounter, and — most importantly — vote.
Your classmates, fellow citizens, and the future of our country depend on it.
This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.
Have a suggestion, question, or concern for The Crimson Editorial Board? Click here.