勒索是該政府的策略，它針對的是律師事務所、聯邦法官、不同意其法令的立法者以及傳統上獨立的政府部門。

客座論文

如果像哈佛這樣的強勢大學都無法對抗川普，那誰能呢？

2025 年 4 月 3 日，美國東部時間上午 5:02

信用...蘇菲帕克為《紐約時報》撰稿

聽這篇文章 · 5:28 分鐘了解更多

經過勞倫斯·H·薩默斯

薩默斯先生是一位專欄作家，曾任哈佛大學校長。

美國政府正在試圖迫使美國的精英大學屈服。這關係到大多數美國近來總統和絕大多數最高法院法官畢業的學校的未來，這些學校是我們繁榮的推動者和社會價值觀的塑造者。

川普政府威脅撤回數十億美元資金只不過是敲詐勒索。必須使用一切可用的合法手段來抵制他們。哥倫比亞大學最近的讓步，即同意進行一系列改革以避免損失數億美元的資金，絕不能效仿。每一次投降都會使下一次投降的可能性增大。每一次正直行為都會產生迴響。

正如大多數對抗一樣，這次對抗中雙方的立場並非一面倒。包括我在內擔任教授的哈佛大學在內的精英大學的批評者是正確的，他們認為，這些大學繼續容忍反猶太主義的存在，而這種容忍程度是其他任何形式的偏見都無法想像的，在選拔學生和教師時，他們把身份置於卓越之上，他們缺乏視角的多樣性，並且一再未能實施紀律和維持秩序。

而大學堅持要求聯邦資助者完全不干涉它們的事情，這與它們在批准結果時對微觀管理的熱情不無關係，比如華盛頓威脅說，除非男女運動員的預算相等，否則將扣留資金。

但川普政府並沒有真誠地解決其所謂的反猶太主義問題，其對大學的態度也沒有遵守法律。

訂閱「今日觀點」時事通訊，每週一至週五早上獲取專家的新聞分析和影響世界的重大思想指南。

川普總統讚揚了白人至上主義者的集會，該集會包括高喊「猶太人不會取代我們」、公開與大屠殺否認者共進晚餐、與德國納粹後裔德國選擇黨結盟並引用關於富有猶太人的比喻。副總統 JD Vance 宣稱“大學是敵人”，這表明了他攻擊大學的真正動機。

勒索是該政府的策略，它針對的是律師事務所、聯邦法官、不同意其法令的立法者以及傳統上獨立的政府部門。

1964 年《民權法案》第六章適當地規定，聯邦政府對大學的資助可以以大學避免歧視為前提。但正如一群頂尖法學教授最近發表的聲明所指出的那樣，它還可以防止這種權力被用來懲罰批評者或限制學術自由。該法律的要求包括通知期、聽證會、針對具體違法行為的補救措施以及在削減任何資金之前提前 30 天向國會發出通知。

這些似乎都不是川普政府對待大學的政策的一部分。

白宮的努力並不限於解決歧視問題。校方試圖規定大學在學生紀律、學術組織和校園警政等各方面的行為。

面臨這些威脅的大學應該明確表示，他們只願意就法規涵蓋的事項並按照法律規定的程序與政府官員進行談判。

他們應該明確表示，他們雄厚的財力並非只是為了讓人羨慕或欽佩。它們的部分職能是在緊急情況下動用資金，而彌補聯邦資金缺口肯定算其中之一。身為哈佛大學前校長，請相信我，在緊急情況下也可以找到辦法調配捐贈者已指定專屬用途的捐贈資金。

為了保持大學在很大程度上已喪失的道德高地，大學需要製定更積極的改革議程，重點關注反猶太主義，頌揚卓越而不是崇尚身份，追求真理而不是特定的社會正義觀念，並提倡視角的多樣性作為多樣性的最重要維度。

這不會透過大學通常的審議程序實現，因為該程序賦予了有政治目的的教職員工太多權力。這需要強大而堅定的領導者，以及自信而有能力的受託人的支持。我希望哈佛大學和其他大學在 2023 年 10 月 7 日哈馬斯襲擊之後能夠更快地進行改革，這樣他們的變化就不會顯得是對外部壓力的回應。

哈佛大學等大學是川普政府最近的打擊目標，它們擁有雄厚的財力、極高的聲望以及廣泛的有影響力的校友網絡。如果他們不抵抗政府權力的任意運用，或不能抵抗，還有誰能呢？如果沒有抵抗行為，何來法治？

