Harvard professor gives perspective on the Trump administration clash with university

Transcript:

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

So what does this clash between Harvard and the Trump administration look like to people who study, teach, and conduct research at the school? Nikolas Bowie has both a law degree and a doctorate in history from Harvard and is now a law professor there, and he is with us now. Professor Bowie, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

NIKOLAS BOWIE: Thank you.

MARTIN: It would seem clear that the administration, as well as his allies in Congress and elsewhere, had Harvard in its sights. And I’m thinking about that congressional – that very contentious congressional hearing that led to the president being forced out last January. But I was wondering if you and other faculty were surprised in any way by the scale, you know, of the administration’s attack – more than $2 billion in funding being frozen, demanding to oversee academic departments, this – and, you know, now this threat to revoke the tax-exempt status.

BOWIE: Yeah, I am. You know, my mother had Alzheimer’s disease. And every month, I drove her to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which is a Harvard affiliate, so she could participate in a study about slowing the progression of her disease. And I would be furious to learn that the study was canceled midway because the president stripped the hospital of its federal funding, yet that’s what the president right now is proposing. Seven out of $9 billion that Harvard receives from the government goes towards hospitals and medical research, and so for him to hold that research hostage is, frankly, appalling.

MARTIN: So I noticed that the university, on its website, is highlighting its research projects. Is one of the threatened projects about Alzheimer’s disease and ALS and things of that sort?

BOWIE: Yeah. That’s exactly right. So right now the sciences and medical research at Harvard is directly impacted by federal funding, but pretty much everything that Harvard does is in some way related to the federal government. When I was a law student, I learned law from the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard. And it took on powerful opponents like Shell or foreign countries to hold them accountable and ensure that they were adhering to international law. The demand letter last Friday took aim at that particular clinic. I can’t imagine why, but I suspect that one reason is because the Trump administration doesn’t like the legal positions it’s articulating. And so I think it represents a threat to all of us at the university that no matter what we’re researching or studying, if it happens to not meet, you know, the desires of the Trump administration, we could find ourselves in the crosshairs.

MARTIN: So one of the criticisms the Trump administration has leveled at Harvard is that there has not been adequate viewpoint diversity, meaning that there are not enough, or fewer, conservative viewpoints represented on the faculty and in the teaching and so forth. In Harvard’s response on Monday, it said it had already made major changes over the last 15 months to devote resources to programs that promote ideological diversity. So isn’t that, in some way, an admission that the Trump administration had a point there?

BOWIE: I think that it’s important that faculty and administrators determine what is taught at Harvard and other universities. For us to change what we think is important because of prevailing orthodoxy in the White House would turn Harvard’s pursuit of truth, its motto of Veritas, into just pursuit of popular opinion. That may be an important role for politicians to take, and elected officials, but it’s not the role of academics. Our job is to, you know, gain wisdom and understanding. And of course, that requires bringing in diverse viewpoints. And of course, having conservative and other colleagues who can participate in these conversations is critical. But it shouldn’t be done at the point of a financial gun.

MARTIN: So you have expertise in constitutional law. And I want to note that there have been – and my colleague Elissa Nadworny noted that there are – two lawsuits that have been filed against the administration are, you know, trying to oppose these moves at Harvard. One pertains to enforcement – immigration enforcement policies targeting noncitizens for expressing pro-Palestine views, which the lawsuit says is a violation of the First Amendment. The other one speaks to these funding freezes. As briefly as you can, does the administration, or do the people who file these lawsuits, feel confident that you may be successful in opposing these changes?

BOWIE: We do. You know, no law in this country permits the president to seize federal funds and to just keep them until an institution complies with his personal will. You know, there’s laws that govern how federal funds are used because they’re used for important things, like research. The Constitution also just prohibits public officials from abusing their power to punish their political enemies. That’s what the president is doing here when he’s deporting students for protesting injustices in Gaza. That’s what he’s – with – and then – it doesn’t permit him to punish the rest of the university, either, for how it disciplined those students.

MARTIN: That’s Nikolas Bowie. He’s Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Professor Bowie, thank you so much for joining us.

BOWIE: Thank you for having me.