Harvard is preparing for its four-hundredth anniversary in 2036, just as the federal government is trying to eviscerate higher education. Unfortunately, Harvard shows signs of succumbing to the government’s lawless pressure, as Columbia and Brown have already done. Fortunately, today a judge found the government’s spending freeze unconstitutional.
But Harvard still has another card it could play: To ensure its success over the next four centuries, we think Harvard should seriously consider leaving Cambridge, given the damage the Trump administration has already done to higher education in general and to Harvard in particular. The move would be an enormous undertaking, but if any institution can afford to do it, Harvard can. For various reasons we like the idea of Montreal as Harvard’s next home.
Neither of us has institutional ties to Harvard, but we have friends who teach there or were educated there. Harvard is not beyond criticism, but the particular way in which Harvard has been treated has filled us with outrage. We applaud Harvard’s principled stand against these attacks, but it is not clear they will prevail. They have another card to play. They can get out – the advice we would give to any friend in an abusive relationship that seems well beyond repair.
Researchers who feel particularly threatened by the anti-immigrant stance and the turn towards authoritarianism in the U.S. are already leaving the U.S. for Canada and Europe Only a few institutions would be able to follow the faculty lead. Harvard is perhaps uniquely able to do so.
No matter what happens in the remainder of President Trump’s term, uncertainty has severely damaged Harvard’s ability to recruit and retain the best and brightest faculty and students. Even if Trumpists are voted out in the coming midterm and presidential elections, and even if the next president promises to undo the damage, it will take many years to rebuild what has already been broken.
No one should expect that the coming elections will immediately solve the problems the current incumbent has created. No one should trust the U.S. electorate to keep Trumpists out of government one or two election cycles later, causing yet more chaos. Rampant gerrymandering, the general polarization of politics, tribalism in the electorate, and tone-deaf Supreme Court justices with lifetime appointments mean that the U.S. political system will remain unstable for decades. Serious electoral and political reform is needed, but it won’t happen soon enough.
Is a move feasible?
We think yes, although it cannot happen overnight. There may be no precedent for a wholesale move of such a complex institution. The Central European University has moved most of its operations from Budapest to Vienna because of threats from Hungary’s authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. This move is, however, tiny potatoes compared to Harvard’s sumptuous feast. Perhaps there are better precedents in the corporate world. Many corporations relocated their headquarters to Europe from the UK post-Brexit, admittedly a much less complex operation than moving a university.
We are not saying that Harvard should completely divest itself of its Cambridge campus. Other prestigious universities run satellite campuses under repressive regimes, and like these, Harvard-Cambridge could continue to be a revenue center by serving students in the U.S. But the bulk of Harvard’s research and teaching mission could go elsewhere and enhance Harvard’s status in the world while exposing the folly of the current U.S. regime. Certainly many countries would jump at the opportunity to house the intellectual and economic powerhouse that Harvard is.
Such a move entails a lengthy planning process. Just by announcing that it is seriously developing a plan, Harvard would send an unmistakable message about its commitment to the freedoms required for academic inquiry to flourish, and to its goal of continuing to be a preeminent research and education center into the indefinite future. To be sure, some might say Harvard should stay and fight for academic freedom, but it can perhaps better help support that fight from a location where its existence is welcomed rather than threatened.
The alternative is to be stuck in a country where it seems that nearly half the population approves of the wrecking ball approach even as it takes out one of the pillars of U.S. success. The entire world thirsts for what Harvard has to offer, and Harvard can perhaps better satisfy that thirst if freed from the threat posed by the rise to power of anti-science, anti-intellectual populists. If the MAGA crowd cheers Harvard’s proposed departure, this only underscores the perilous state of education and free inquiry in the U.S.; if, as abusers often do, they immediately recognize what a costly error they have made, all the better for the future of U.S. education.
We like the idea of Montreal as a destination for several reasons, one of which is its relative proximity to Boston. Others include Montreal’s cultural diversity and its already strong research universities. Harvard can bring synergistic benefits to these just as it does with the other world-class universities in Boston. Montreal is well-suited to provide Vienna-like sophistication to Trump’s vision of Boston as Budapest. Of course, other locations should be considered, and the planning process will not be quick. Although many of the existing faculty will be reluctant to leave, the long withdrawal would allow Harvard to draw down its Cambridge faculty gradually through retirements and other departures, while those remaining could continue to support its satellite campus.
Leaving would necessarily have huge and potentially devastating implications for the city of Boston, the state of Massachusetts, and the country as a whole. Right now the United States needs people and institutions willing to resist the bully in the pulpit. Nevertheless, the unprecedented direct attacks on Harvard’s core missions by the current administration create the conditions in which by leaving the U.S., Harvard could be better able to protect itself while supporting from afar those who resist the demolition of the rule of law, the knife in the back of science and innovation, and the mortal danger of handing education over to politicians and their supporters who think that knowledge, free speech, and vigorous debate are too dangerous to be allowed to flourish.
Still, if Harvard decides in the end that staying is the best option, we will be fully supportive of their efforts to seek all necessary injunctions against a government that has become an increasingly abusive partner.