The American right once prided itself on defending freedom of speech, limited government, and the insulation of universities from heavy-handed federal control. Now, in a deeply ironic and dangerous turn, Donald Trump’s administration has launched a political attack on Harvard University — demanding ideological restructuring under threat of defunding.
As Walter Olson of the Cato Institute correctly warns, the federal government has no legal authority to mandate “viewpoint diversity” at private universities, nor to punish them for perceived ideological imbalances. Conservatives who value constitutional principles must resist this abuse of power, even if they harbor grievances against higher education.
“No civil rights law on the books requires ‘viewpoint diversity’ in university admissions or hiring,” Olson reminds us. Nor does any statute create a protected class of students or faculty based on ideological views.
Yet Trump’s Department of Education is seeking exactly that: to restructure Harvard’s governance, disciplinary procedures, and even the internal organization of named departments — on the government’s own ideological terms.
As Olson writes, “[T]he Trump administration is demanding of Harvard University on pain of massive peremptory cutoffs of funding for ongoing scientific research and other programs — cutoffs that appear to violate a number of legal safeguards meant to prohibit arbitrary or spiteful defunding without due process.”
This tactic is especially troubling because it deliberately reverses the normal order of justice: punishment first, verdict later. Trump’s appointees have already tested this strategy against Columbia University, extracting concessions by threatening funding before any formal findings of wrongdoing.
Yet, as Olson notes: before federal funding can be cut off, the government must specify charges, provide the accused institution an opportunity to respond, and issue written findings — all of which can then be contested in court. None of these due process protections were followed.
Moreover, even if a civil rights violation were found, the law forbids cutting funds for unrelated programs, such as scientific research or hospital grants, over an alleged infraction in an undergraduate department.
If the federal government can use its funding power to force ideological compliance at universities, no part of civil society would be safe from political manipulation.
As Olson rightly notes, “the courts have made it clear…that Washington may not use the threat of defunding to extract the surrender of constitutionally protected rights such as those protected by the First Amendment.”
The freedom of universities to determine their own faculty, curricula, and academic standards — including the freedom to err — is a bedrock constitutional value. Attempts to coerce Harvard, Columbia, or any other institution into political conformity should alarm anyone committed to liberty, no matter their opinion of the particular universities involved.
It is also important to separate valid legal claims from political theater. If Harvard or any other university violated specific students’ rights — for instance, by tolerating antisemitic harassment during Gaza-related protests — those claims deserve to be fully and fairly adjudicated in court.
But Olson reminds us, “no civil rights law requires private universities to cease all so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.”
While the Supreme Court’s recent rulings have narrowed the permissibility of race-based admissions preferences, softer DEI initiatives, such as workplace trainings, remain legally permissible unless they can be shown to directly deny opportunity to individuals.
In short, it is the courts — not presidential decree — that must determine the lawful boundaries of university conduct, and only on the basis of existing law, not political outrage.
Further compounding the constitutional violations, Trump has now reportedly directed the IRS to revoke Harvard’s tax exemption based on the novel (and baseless) theory that nonprofit status depends on serving the government’s current view of the “public interest.”
This argument, Olson explains, is a drastic and unwarranted expansion of the narrow precedent set in the 1983 Bob Jones University case. There, the Supreme Court upheld the revocation of Bob Jones’s tax exemption because the university’s policies embodied explicit racial discrimination in violation of deeply rooted public policy.
Since then, courts and policymakers have carefully limited the reach of Bob Jones, recognizing the peril of allowing tax status to be weaponized against unpopular or controversial viewpoints.
As Olson cautions, “[d]efenders of limited government have worked carefully and successfully to confine the supposed principle to the narrow facts of that one case.”
If Trump’s gambit succeeds, it would set a precedent that endangers a wide range of private institutions — including religious schools and conservative think tanks — by subjecting their tax-exempt status to the ideological whims of whichever administration is in power. Today it might be Harvard in the crosshairs; tomorrow it could be Liberty University or the Catholic University of America.
It is easy, and perhaps satisfying for some, to view elite universities as ideological adversaries and to cheer federal retaliation against them. But the principle at stake transcends any one institution.
Freedom of speech, academic independence, and the limitation of government coercion are not partisan values; they are American values. We must defend them consistently, even — and especially — when doing so benefits those with whom we disagree.
This is not a question of whether Harvard’s administrators made mistakes, or whether the university could do more to foster genuine intellectual diversity. Reasonable people can and should debate those issues.
But the federal government cannot constitutionally dictate the ideological composition of a private university’s faculty or student body, any more than it could dictate the content of a newspaper’s editorial page. Nor can it lawfully use the blunt instrument of funding or tax status to extort ideological compliance.
As Olson writes, “[t]he confining of Bob Jones to its facts is still a worthy goal — even if some of Trump’s allies have decided to change sides on the subject.”
The temptation to wield government power against political enemies is perennial. But it must be resisted. A government strong enough to force Harvard to recant its ideology is also strong enough to force Hillsdale or Baylor or BYU to do the same. The principle must hold: universities — like newspapers, churches, and civic associations — must remain free from ideological control by the state.
In a free society, the marketplace of ideas must remain open and competitive, even when certain institutions seem to favor one set of ideas over another. Reform, when needed, must come through persuasion, not coercion. The moment we abandon that principle — even for causes we believe just — we set a precedent that future governments will surely exploit.
Harvard deserves scrutiny, debate, and critique, as all powerful institutions do. But it also deserves — as all universities do — protection from unlawful political intimidation. The fight is not for Harvard alone; it is for the very idea of freedom of thought itself.
“The American right once prided itself on defending freedom of speech, limited government, and the insulation of universities from heavy-handed federal control.”
The second sentence SHOULD have spoke about how the left now is the side shutting down freedom of speech. But you went a different direction . . .
THIS STATES: “No civil rights law on the books requires ‘viewpoint diversity’ in university admissions or hiring,” AND AT THE END STATES “The fight . . . is for the very idea of freedom of thought itself.”
So there is no requirement for ‘viewpoint diversity’, yet freedom of thought itself is threatened. In other words, the thoughts should be free, as long as everyone is sharing OUR viewpoint (far-left progressive).
Tell me I’m wrong.
(and what’s with the hand coming out of Trump’s chin?)
Yup, there’s not much diversity of thought approved of on campuses, especially when a vast majority of professors are liberals.
Good luck getting a passing grade if you’re a conservative in an activist professor’s class.
What, no questioning the AI pic?
What’s with the hand?
I agree with some aspects of DEI, more those regarding opportunity and inclusion, so I don’t like the idea of someone being ‘for’ or ‘against’ as a blanket statement. But there were these ”diversity statements” for faculty job applicants, asking candidates to articulate, for example, past contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion and to outline how they plan to support DEI efforts in the future. That really is a pledge to a particular ideology as a requisite for hiring. If universities are supposed to support ‘free thought’, it is wise to have a diversity of ideas so everyone has the opportunity to have discussions and test out their own ideas against those of others. These ‘diversity statements’ appear to have no purpose than to turn certain learning institutions into the educational equivalent of NPR, if not “Democracy Now!” itself.