Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 28

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: For months, Harvard University’s resistance to many of the Trump administration’s escalating demands has served as a kind of beacon to higher ed... Yet even as the university pursues its legal options, the institution appears open to a resolution... No details have emerged about what a potential settlement might look like, or how close such a settlement might be. But any agreement would reverberate across the sector just as loudly as Harvard’s resistance has.

In the short term, a deal would preserve some semblance of continuity on campus, no small matter as the university plans its fall course schedule and contemplates the loss of thousands of students and billions in grants. In the long run, a deal would avoid the uncertainty and expense of yearslong court battles that could reshape the relationship between higher education and the federal government on matters of academic freedom, civil rights, and institutional autonomy...

Already, several Harvard professors say they’re concerned because they have not been given any information about possible negotiations or whether their perspective is being considered... Other faculty members are more hopeful about a potential deal. Jeffrey D. Macklis, a neurobiologist, thinks an agreement that maintains Harvard’s academic freedom and restores research grants could “be a wonderful and a beneficial outcome for the nation and the world.”

The termination of Harvard’s government funding has been “devastating” for his lab, which examines brain development and had received grants to study the causes of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, and frontotemporal dementia, among other conditions. “That has canceled research that, in my view, is not Harvard research,” he says. “It’s research for which I was hired by the citizens of the United States.”

He trusts Harvard’s leaders. And he is unwilling to frame the interactions between his university and the government as a “fight.” “Is it a fight when a married couple or partner pair disagree on family priorities?” he said. “Maybe it is a discussion. Maybe it’s even negotiation. Maybe it is educating each other so that both parties understand with empathy the views of the other.” ...

Outside of Harvard, higher-education leaders are also torn between faith in Garber and skepticism that the government would agree to a deal that preserves the sector’s independence and ideals...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/what-a-harvard-deal-would-mean-for-higher-ed.