Columns
No, Harvard’s Endowment Cannot Withstand Trump
The headline number this week was $2.2 billion, but Trump is laying the groundwork for policies that could cost the University more in the future. And despite its large endowment, Harvard will face tremendous financial pain.
Peer Teaching Is Key to Our Education. I’m Glad Harvard’s Protecting It.
In moments of institutional uncertainty, it’s precisely this kind of peer-driven, community-centered support that keeps our University thriving. In these unprecedented times, let’s make sure we preserve it.
Harvard’s Defense of Academia Is Missing Half the Story
The thing we’ve failed to reckon with is that — though scientific research will bear the brunt of Trump’s attacks because it benefits so much from federal funding — it’s not his real target.
From the Notes of Alan M. Garber
7:08 - We sold my office supplies (to economize) so I am sitting on the floor writing this on a banana peel with a toothpick. It will be legible later; I saw this on Facebook.
When They Go Low, We Go DEI
Unless Harvard is willing to say that it does not care, it must act to support DEI. But until our University makes its support public and concrete, we shouldn’t assume it does.
Harvard, Help Me Eat During Ramadan
By providing refund checks for those observing Ramadan or offering earlier breakfast times, Harvard can ensure Muslim students can observe Ramadan without undue financial burden.
Do Not Applaud Harvard for Doing the Bare Minimum
Do not mistake Garber’s scramble to retain a semblance of liberalism as a stand — let alone fight — against the Trump administration. No number of strongly worded statements nor invocations of “independence” or “constitutional rights” will allow Harvard to claw its way out of the hole it has dug itself into for over a year now.
Harvard Finally Stood up to Trump. Our Organizing Is the Reason Why.
Principled student expression can strengthen, rather than undermine, Harvard’s commitment to academic and moral leadership — but only if the University works with us. In moments like this one, we join generations of students testing the boundaries of what a university can be. It is time to join that legacy.
Paul Toner Must Resign
Day after day, we are witnessing a persistent cycle of abuses of the rule of law and the deterioration of leadership standards on the national level. It seems that this time around, members of Congress in both parties are less willing to put up a fight.
Putting Academics First Starts With All of Us
We should give academics the weight they deserve in our Harvard experience, not treat them as something we fit in between club meetings. We can still lead, advocate, and pursue our passions while making sure that academic excellence remains the foundation upon which our future success is built.
We Need a Paradigm Shift in Our Approach to Street Safety
These crashes are not tragic anomalies, but indicators that something preventable failed — and crucially, can be fixed. Through measurable and outcome-based transformations, we can reshape the streets themselves and create mobility justice.
Harvard — Hands Off California’s Water
In paying lip service to the climate while siphoning scarce water from the earth, our University has demonstrated its commitment to profit. It’s time to demonstrate its commitment to sustainability instead — the future of Cuyama Valley’s residents and water hangs in the balance.
Free Speech Has Become Free Expression. That’s a Problem.
Academic freedom, therefore, acts as a constraint upon free expression. They are not the same. Protest is inappropriate where academic freedom reigns.
Harvard Needs Recess
So who said recess needs to end in college? And why should students go hungry? A thirty minute lunch break is workplace standard — it should be the same at Harvard.
It’s Time To Disband the PSC — Permanently
Make no mistake: just because it is time for the PSC to go, does not mean discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should go alongside it. But the path to healthy, productive discourse on Harvard’s campus begins with the removal of the PSC.
Harvard’s Hyperfixation on Israel Is Academically Unserious
As Harvard wages the necessary battle to defend what truly matters in its looming battle with the administration — the billions of dollars Harvard receives for critical education and research — it will need to be able to make an honest case that, as University President Alan M. Garber ’76 has claimed, it is committed to the fight against antisemitism.
With Billions at Risk, Eight Affiliates React
Across the country, the White House has taken the unprecedented step of dangling federal funds as a bargaining chip in its engagement with universities. This week, they came to Harvard under the auspices of an investigation into antisemitism. At a crossroads for our University and higher education as a whole, hear from eight affiliates — among them a former Harvard Hillel President, experts on authoritarianism, and a graduate suing the University — on what comes next. — Max A. Palys ’26 and Saul I.M. Arnow '26, Editorial Chairs
To Kill a University
Killing American universities, arguably the greatest innovation engines in human history, will not only destroy higher education as a catalyst for social progress, it may also forever cripple the American economy.
I Was Hillel President. Trump Claims His Funding Cuts Help Jews — He’s Wrong.
As a student elected by my peers to represent Jewish interests I know Trump’s review of University funding has the potential to appreciably damage higher education, and ironically, Harvard’s Jewish life too.
Trump Is Suppressing Campus Speech. Harvard’s Response Is Shameful.
Harvard must stand up to prevent its community and other universities from falling. To do anything else is to sacrifice the values and mission it has fiercely defended since its founding.
This Yardfest, Think Beyond the Headliner
Simply put, we should be present in the moment, allowing ourselves to be taken back to a simpler time in our childhood, when the threat of midterms, papers, and grades were not looming over our heads.
Harvard Can’t Fight Dirty if Its Hands Aren’t Clean
Trump has been itching to embarrass Harvard and defund the country’s oldest university. Harvard must be wise enough to put its house in order. Otherwise, Washington will tear it down.
Harvard Students Don’t Need To Work Harder. Administrators Do.
While the College has needlessly zeroed in on making the academic realm inordinately demanding, it does so at the expense of the other — arguably more important — transformations.
Give the Land Up — Or Shut Up
Any institution indulging in this nonsense should put its money where its mouth is: Either return the land that it occupies to whichever Native American tribe that it stole it from, or spare us the hollow, meaningless acknowledgements.
What Good Is a University Without Students?
Even if Harvard is too invested to stop building new facilities now, it must take a hard look at its priorities and ensure that its educational mission remains intact. Harvard’s future is built on the minds it nurtures — buildings are great, but they need people to fill them.