Ex-Harvard president Lawrence Summers says Trump's endgame is getting universities to "bend the knee"
On college campuses, spring is often a sunny time: finals are finished, and commencement festivities begin. But at some schools, there is now crisis. President Trump is ramping up an extraordinary pressure campaign on higher education, especially on universities he has vilified, including Harvard University. A lot is on the line: billions in research funds, the status of foreign students, the future of admissions, and academic freedom.
On Thursday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller announced, "Universities are on notice … the clearest example that we're all familiar with, of course, being Harvard, which is engaged in repeated systemic and sustained violations."
Harvard, which has had more than $2 billion in grants frozen, is fighting back.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, on his "Fighting Oligarchy" tour, praised the university, saying, "I want to applaud Harvard University for having the guts to stand up to them."
Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers repeated that sentiment: "I'm very proud of the university that I once led and still teach," he said.
Summers sees a confrontation playing out over American values: "If Harvard, America's richest university, America's university that had produced the most presidents, if Harvard couldn't stand up, nobody else could."
I asked, "What's President Trump's endgame with Harvard?"
"I think his endgame is to try to get the university to bend the knee," Summers said.
"That's extortion"
To correct what it sees as a "progressive takeover," the Trump administration has issued a flurry of demands on diversity policies and on how anti-Semitism is handled – a concern sparked by the protests following the Hamas attack on Israel.
Summers says it's fair to criticize the university: "Harvard has had a big problem with anti-Semitism. It's got a big problem with too many progressives relative to the number of conservatives. It's had a big problem of paying too much attention to identity politics."
But Summers says President Trump is not trying to reform Harvard in good faith; he says the president wants to break it. "The laws say you have to have hearings," he said. "The laws say you have to give notice. The laws don't say you can engage in extortion. And when you simply cut off all funding based on a set of conditions, that's extortion."
"What do you say to an American who didn't go to the Ivy League and they think Harvard is a little biased toward the left?" I asked. "Why should they care about President Trump exerting pressure on major universities?"
"I would say they're right to worry about Harvard being a little tilted to the left," said Summers. "But I would also tell them that if you cut off funding for cancer research, cancer cures are going to come more slowly."
On Friday, President Trump escalated his fight, writing on his social media platform, "We are going to be taking away Harvard's Tax Exempt Status. It's what they deserve!" That, on top of the held-up funds, could put Harvard's finances at risk.
Responding to Summers, a White House spokesman told "Sunday Morning": "The real threat to higher education comes when places like Harvard let their students' civil rights get trampled …. President Trump is standing up for every student denied an education or safe campus because left-wing universities fail to protect their civil rights."
- Harvard's ability to enroll foreign students threatened by Homeland Security
- Marco Rubio says 300 student visas have been revoked, including detentions at Tufts, Columbia and more
- Tufts University declares support for student detained by ICE, seeks immediate release
- University of Minnesota graduate student detained by ICE, school says
"There's still hope that this will all be a bad dream"
Summers has been a force for decades – Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration, then a Harvard president who was portrayed on the silver screen, in "The Social Network."
His parents were both university professors, and he became a tenured Harvard professor by age 28. "I've spent my life in universities," he said. "Universities are the source of so many of the ideas that shape society. So, gosh, I think of universities as the place I've wanted to spend my life."
Today he is also keeping close watch on the economy, as Mr. Trump issues sweeping tariffs.
I asked, "What are they saying in the boardrooms across America right now about President Trump's economic policy? What's the real talk?"
"I think there's a lot of anxiety," Summers replied. "There's a lot of slightly stunned head-shaking. I think there's still hope that this will all be a bad dream from which they can wake up."
Over the years, Summers has had the ears of Presidents Obama and Biden. But he doesn't have President Trump's ear.
I asked, "If you had a moment with President Trump to talk about the economy, what would you say?"
Summers replied, "I would plead with him to set a course that he believes he can stick to, so we don't have a kind of generalized paralysis waiting on his next press conference that tips the economy into recession."
Summers says whether it's on Wall Street or at the Ivy League, it's time to brace for turbulence.
"So, we're in the calm before the storm, in your view?" I asked.
Summers replied, "If this is calm, I don't know that I want to see what a storm looks like!"
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Story produced by David Rothman. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
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