Harvard Must Choose Veritas Over Survival

As President Donald Trump’s agenda advances, Harvard will face a decision of immense consequence: whether to acquiesce to a regime bent on shaping the University to its will, or to mount defenses that may risk Harvard’s survival.

Facing such a choice, Harvard will choose survival. And maybe, in a good-of-the-species way, Harvard should survive. We won’t hold the Harvard faculty of 2125 responsible for the choices made by our current leadership. Harvard — the name, the buildings, the libraries, the money — will survive. But the Harvard that remains will be intellectually and ethically compromised to a degree hitherto unthinkable, having sacrificed our commitment to truth.

To be clear, I am not so naive as to think that Harvard University can solve the democratic crisis in the United States. But we can respond to the crisis as it affects Harvard with more clarity, passion, transparency, and creativity than we have yet seen from University leaders.

Consider this: in response to the outrageous and unprecedented attempted suspension of activities at the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and, most lawlessly, funding from much of the rest of the federal government, the University issued a statement worthy only of ChatGPT.

The statement, co-signed by President Alan M. Garber ’76, Provost John F. Manning ’82, and Executive Vice President Meredith L. Weenick ’90, reported the facts, promised further communications, and restated our mission. It did not criticize the legality or wisdom of these moves. It did not defend our use of federal resources, explaining why these funds support essential aspects of our mission. It did not even outline how Harvard is working to revert these harmful decisions. Some of our peer institutions issued more forceful statements; Harvard did not.

Such pusillanimity bodes ill for our response to the challenges ahead. We should be speaking and acting urgently in defense of veritas, truth.

Why should we do this if we are likely to lose, at least in the short run? Because some individuals in our community will choose truth no matter the cost. And Harvard, as an institution, must prove itself worthy of its members’ brave defense of our values.

Imagine the following scenario: the Department of Education issues an edict that no course may discuss sex or gender except as an absolute binary, male and female. Any institution violating this rule becomes ineligible for federal funds of any kind. Such a future isn’t unimaginable: an executive order issued last week laid out similar threats for primary and secondary schools. Surely, Harvard and its peers would sue — an expression of serious (though minimal) resistance to the government’s dictating what we teach. But would Harvard win such a suit? And if we lost, what then?

We would face a choice between truth — everything that our biology, sociology, studies of women, gender, and sexuality, history, and a dozen other departments have learned about sex and gender — and money. Let me be clear: choosing truth would be tremendously costly. Loss of federal funding would deliver an almost unimaginable blow to University finances, undoubtedly leading to layoffs, cancelled projects, and fewer essential services.

But choosing survival without a fierce, full-throated defense would do irreparable institutional harm. Who among the faculty would find such government interference intolerable and resign? Which of our students or staff would no longer associate themselves with an institution that showed little regard for the intellectual independence of its members?

To uphold their own dignity and integrity, some members of our community would choose truth — the same commitment Harvard has a responsibility to uphold but, if and when we choose funding over academic freedom, would have abdicated. Why should individuals make such a sacrifice for truth if the institution they serve will not take the same risks?

I understand that we cannot fight every fight and we will not win every battle. Eventually, in some ways, institutional survival will demand we acquiesce. But we cannot and must not lose without a word of public protest or disagreement, with no effort to explain why we do what we do, with no attempt to unite with our allies at other universities and reassert the value of our work.

We may be able to justify, in the long run, the compromises we will make to help Harvard survive the difficult years ahead. But the University must defend truth as long as it can, and do so with fortitude and courage.

A Harvard that speaks loudly and clearly for veritas would actually be worth the fight.

Derek Miller is a professor of English at Harvard.