Harvard Stands Up To Trump

And a baseball cartoon (‘tis the season!)

Harvard says it will not comply with Trump’s demands of asking for merit-based in hiring and admissions, and report international students who broke rules (whatever that means). Harvard calls this request illegal and is the first major university to say no to Trump. Other universities have pushed back, but Harvard is calling his demand illegal, which is a first for a higher institution. Fantastic.

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” said Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a statement to the university on Monday. Last month, more than 800 faculty members at Harvard signed a letter urging the university to “mount a coordinated opposition to these anti-democratic attacks.”

Trump has been targeting high profile ivy league institutions, trying to control what they teach and who they hire and admit. It’s all a part of a plan to control dissent and critical thinking in the US; an effort to squash what the administration deams liberal wokeness. Private educational institutions have that right in our democracy to teach free thought and teach it with intellects of whatever race or creed they deem best.

I am on the board of my high school, Sidwell Friends School, and we have discussed how, if, and when Trump might go after secondary schools. Particuarly ones in his back yard in Washington DC like my…