The academy should now recover its institutional autonomy, we are told.
The academic “resistance” has found its rallying cry. “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,” wrote Harvard President Alan Garber. Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber, on a campaign of his own to defend elite schools against the Trump administration’s crackdown, shared Garber’s quote across social media and added, “Princeton stands with Harvard. I encourage everyone to read President Alan Garber’s powerful letter in full.”
Leaders from peer schools have formed a “private collective” to rally around that principle. The Wall Street Journal reports that “the allied university leaders agree that one red line for them is relinquishing academic independence, including autonomy over admissions, hiring, and what they teach and how it is taught.”
The argument for academia’s immunity is intuitive, catchy, and nonpartisan, at least on its face. Witness Golden State Warriors head coach (and occasional Democratic Party activist) Steve Kerr picking it up at a press conference where he donned a Harvard basketball shirt. “It’s crucial for all of our institutions to be able to handle their own business the way they want to,” Kerr told reporters. “They should not be shaken down and told what to teach — what to say — by our government.”
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Civitas Institute
______________________
Tal Fortgang is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He was a 2023 Sapir Fellow.
Photo by Patric Xo/Getty Images
