Doing Something

This week, the trump administration sent Harvard University a demand letter. At first glance, it reads like a civics lesson on federal accountability. But peel back the rhetoric, and it’s something far more sweeping: a threat, wrapped in bureaucratic prose, aimed at coercing the oldest and most prestigious university in the United States into political compliance.

The letter’s core message can be summed up with an old idiom: he who pays the piper calls the tune. The piper, of course, is Harvard. The tune, according to this administration, is whatever the federal government decides it should be.

The letter is sprawling and, in many ways, meaningless—full of vague accusations and sweeping mandates. It accuses Harvard of failing to uphold federal civil rights laws but offers no evidence or legal justification. If there were actual violations, there are courts for that. But this isn’t about justice. It’s about control.

And control is exactly what the government is after. Early in the letter, the real agenda becomes clear: a demand for full oversight of hiring practices, admissions policies, student discipline, even the source and use of all foreign funds. Harvard is to “submit to a forensic audit,” “certify reports to the federal government,” and “ensure full transparency with federal regulators.” The scope of these demands reads like a blueprint for federal occupation—only with spreadsheets and subpoenas instead of soldiers.

There’s a paragraph about “Antisemitism and Other Biases.” But it’s really just about antisemitism, specifically referencing last summer’s campus protests. The letter demands names of faculty who allegedly “discriminated against Jewish or Israeli students” or encouraged rule-breaking after October 7. I can already hear many fellow Jews cheering, “Finally, the government is doing something about antisemitism!” But I wonder how they don’t—or won’t—see that this kind of “doing something” is a grave threat to institutional liberty.

This isn’t a defense of Harvard. The university has its flaws. But that’s the point—so do all institutions. What’s chilling is not that Harvard is being asked to reflect; it’s that it’s being told to submit. And what happens when other universities—without a $52 billion endowment—receive their own letters?

Fortunately, Harvard said no. President Alan M. Garber, himself Jewish, refused to yield. In response, the federal government froze $2.2 billion in grants. But this piper, for now, won’t be bought.

The real question is: who’s next—and will they be able to say no?