Harvard Law School professor Andrew Manuel Crespo defended his university’s decision to “take a stand” against the Trump administration Monday.
In an interview on CNN’s “The Source” with anchor Kaitlan Collins, Crespo said he believed “the Trump administration’s decision to cut $2.2 billion from Harvard tonight makes clear … why it’s so important for Harvard, and really every university in the country, to take a stand at this critical moment.”
“You mentioned some of the demands that the administration has made of Harvard. [It] includes things like trying to … appoint a federally-named oversight official to do an audit of every course, every department at Harvard, to see if we have ideological balance to meet the Trump administration’s test for what we teach and what we say at these universities,” Crespo said.
“It’s a transparent effort to change what is taught, what we … say in our classrooms, what we teach our students, to make sure that the only things that are actually said on university campuses are things that the Trump administration wants to hear and wants to be said,” he added.
Last week, the Trump administration demanded that Harvard change multiple policies — including those regarding protesting and diversity, equity and inclusion programs — in order to hold on to its federal funding. The school shot down the demands Monday.
“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,” Harvard President Alan Garber said in a Monday message to the university’s community.
The Trump administration said later Monday that $2.2 billion in multiyear grants would be frozen to Harvard in the wake of the school’s rejection of the demands.
“Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges – that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws,” the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism said in a Monday statement.
Reached for comment, the White House pointed The Hill to Tuesday’s press briefing, during which Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that on “Harvard, the president’s position on this is grounded in common sense, in the basic principle that Jewish American students, or students of any faith, should not be illegally harassed and targeted on our nation’s college campuses.”
—Updated at 4:52 p.m. EDT
