Harvard Defended You. Now It’s Your Turn.

First: Congratulations upon your graduation! Completing the requirements for a College degree is an exacting exercise in calm times. Your journey has been marked by non-stop tumult.

You began college in the anxious aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. You greeted three University presidents during your tenure here. You witnessed one of the most bitter, volatile, and consequential struggles in American history for control of the White House. The disruptions and antagonisms that erupted in the aftermath of October 7th rivalled in intensity those that roiled the campus during the 1960s.

Then, in your final semester, the federal government launched an unprecedented attack on Harvard, charging it with violations of federal anti-discrimination law, depriving it of funding, and demanding that the University submit to various ideological dictates. You are thus graduating at a momentous juncture in Harvard’s storied history.

In the spring of 2025, all of higher education awaited Harvard’s response. Many observers were gripped by trepidation. I know that I was. After all, some venerable institutions had buckled in the face of the Trump Administration’s extortionate demands upon universities and law firms. Intimidated, they had waived their moral and legal rights, acceding to “deals” that sacrificed their integrity. Harvard responded differently.

On April 14, 2025, in an action that will long be celebrated by proponents of academic freedom and due process, University President Alan M. Garber ’76 informed the Trump administration that the University declined to submit to the government’s ultimatum.

In a Churchillian move, Garber declared: “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” Elaborating, he maintained that no government, irrespective of party, should control extra-legally what or how private universities can teach or structure their intellectual, moral, and scholarly environments.

The position that he resolutely adopted has rightly been applauded by many people of widely varying political complexions. “Harvard’s stand might not make it the constitutional hero that we want,” wrote conservative columnist and Harvard Law School graduate David French, “but it is the constitutional hero we need.”

You, the Harvard Class of 2025, should feel proud of being part of a university that is standing up for essential values in difficult — indeed, foreboding — circumstances. Harvard is deficient in various ways to be sure. But when the fate of its place as a leading, autonomous, free institution was on the line, its leaders rose to the occasion.

They did so not only with the future of Harvard in mind. They acted, too, in full recognition of this University’s outsized influence on higher education, and, indeed, American culture at large. They acted knowing that if Harvard capitulated to the government’s grotesque encroachment, other institutions would quickly follow suit. They acted on behalf of values that our community at its best exemplifies.

Our leadership was able to do the right thing only because of a hopeful confidence that key sectors of our community — faculty, students, and alumni — would rally to Harvard’s defense. Keep that in mind as you transition to a different phase in your affiliation with the University.

I urge you to take steps to stay abreast of developments so that you can be aware of ongoing and new challenges and responses to them. I urge you to communicate your impressions to University leaders. You are smart, knowledgeable, capable, creative, and resourceful. Your counsel is valuable.

Finally, I urge you to support the University in any way that you can, including financially. We must be candid and realistic at this all too perilous moment. Bravery, though essential, is insufficient. Strength is crucial. Effective resistance to the siege we face will require, among other things, internally generated financing to substitute, at least temporarily, for the funding that the government has wrongly suspended.

University leadership would be unable to contest governmental tyranny without the financial wherewithal supplied over a long period of time by admirers, allies, and alumni — people like you who have been tremendously benefitted by the knowledge and know-how that Harvard bequeaths to the world. Do what you can to assist in this trying moment.

Congratulations again! I look forward to learning about your adventures and contributions in the months, years, and decades ahead.