Now that Harvard has proven it’s possible to tell Donald Trump no, Rachel Maddow is offering a course in Fighting Authoritarianism 101 for the other higher education institutions of America.
“Harvard University is the first university in the United States to just flatly and publicly refuse to capitulate to the Trump administration’s blitzkrieg against academia,” she explained on her MSNBC show Tuesday night. “Trump has been threatening to weaponize federal funding against any college or university that won’t roll over and let him essentially take over the administration of the school and even its academic curriculum. He’s thus far canceled or frozen funding to six of the eight schools in the Ivy League and one school in the Big Ten.”
Columbia was the first school to draw Trump’s ire, and subsequently acquiesced to his DEI policy demands. However, Harvard outright rejected them this week — and some schools in the Big Ten already have a plan in place for once they’re tested.
“I think a lot of people are hoping that this might put steel in some other institutions’ spines that they ought to be fighting back, too,” Maddow said. “Now, in terms of the colleges and universities, Trump may have been going after the Ivies first, but him doing that has afforded other colleges the chance to sort of get their act to together to figure out what they’re going to do before he inevitably comes for them. And we’re seeing the results of some of that right now.”
In late March, Rutgers made a resolution to establish a “mutual defense compact,” in which participating schools would offer the services of their legal counsel, governance experts and/or public affairs offices to “coordinate a unified and vigorous response” if/when they become under direct political infringement.
The University of Nebraska at Lincoln and Indiana University at Bloomington have since followed suit, marking three of the Big Ten schools — of which there are 18 — as well as UMass Amherst.
“So we’ve got Harvard leading on their own after almost all the other Ivies were targeted. Now we’ve got the other higher education institutions in the country who know that Trump is coming for them realizing that you can see it coming,” Maddow recapped. “The way to do it is not to fight on your own, but to be prepared and to get organized and to make sure you’re not fighting alone.”
She concluded, “I mean, Fighting Authoritarianism 101 says, ‘Don’t fight alone.’ Whether you organize along athletic conferences, or academic rivalries or a bunch of colleges along the same interstate — whatever organizing principle you choose, get together, do not fight alone and be ready before they come for you.”
“The Rachel Maddow Show” airs weeknights at 9 p.m. ET on MSNBC.
