“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted by the Admin


A war, of sorts, has broken out between the elite universities in the United States and the President of this country. Apparently, it seems unlikely that the stated issue - antisemitism - is the true reason for the dispute, notably between Harvard University, which has chosen to defy the Trump admistration rather than submit to the president's dramatic "overreach" including:

It is quite obvious, at least to Harvard (but not to, say Columbia University) that the courts were a far more respectful, ethical, congruous, and rational response to the proposed threat of billions of dollars of lost grants and other revenue than acceding to what it termed the outrageous interference and overreach of this irrational president. And unlike other Ivy League Universities issued similar demands, simply refused.

As expected, an enraged president, who in his first 100 days in office has been described as "drunk with power & authority," even with diminishing results and diminishing support, lashed out with immediate cuts and blocks of funding. Harvard, then, immediately filed suit in various courts to stop him, which further resulted in his recommendation that the IRS suspend their tax-exempt status, which Harvard - an observing legal commentator noted - "took the gloves off" and filed another suit in federal court.

The absurdity of the president's actions, however, seems foolhardy by one specific fact alone that makes his entire "oneupsmanship" more ignorant that most: Harvard University is a pioneer and vanguard of medical and scientific research in the US and if the world, hands down, bar none. In fact, in the past 50 years, Harvard has produced the single most Nobel Prize laureats, 32 to be exact, than any other university in the world. The University of California system collectively - meaning UC Berkley, UCLA, & San Diego - have produced 28; Stanford has produced 20; Columbia has produced 11; Oxford & Cambridge have produced 18 each respectively; while Karolinska (Sweden) and Heidelberg (Germany) and Tokyo have had 5 each respectively. Disabling Harvard Medical School would be extremely foolish for this country and for the world, and only an arrogant, self-serving politician would embark upon such an foolish task to prove a political point.

Unfortunately, we can only think of a single politician foolish enough to do it, and we can only hope that his party exercise the courage to stop him