Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, announced Tuesday, doesn’t address the fact the federal government wants to remove billions in public funding from a private university.
This particular university, part of the elite Ivy League, is also the world’s richest with an endowment of more than $53 billion. That is more than the annual GDP of numerous countries such as Estonia, Jordan, and Tunisia.
The administration last week announced it would freeze $2.2 billion in federal funding over Harvard's failure to protect the safety, well-being and learning environment for a reported 700 undergraduate Jewish students, who comprise almost 10% of the student body there.
Harvard President Alan Garber said the administration’s decision is about more than antisemitism and, for that reason, announced that Harvard will not comply with its demands.
The government’s letter to Harvard also addresses the activist nature of some Harvard faculty and the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practices and philosophy.
The Wall Street Journal on Sunday reported the Trump administration has plans to cut an additional $1 billion in Harvard funding.
It’s no surprise that Harvard is fighting back. A billion here, a billion there, have meaning even to a school with a $53 billion endowment.
Taxpayer dollars to private education may seem odd on the surface, but one primary reason is for the research and development provided by these schools, AFN previously reported.
These activities often lead to economic growth and job creation. Many Ivy League schools also conduct research that is important for national defense, healthcare and other areas important to Americans.
The government sees its funding as an investment, one for which the current administration sees no worthy return at many Ivy League universities when Jewish students fear for their safety amid anti-Israel protests and sentiment.
The race-obsessed DEI ideology also fails to align with Trump administration goals.
“This is what happens when the federal government gets too big, too powerful. You can’t track all of this,” Mike Donnelly, an attorney and constitutional law professor, said on American Family Radio Monday.
“People use the money for their own political agenda," he observed, "and that's what Harvard has done, along with other universities.”
The concerns outlined by the administration are real, Donnelly told show host Jenna Ellis.
Harvard’s fight to keep tax dollars
But Harvard in its lawsuit contends that the government, having provided such high-level funding for years, should not be allowed to rescind it in the blink of an eye.
“Is there a problem with DEI and a failure of universities to protect Jewish students, which is one of the complaints the administration has against some of these universities? I think there is. What do we do about it? Do universities have a right to this funding? No, they don't,” Donnelly said.
“The complaint that Harvard has against the government is, ‘Hey look, there are procedures you have to follow, and you can't just freeze funding. You've got to go through certain procedures, including giving us notice, telling us there's a problem, informally working things out, and then formal action,’” Donnelly explained.
The procedural approach may be a solid legal angle for Harvard.
You don’t have to travel far back in time to see schools respond to the perceived threat of federal funding cuts.
Multiple states joined lawsuits against the Biden administration’s rewrite of Title IX, the landmark 1972 law to advance women’s rights, which sought to include protections for transgenders and pave the way for increased numbers of biological men in women’s locker rooms, bathrooms and other public spaces.
Two federal courts banned the administration from enforcing the new Title IX in red states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Montana, Tennessee and others.
Donnelly says Trump is on the right path as he seeks to reign in a federal government that has grown too large and has drifted too far to the left.
But government bureaucracy may be up for the challenge.
“He is a force of nature in and of himself. What he’s going to continue to find, I think, is that the administrative state and the federal government itself is a force of nature. It’s not just going to allow its funding to be taken away, its policies to be taken away,” Donnelly said.
The battle cry is different in Trump’s second term. You don’t hear “drain the swamp,” but that’s essentially what Trump is trying to do in his spending and policy initiatives, Donnelly said.
“Let’s not forget, we’re $36 trillion in debt. We spend $2 trillion more than we take in,” he said.
Congress before the Easter break passed a proposed $1.5 trillion in cuts to advance the budget reconciliation negotiations. Republicans say they’ll eventually spend a spending bill to Trump that will address many of his priorities.
Lawmakers need to be more aggressive in supporting Trump’s agenda, Donnelly says.
The other side of government coin
As Trump takes “bold action” as Donnelly calls it, whether that’s with Ivy League schools like Harvard or elsewhere, he has received and should expect more Harvard-like pushback along the way.
“Congress has given away so much of its authority. It has abdicated its oversight responsibility. It’s just political theater, and if we’re going to fix this country, it’s going to take a lot more than Congress. It’s going to take states, it’s going to take we the people electing people, and the state governments are going to have to start pushing back,” Donnelly said.
For the Harvard fight, Donnelly says the Trump administration may have “gotten out over its skis a bit in terms of the way it has gone after Harvard,” but Harvard should remember that “with government coin comes government control.
“We’ll see how the court sorts its out, but (Trump) is going in the right direction.”
