John Sexton writes for HotAir.com about significant developments at a major American university.
Harvard earned a lot of praise last month for standing up to the Trump administration. …
… The Trump administration responded by pulling federal funding, just as it had done previously at Columbia University. Harvard took things up another notch and sued the administration. But even as all this was happening there were reports that, behind the scenes, both Harvard and the administration were looking to make a deal. And by the end of last month, there were signs that Harvard was softening its stance a bit.
Harvard will no longer host or fund affinity group celebrations during Commencement, the University’s former diversity office wrote in an email to affinity groups on Monday afternoon.
The decision comes months after the U.S. Department of Education threatened another wave of funding cuts if the University did not cancel graduation celebrations that might separate students based on race.
The school also renamed its diversity office, changing the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging into the office of Community and Campus Life.” There was no overarching announcement about these changes. The school never said it was trying to comply with some of the administration’s demands, but that was certainly how it looked.
Today, the NY Times reports some Harvard administrators are having second thoughts about leading the resistance. Maybe they’d be better off making a deal.
…behind the scenes, several senior officials at Harvard and on its top governing board believe that the university is confronting a crisis that could last until President Trump is out of power, according to three people involved in the discussions. Even if Harvard’s legal case is successful, these officials say, the school will still face enormous troubles that may force the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university to rethink its identity and scale. …
University leaders believe the only clear options are either working with Mr. Trump or somehow securing huge sums of money quickly, perhaps from private donors, the three people said.
