The Hiring Freeze Is a Decent Defense. But It Won’t Save the Academy.

“The Universities are the enemy.” That phrase, once disregardable as rhetorical fluff, has seemingly become the guiding principle behind President Donald Trump’s entire higher education policy.

To recount Trump’s recent offensives: Last month, the administration attempted to unilaterally cut billions in National Institutes of Health grant funding, much of which funds crucial medical research. It has also repeatedly threatened universities to bend to its will on issues ranging from diversity and protests to transgender women in college sports.

In a wise move intended to shore up Harvard against the impending onslaught, the University became the most recent institution to announce a faculty and staff hiring freeze on Monday. With fresh threats and ultimatums delivered on an almost daily basis, mounting a defense is appropriate. But among its preparations, Harvard can’t forget to lead an offensive — bunkering down is not the same as giving up.

This isn’t the first time Harvard has instituted a University-wide hiring freeze. The University paused hiring during the 2008 recession and 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. Today, the source of uncertainty is neither an international financial crisis nor a once-in-a-generation public health emergency — it’s a presidential administration trying to unravel higher education itself.

The casualties are mounting: Last Friday, Columbia lost $400 million in federal funding, inciting departmental faculty squabbles over how to respond. NIH grant revocations have devastated programs at Johns Hopkins.

Faced with such a capricious, hostile administration, Harvard is correct to be overly cautious about long-term financial commitments, including making new hires. We support Harvard taking proactive action to protect its long-term interests. That includes not only continuing to look for methods to render the University more financially independent, but also standing up against ill-intentioned policies.

This is far more than Trump coming after the “liberal elite” — each sortie of research grant cuts hurts researchers from state schools to the Ivy League. Recent days have seen other schools like MIT, the University of Notre Dame, Emory, the University of Washington, and the University of Vermont institute hiring freezes as well.

The entire academic enterprise lies in dire straits.

Harvard, with its unmatched resources and historical influence, faces a distinct responsibility in this moment of crisis. True leadership demands more than defensive caution — it requires bold, coordinated action.

It’s time for Harvard to put its massive prestige and record-breaking endowment to use and work alongside peer institutions to build coalitions, coordinate legal challenges to dubious mandates, and lobby on behalf of education. Harvard cannot simply fortify its own position; it must spearhead a unified academic resistance.

This isn’t merely about weathering another financial storm — we’ve faced those before. This is about defending the very mission of American higher education against targeted political attacks.

Each revoked NIH grant, each funding threat, each regulatory assault weakens not just the elite institutions, but all universities, research hospitals, and the entire ecosystem of American innovation.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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