Back in 1952, the Commission on Financing of Higher Education, sponsored by the Association of American Universities, released its findings, concluding, “We are convinced that it would be fatal were federal support to be substantially extended. Power means control. Diversity disappears, as control emerges. Under control, our hundreds of universities and colleges would follow the order of one central institution, and the freedom of higher education would be lost.” Seven decades on, one wonders if the authors of that finding — which included the heads of several major colleges, including Harvard — had any sense of just how prophetic their words would become.

Harvard has become the latest institution to fall into the crosshairs of the Trump administration, which announced on Monday it was freezing some $2.2 billion in funding to the university if it failed to acquiesce to a number of demands. Trump started this earlier in the year with Columbia, in response to that campus having been reduced to a Jacobinical cesspool of anarchic lawlessness, antisemitic violence and intimidation.

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Now, let it not be said the demands the Trump administration is making of Harvard are inimical to the furtherance of the aims of higher education; indeed, most, if not all of the items on President Donald Trump’s list are likely rather profitable to the course of of academic pursuit. The merits of the demands aside, we are left to ponder: is this within the president’s authority? And is this even properly an area in which the government ought to intervene in the first place?

Well, some of the demands do seem to fall within the executive branch’s duty to enforce federal law, including civil rights laws in requiring the institution to discipline students engaging in antisemitic behavior, and finally enforcing the Supreme Court’s ban on the utilization of race discrimination (affirmative action) in admissions. Likewise the requirement to “shutter all diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, which are also a violation of federal law. And the federal government clearly has an interest in preventing foreign terrorist groups from establishing any kind of a foothold in American institutions of higher learning.

From there, it gets a bit more muddied. The administration’s insistence on requiring “viewpoint diversity,” for example, is not a clear-cut exercise of proper governmental function, and is a double-edged sword which could (and I predict will) be turned on less deserving targets under a Democratic administration. A similar confusion is encountered in requiring Harvard to reduce “governance bloat” and “duplication”; again, great idea — one of the major reasons for the egregiously high cost of university is guaranteed federal dollars and federally-guaranteed student loans all but eliminate any incentive for colleges to cut the size of administration and redirect those resources to teaching. But these are reforms for college trustees to pursue, not the federal government. 

So yes, this is another example of President Trump overextending his due authority. Yes, but on the other hand, Harvard has only itself to blame for being in this mess.

Lawrence Summers, former president of and current professor at Harvard, wrote a piece for the New York Times earlier this month, in which he called for universities to stand up to Trump, his demands, and threats of funding cuts. But he also had this to say:    

“Critics of elite universities, including Harvard… are right that they continue to tolerate antisemitism in their midst in a way that would be inconceivable with any other form of prejudice, that they have elevated identity over excellence in the selection of students and faculty, that they lack diversity of perspective and that they have repeatedly failed to impose discipline and maintain order.”

He adds, making the crucial point: “And universities’ insistence that they be entirely left alone by their federal funders rings hollow in light of the enthusiasm with which they greeted micromanagement when they approved of the outcome, such as threats from Washington to withhold funds unless men’s and women’s athletic budgets were equalized.”

Summers, in essence, agrees with the 1952 Commission on Financing of Higher Education, basically observing universities, having accepted the elixir of government funding and grown intoxicated by it, have become little more than subjects of that government. The lesson: beware the strings attached to a politician’s largesse.

The alternative, which happens to be my view, is that private universities ought to receive no such largesse, and in exchange be allowed to make and enforce their own, well-advertised rules; an allowance which, in any case, ought not shield them from the contempt of the public, including the parents of future students.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.