Harvard University’s lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from freezing billions of dollars of federal funding encapsulates a tendency among those who receive grants and other taxpayer largesse to treat these subventions not as privileges but as entitlements.

There is an old insightful maxim that he who pays the piper calls the tune. It should apply as much to the nation’s most prestigious university as it does to everyone else. And as a practical matter, it does, or will. It is patently absurd for Harvard to claim that it must be allowed to hypothecate billions of dollars, to be dependent on federal handouts, in order to be “independent.”

Recommended Stories

• The essential mystery of the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case
• The markets won't let Trump fire Jerome Powell
• American manufacturer welcomes level playing field against China

Harvard could ensure real and complete independence the same way Hillsdale and some other colleges do, by refusing to take even one red cent of federal money. This would leave it free to run its academy in whatever way it sees fit. 

People who hold out their hat in one hand demanding money, and brandish a weapon in the other hand, are called highwaymen. They are not standing for principle, as Harvard pretends to be in its lawsuit, but are threatening our elected government while demanding that taxpayers “stand and deliver.”

To deploy a different metaphor, the university is talking like a teenager telling her parents, “Get out of my life … but first take me to the mall.”

Harvard claims President Donald Trump’s actions to deny it as much as $9 billion breach the First Amendment by improperly trying to control what the university teaches and whom it hires. But personnel is policy, so hiring decisions and teaching practices are the clearest indication of whether or not a university has abandoned education in favor of ideological and political propaganda.

A White House spokesman on Monday responded to Harvard’s lawsuit by saying, “Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege.”

If, in assessing whether to give a 10-figure sum of money to a university, the federal government isn’t allowed to consider what it teaches, there is no yardstick for deciding whether it is a proper academic institution or is really a madrassa masquerading as one.

Speaking of madrassas, the funding freeze is being imposed by a new task force that is examining the conduct of universities where faculty and administration staff allowed and often encouraged racist demonstrators supporting Hamas terrorists not only to voice their vile and ignorant opinions — which is properly protected — but also to stir up vile antisemitism, prevent the core functions of teaching and learning, and to barrack and intimidate Jewish students. 

Recall that former Harvard President Claudine Gay breezily told Congress in 2023 that she didn’t know whether the campus Jew-haters’ behavior broke her university’s code of conduct. Harvard has since ousted Gay and changed its standards precisely to forestall the sort of punishment it is now receiving, but that does not suggest any change of heart. It is also ranked dead last among the nation’s universities for its commitment to free speech, which illuminates its lack of concern about genuine inquiry and learning.

It is not dedicated to free inquiry and the expansion of knowledge but to shaping and indoctrinating a governing class. And it does not deserve money to subsidize this activity from the pockets of taxpayers who broadly and heartily disagree with what it is doing. 

Some of the money being withheld is for specific scientific research, and Harvard says the Trump administration cannot “identify any rational connection” between antisemitism concerns and the denial of research money. Really? The logical connection is that both the license for antisemitism and the research are at Harvard.

Harvard complains that stanching federal funds would cut work on disease, childhood cancer, and other evils and that Americans are safer and healthier because of the university’s work. 

But there are two definitive answers to that. One is that decisions about health and safety are political, not constitutional, and thus are for politicians to make. The other is that while doubtless making children physically healthier by the discoveries of its research, Harvard is also fostering a decidedly unhealthy culture among the rising generation of young adults.

HARVARD’S DEFIANCE DRIPS WITH ENTITLEMENT

Harvard has squandered its reputation for excellence while abusing its privileges, and now it is paying the price. It is fitting that it should do so. It is very clearly within the right of the federal government to withhold funds in its discretion just as it is within its right to grant those funds to better and more estimable institutions.

The sooner and more sharply universities and other recipients of taxpayer money learn that they are not entitled but privileged to be given our money, the better. We entrust a portion of our money to the government we choose and expect it to spend it wisely. For too long, it has failed to do so. Now, for the first time in decades, it is doing what it should, and Harvard is getting what it deserves.