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To date, it should be obvious. The Trump administration’s attack on American universities is not to fight anti -Semitism. This is an attempt to bring institutions that feed independent thought under the control of the government.
For the Trump movement, universities are the heart of the American liberal establishment. If liberalism must be defeated, the best universities must be deleted.
In 2021, JD Vance gave a speech Entitled “Universities are the enemy”. The future vice-president argued that “we must honestly and aggressively attack the universities of this country”.
It is important to note that Vance’s speech was pronounced two years before the October 7 attack on Israel. But the demonstrations of the Gaza campus gave the Maga movement the opening it was looking for. Now Trump, Vance and other instrumentalty cynically the burden of anti -Semitism to continue a vendetta.
Trump and his disciples took a core of truth and built something grotesque. It is true that in the aftermath of the attack on Hamas, certain academics and students, in various American universities, crossed the line in anti -Semitism and glorifying terrorism. Some Jewish students were harassed and even deemed it necessary to disguise their Jewish identity. The presidents of the college, testifying before the congress on the issue of anti -Semitism, gave answers at the head of the bone – and some paid with their work.
But requests exposed in a letter sent by anti -Semitism of the Trump administration working group At Harvard on April 11 went far. In the name of the application of the “diversity of points of view”, the letter essentially demanded that the federal government be given the power to verify the admissions of the students, the hiring of the teachers and the political opinions of the students and the teachers. Harvard, not surprisingly, rejected them.
In a interview Last year, Vance quoted Viktor Orbán, Hungary as a model of university treatment. Under Orban, the University of Central Europe was forced to leave Hungary. Vance suggested that American universities should also receive “a choice between survival or adopt a much less biased approach to teaching”.
The Trump administration threatens federal funding from Harvard, tax exemption status and the ability to admit foreign students. If he can submit the most famous and richest university in America, others can all expect the line. Academic freedom in America would have died.
Putting charges of anti -Semitism at the center of the attack on universities is cynical but tactically clever. The hatred of the Jews is largely and rightly considered as shameful. Open anti -Semitism – or even not to fight anti -Semitism with sufficient vigor – can put your job or your funding in danger. This is suitable for the Trump administration and the government of Netanyahu to eliminate the difference between the opposition to the War of Israel in Gaza and anti -Semitism. But they are obviously not the same thing. Many campus demonstrators in Columbia, Harvard and elsewhere were Jews.
The administration campaign against universities is now – probably deliberately – creating a climate of fear on campuses that extends far beyond pro -Palestinian activists. More than 1,000 foreign students would have had Visas revoked Or legal status has often changed for wave – and some placed in police custody.
Foreign students more than a million foreigners in the United States are invited to walk carefully. The University of Boston, for example, has exhorted To have “personal security plans” – including emergency contacts and friends authorized to recover their children from the daycare if the parents are detained.
For decades, American colleges have attracted talent in the country around the world. The fact that the United States is the house of most of the world’s main universities is one of the largest forces in the country. Destroying the university system is the opposite of “making America large again”. But that could help attract Trump and his heirs to power.
In addition to being a tragedy for the United States, the attack on the university world is a potential disaster for American Jews, for which the major universities of the country have provided a paradise and a way of progress. Louis Brandeis, the very first judge of the Jewish Supreme Court, came by Harvard. Henry Kissinger, a Jewish refugee, and one of the most influential diplomats in America. The Jews are considerably overrepresented in the universities of Ivy League, compared to their proportion of the population.
Vance is a conservative Catholic and Kristi Noem, the interior security secretary who accused Harvard of not having protected the Jews, is an evangelical Christian. Alan Garber, the president of Havard who signed the rejection of administration requests, is Jewish. The same goes for many distinguished academics leading Harvard’s fight – notably Steven Pinker, Lawrence Summers and Steven Levitsky.
Anti -Semitism is a problem in America. But it is undoubtedly at least as widespread on the far right as to the left. THE “Large replacement theory“This criticizes the Jews for having pretended to promote mass immigration has a considerable purchase of the right to support Trump.
The best American colleges are far from being safe from criticism. They were wrong – on everything, from the cancellation of culture to the admission policy. But the Trump administration does not offer friendly advice. It is on a mission to destroy.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
