The intense battle between Harvard and the Trump/MAGA fascist regime over who will control the university continues to escalate. Very significantly, Harvard is drawing broader and more diverse support, seemingly by the day. 

The Trump regime has been waging an aggressive campaign against U.S. universities, with Harvard and other elite “Ivy League” schools in the crosshairs. On April 11, the regime sent Harvard a five-page letter demanding they cede control of their internal workings—curriculum, hiring, research, and admissions—to the government. If they didn’t, they would lose their federal funding. 

On April 14, Harvard became the first university to say No. In a two-page response, Harvard said the demands in the Trump regime’s letter violated the U.S. Constitution and trampled on university prerogatives, or rights, long recognized by the Supreme Court. 

In a letter to the university, Harvard president Alan Garber wrote, “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.”¹

Harvard is the oldest, wealthiest and most prominent university in the U.S. and its defiance galvanized other universities to resist, and gave heart to millions of people. 

Universities: A Key Battlefront in Trump Drive to Consolidate Fascism and Reshape Society

The fight for control of U.S. colleges and universities is a key battlefront in the fascists’ drive to consolidate power and forcefully lock down and reshape all of society in horrific ways—including how people think and what is even allowed to be taught.²

Why are the fascists compelled to take on the universities? 

At their best, universities are bastions of the most important advances of the Enlightenment³, which arose in Europe several centuries ago in opposition to religion’s stranglehold on society. As Bob Avakian has written, “What is essentially involved in this division [between the Christian fascists and those people who are not religious fundamentalists] is the acceptance, or the denial and rejection, of evidence-based rational thought, including the importance of critical thinking, that has, in a broad sense, been the extension of the Enlightenment.”

This promotion of evidence-based rational thought means that universities can be and have been places where the ideas of the rulers can be subjected to critical analysis and debunking. And this is also a key reason why college campuses have historically been one of the main places where new oppositional ideas and movements arise. This has dramatically been the case with the righteous, ongoing struggle against the U.S.-Israeli genocidal onslaught against Gaza, which has swept at least 140 campuses in nearly all 50 states since October 2023.

Evidence-based rationality and critical thinking have always been highly contested, even under “normal” bourgeois rule. But with the rise of fascism in the U.S., any semblance of critical thinking is increasingly seen as a threat. 

Harvard Sues: “The stakes are so high that we have no choice”

The Trump regime responded to Harvard’s letter rejecting its demands by freezing $2.2 billion in federal funds, and it was reportedly planning to cut another $1 billion. 

Harvard again responded with defiance. On April 21, it sued nine Trump regime agencies involved in the cuts⁴ for undertaking an arbitrary and unconstitutional campaign to “punish Harvard for protecting its constitutional rights.” 

The lawsuit demanded that Harvard’s federal funds be restored because the Trump administration had illegally frozen them “as part of its pressure campaign to force Harvard to submit to the Government’s control over its academic programs. That, in itself, violates Harvard’s constitutional rights,” the suit stated.⁵

The suit also debunked the Trump regime’s claims that it was fighting “antisemitism” at Harvard. The funding freeze “has nothing at all to do with antisemitism and Title VI compliance,” the lawsuit stated. "The Government has not—and cannot—identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, science, technological and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives.” (From Harvard’s Complaint against the regime.)⁶

After Harvard rejected the Trump regime’s demands, but before it had filed its lawsuit, Trump officials made repeated attempts to reopen talks with the university.⁷ Harvard refused, and then filed its lawsuit, even as it knew it was in for a titanic battle with no assurance of success. 

In an interview with NBC, Harvard President Alan Garber said the lawsuit was essential to protecting Harvard’s independence and constitutional rights, as well as the future of higher education. “We will not compromise on certain issues,” he said. “We’ve made that very clear.”

When asked whether it was a fight he could win, Garber said he did not know the answer. But, he said, “the stakes are so high that we have no choice.”

220+ University and College Leaders Join Together to Condemn Trump Attacks—Trump Counterattacks

The day after Harvard filed its lawsuit, more than 220 leaders in higher education signed a joint statement condemning the Trump administration’s campaign to control higher education. 

Their Call for Constructive Engagement began, “[W]e speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education. We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.” It was the first time U.S. colleges and universities banded together against the Trump regime’s assaults. 

In response, Trump put out a statement on social media that “Harvard is a threat to democracy.” And then he went on a rampage of executive orders, signing seven targeting education, especially focused on wiping out any remaining efforts to combat discrimination in admissions, hiring and discipline or to teach the true history of the U.S. and the oppression and exploitation that America has perpetrated on masses of people here and all over the world. 

All this stands very much unresolved. Within Harvard itself, there are big donors now demanding that the school “compromise” with Trump. 

The question now is not only how to further carry forward this crucial battle, but how to join this battle to a massive, society-wide fight determined to remove this fascist regime from power NOW.