我希望並相信，在未來的考驗中，大學既能自我改革，又能頂住外在壓力。他們的未來和美國的未來都岌岌可危。

有關川普和高等教育的更多信息

哈佛應該少說一點。也許所有學校都應該這麼做。

2024 年 5 月 28 日

觀點 |克勞迪娜·蓋伊

克勞迪娜蓋伊：哈佛剛剛發生的事情比我更重要

2024 年 1 月 3 日

勞倫斯‧H‧薩默斯（Lawrence H. Summers）是特約評論作家，曾任哈佛大學校長，目前擔任哈佛大學教授。他曾任比爾·柯林頓總統的財政部長。

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Opinion

Guest Essay

If Powerful Places Like Harvard Don’t Stand Up to Trump, Who Can?

April 3, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET

Credit...Sophie Park for The New York Times

Listen to this article · 5:28 min Learn more

By Lawrence H. Summers

Mr. Summers, a contributing Opinion writer, is a former president of Harvard University.

The U.S. government is trying to bludgeon America’s elite universities into submission. At stake is the future of institutions that graduated most of our recent American presidents, the vast majority of Supreme Court justices and that serve as drivers of our prosperity and shapers of our social values.

The Trump administration’s threats to withdraw billions of dollars in funding are little more than extortion. They must be resisted using all available legal means. Columbia University’s recent capitulation, in which it agreed to a raft of changes in an attempt to avoid losing hundreds of millions in funding, must not be emulated. Each act of capitulation makes the next one more likely. Each act of rectitude reverberates.

As in most confrontations, the merits in this one are far from one sided. Critics of elite universities, including Harvard, where I am a professor, 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.

And universities’ insistence that they be entirely left alone by their federal funders rings hollow in light of the enthusiasm they greet micromanagement when they approve the outcome, such as threats from Washington to withhold funds unless men’s and women’s athletic budgets were equalized.

But the Trump administration is not acting in good faith in its purported antisemitism concerns, nor is it following the law in its approach to universities.

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President Trump offered praise to a white-supremacist rally that included chants of “Jews will not replace us,” publicly dined with Holocaust deniers, made common cause with Germany’s Nazi-descendant AfD party and invoked tropes about wealthy Jews. The true motivation behind his attack on universities is suggested by Vice President JD Vance’s declaration that the “universities are the enemy.” Shakedown is the administration’s strategy as it has gone after law firms, federal judges, legislators who disagree with its edicts and traditionally independent arms of the government.

Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act appropriately allows that federal funding of universities can be made contingent on their avoiding discrimination. But as a recent statement by a group of leading law professors points out, it also protects against this power’s being used to punish critics or curtail academic freedom. Among the law’s requirements are notice periods, hearings, remedies that are narrowly tailored to specific infractions and a 30-day congressional notification before any funding is curtailed.

None of this appears to be part of the Trump administration’s approach to universities.

The White House has not confined its efforts to claims about discrimination. The administration seeks to dictate what universities do on matters ranging from student discipline to academic organization to campus policing.

Universities facing those threats should make clear they are willing to negotiate with government officials only over matters covered by statute and through the procedures laid out in the law.

They should make clear that their formidable financial endowments are not there to simply be envied or admired. Part of their function is to be drawn down in the face of emergencies, and covering federal funding lapses surely counts as one. As a former president of Harvard University, believe me when I say that ways can be found in an emergency to deploy even parts of the endowment that have been earmarked for specific use by their donors.

And to maintain the moral high ground, which universities have in large part lost, they need a much more aggressive reform agenda focused on antisemitism, celebrating excellence rather than venerating identity, pursuing truth rather than particular notions of social justice and promoting diversity of perspective as the most important dimension of diversity.

That will not happen through universities’ usual deliberative processes, which give too much power to faculty members who have political agendas. It will require strong, determined leaders backed by confident and competent trustees. I wish Harvard and other universities had reformed much more rapidly after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, so their changes did not appear to be a response to external pressure.

Institutions such as Harvard, the administration’s most recent target, have vast financial resources, great prestige and broad networks of influential alumni. If they do not or cannot resist the arbitrary application of government power, who else can? Without acts of resistance, what protects the rule of law?

I hope and trust, in the time of testing that lies ahead, universities will both reform themselves and stand up to external pressure. Their future and America’s are in the balance.

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