Dr. Caroline Chamberlin Hellman
Harvard’s decision to resist the Trump administration has been greeted with relief, gratitude, and praise. “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,” President Alan M. Garber wrote in the public letter that outlines the institution’s stand against government interference. “Freedom of thought and inquiry, along with the government’s longstanding commitment to respect and protect it, has enabled universities to contribute in vital ways to a free society and to healthier, more prosperous lives for people everywhere. All of us share a stake in safeguarding that freedom. We proceed now, as always, with the conviction that the fearless and unfettered pursuit of truth liberates humanity—and with faith in the enduring promise that America’s colleges and universities hold for our country and our world.”
Expressing support for Harvard’s resistance, Stanford President Jonathan Levin and Provost Jenny Martinez heralded the history of higher education in the United States, noting that “Harvard’s objections to the letter it received are rooted in the American tradition of liberty, a tradition essential to our country’s universities, and worth defending.”
Steeped in the revolutionary language of our country’s founding documents, both Harvard’s letter and Stanford’s response speak to notions of the public good but mount a defense only of private institutions.
Garber’s statement that “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government” calls into question what the future of higher education will be if public and private universities are divided not only by the cost of their degrees but also by government-mandated programming, curriculum, and hiring. Private and public degree offerings will become increasingly disparate as private institutions attempt to safeguard liberal education and an informed, empowered citizenry, while public institutions, some of which have already been choked by political zealotry, are plunged into dystopia—or, in the wake of resistance, face the loss of accreditation. As with the arbitrary gutting of the federal workforce and programs which served communities large and small, the damage done to more vulnerable, less moneyed institutions of higher education will not be easy to repair.
Harvard can afford resistance to the Trump administration. What will befall public colleges and universities? City Tech, where I teach and have served as an administrator, is a part of the City University of New York, the largest public urban university in the United States. As a baccalaureate and associate degree-granting institution, City Tech is “committed to providing broad access to high quality technological and professional education for a diverse urban population.” Here, the revocation of grant funding affects not only innovative research, but also pivotal student success programs that support the “broad access” of our mission. The idea that all institutions of higher ed should follow in Harvard’s footsteps is noble but does not acknowledge quotidian reality; as analysts have noted, a limited number of institutions boast the endowments to independently combat the administration’s demands.
Higher education has been under sustained attack for decades, and academia has sputtered in its own defense, long believing that the majority hold truths about the value of education to be self-evident. The escalating assaults on multiple fronts, combined with the latest attempts to dismantle access to education, present a crucial opportunity to appraise and reform the divisions we may take for granted. We must think about how an exhaustive focus on elite private institutions does not recognize the millions of hardworking students who pursue degrees elsewhere and contribute meaningfully to our society. We must reflect upon the multitude of ways in which public universities further the public good.
In a smaller version of the coalition that is called for across the country, The Big Ten Academic Alliance, comprised of eighteen universities, passed a resolution for a Mutual Defense Compact in Defense of Academic Freedom, Institutional Integrity, and the Research Enterprise. The Call for Constructive Engagement, a petition circulated by The American Association of Colleges and Universities and signed by hundreds of college and university presidents, is a positive step toward realizing representation from a spectrum of higher ed institutions: community colleges, HBCUs, Ivy League universities, women’s colleges, public university systems, small liberal arts colleges and large universities.
Resistance to tyranny has never been free, and liberty cannot be selective: all colleges and universities, public and private, merit protection from incursion. Beyond resolutions, colleges and universities must pursue aggressive, collective legal defense, fundraising, and communication strategy, allying with neighboring institutions just across the street, county, state, and country. Just as America cannot afford to pursue isolationism, American higher educational institutions across the geographic, disciplinary, and ideological spectrum must abandon notions of exceptionalism, instead banding together on an unprecedented scale to form a more perfect union. The entire landscape of higher education in the United States, red state and blue, will emerge the better for it.
Dr. Caroline Chamberlin Hellman is a Professor of English at City Tech, City University of New York. She is a scholar of 19th-21st- century American literature whose publications span gender studies, multiethnic fiction, space and place, literary influence, and public education. Her current research concerns access, equity, and empathy in public higher education today.
