President Donald Trump has declared war against elite American universities, such as Harvard, and has threatened to cut off federal funding, end tax exemptions, and limit foreign student visas. Harvard has filed lawsuits and threatened additional legal action. The nation is deeply divided over this conflict. How should Americans who care deeply about universities, about antisemitism, and about the proper role of government respond to this dangerous rift?
Alan Dershowitz poses four basic questions about the decision whether to defund or otherwise punish universities that discriminate against—or apply a double standard to—Jews as victims of discrimination.
• Is it ever permissible, as a matter of policy and academic freedom, to weaponize governmental funding of universities in an effort to influence their policies?
• Is it constitutional or otherwise legal to cut off governmental funding based on the content of university speech or policies?
• Is the Trump administration justified in defunding universities such as Harvard and Columbia for their failures to deal effectively with growing antisemitism on their campuses?
• Can the government deny student (or faculty) visas to individuals who advocate or promote antisemitism or other actions that violate American policies?
Among the reforms Dershowitz advocates are a return to meritocratic admissions and hiring; a return to rigorous blind grading; the end of the non-meritocratic diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracies; the application of a single standard of free speech, academic freedom, and discipline; and the end of ethnic, gender, regional, religious, sexual preference, and other identity-based departments, studies, programs, and other advocacy centers that have become incubators for anti-Jewish bigotry.
