哈佛大学校长艾伦·加伯如何领导高等教育界反对特朗普

【中美创新时报2025 年 4 月 20 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）周一，当哈佛大学无视联邦政府强迫其屈服的企图时，艾伦·加伯成为抵制对特朗普总统认为阻碍其实现雄心的机构进行打击的领军人物。《波士顿环球报》记者迈克·达米亚诺对此作了下述报道。

说艾伦·加伯不太可能成为领导抵抗运动的人物，这是一种轻描淡写的说法。

他是一位温文尔雅的中西部人，曾是一名医生和科学家，之后在哈佛大学担任了十多年的幕后行政人员。他成为哈佛大学校长几乎纯属偶然，因为去年一月克劳丁·盖伊突然辞职，他才被推上了这个位置。

然而，周一，当哈佛大学无视联邦政府强迫其屈服的企图时，加伯成为抵制对特朗普总统认为阻碍其实现雄心的机构进行打击的领军人物。

康涅狄格州民主党参议员克里斯·墨菲表示：“我认为，试图制止特朗普的非法行为是今年迄今为止最重要的事情。”他试图团结党内反对总统扩张性议程的势力。

在加伯和哈佛大学表明立场之前，哈佛将采取何种道路——反抗还是默许——这个问题已经在哈佛校园里悬而未决至少一个月了。

今年 3 月，哥伦比亚大学领导层默许了政府提出的一系列非同寻常的要求，令哈佛大学的许多人感到震惊，而这似乎只会引发进一步的威胁。

与此同时，几位精英大学校长，尤其是普林斯顿大学的克里斯托弗·艾斯格鲁伯，曾强烈反对特朗普政府。然而，即使面对敦促他反击的公开信和抗议，加伯仍然保持沉默。他还采取了一些措施，一些人认为这些措施是为了安抚特朗普政府。

不过，很明显，哈佛 可能是下一个目标。

哥伦比亚大学投降后，哈佛大学前校长劳伦斯·巴考在哈佛园区一座拥有 300 年历史的红砖建筑马萨诸塞大厅的办公室拜访了加伯。

巴考回忆说，加伯说他知道哈佛必须奋起反抗。问题是，什么时候才是采取行动的最佳时机。

“很明显，我们不会走哥伦比亚路线，”巴考在上周的一次采访中说道。

对于哈佛的许多人来说，这一点并不总是那么明显。

3 月 31 日，特朗普政府的反犹太主义工作组宣布审查哈佛大学及其附属医院数十亿美元的研究经费时，加伯的公开回应让校园里的一些人感到紧张。

他发表了一封题为“我们的决心”的公开信，并在信中承诺“将与联邦政府特别工作组成员接触，确保他们全面了解我们为打击反犹太主义所做的工作以及未来将采取的行动”。

哈佛大学哲学教授兼本科生教研主任爱德华·霍尔（Edward Hall）是加伯的仰慕者。不过，“说实话，”他说，“几周前他发出信息的时候，我就觉得，‘哇，他居然没有反击。’”

对于加伯的批评者来说，这个信息是品牌化的。

加伯在总统竞选期间并没有强烈反对特朗普对大学的攻击 。批评人士认为，相反，加伯却慢慢地重塑了哈佛，使其更符合总统的意愿。

加伯采取了制度中立的政策，禁止包括他本人在内的许多大学领导就当今的争议性议题发表立场。他执行的抗议规则，支持者认为是为了维护校园秩序，但批评者则认为，这些规则旨在审查亲巴勒斯坦的激进主义，而这一话题已引起特朗普政府的愤怒。

随后，在特朗普就职典礼的第二天，哈佛大学采用了特朗普政府青睐的反犹太主义定义。

正在普林斯顿大学休假的哈佛大学访问学者哈利勒·纪伯伦·穆罕默德 (Khalil Gibran Muhammad) 表示：“从加伯的行为可以看出，他基本上愿意接受共和党和特朗普政府的许多担忧的实质。”

哈佛大学拒绝让加伯接受采访。

在资金审查宣布后的两周内，加伯和 哈佛大学管理委员会的成员们就如何应对进行了商讨。一些人质疑能否达成可接受的协议；另一些人则认为谈判毫无意义。

加伯的第一封信就保留了对话的可能性。“我们完全拥护打击反犹太主义的重要目标，”他在3月31日的信中写道。他表示，反犹太主义是哈佛大学的一个问题，他本人也经历过，即使担任校长也是如此。

几天后，政府发出了一份要求清单。哈佛大学的许多人指出，这些要求含糊不清，有些与反犹太主义几乎没有关系。这封于 4月3日（星期四）送达的信要求哈佛大学削减多元化项目，并修改招聘程序，以消除任何种族偏好。

他们还指示大学在联邦特工在城市街道上逮捕国际学生时“全力配合”国土安全部。

对此，哈佛大学仅确认收到了这封信。

然后，一片寂静。

在接下来的一周里，学生、教授和剑桥市长敦促包括加伯在内的哈佛大学领导人采取反击措施。

压力影响了他吗？巴考说没有。

“很多人不清楚的是，一旦政府明确表达他们的要求，哈佛大学将更有实力做出回应，”他说。“周五晚上政府发出这条消息后，艾伦就做出了回应。”

特朗普政府于 4 月 11 日晚间发出的后续信息传达了一些法律观察家认为过于广泛和侵入性的要求，实际上会将哈佛大学置于联邦破产管理之下。

根据拟议协议的条款，哈佛大学必须将包括医学院、神学院和公共卫生学院在内的众多学术部门置于外部监督之下。

该大学有义务交出所有招生和招聘数据，以便政府审查是否存在基于种族或性别的偏好，而根据协议，这种偏好是被禁止的。

哈佛大学必须接受一项审计，评估其教职员工、学生、教职员工和领导层的“观点多样性”。届时，学校将有义务在每个部门实施改革，以促进观点的多样性，而信中并未对此进行定义。观点多样性通常指意识形态和政治观点的融合。

所有这些措施以及其他措施都将“至少持续到2028年底”。

许多哈佛内部人士表示，这些要求过于极端，以至于消除了任何谈判的可能性。

当加伯和哈佛大学于 4 月 14 日星期一中午做出回应时， 不再提及与工作组合作，也没有任何迹象表明可能会达成协议。

相反，加伯在一封公开信中重申了哈佛大学对开放探究、观点多样性、言论自由和打击反犹太主义的承诺。

但他写道：“这些目标无法通过脱离法律的权力主张来实现。”

他说：“任何政府——无论哪个政党执政——都不应规定私立大学可以教授什么内容、可以招收和聘用哪些学生、以及可以从事哪些研究和探究领域。”

哈佛大学的外部律师发送了一封单独的信函，质疑政府 要求的合宪性，许多法律观察家认为这是隐含的起诉威胁。

对巴考来说，这正是加伯想要的回应。“他很有耐心，”巴考说。“考虑到他能说‘看看他们要求什么’，这传达的信息要强得多。”

“政府的要求不言而喻，”巴考说。“他们试图夺取对该机构的控制权。”

《纽约时报》周五晚报道称，政府反犹太主义特别工作组错误地发送了4月11日的信函，尽管白宫官员坚持其要求。教育部发言人麦迪逊·比德曼周六代表特别工作组表示：“特别工作组和整个特朗普政府正步调一致，确保接受纳税人资金的实体遵守所有民权法。”

加伯周一发表的讲话是经过仔细论证、雄辩地捍卫科学和学术自由的文字，引起了哈佛听众的共鸣。

哲学教授霍尔说，这为校园“注入了士气”。“我的一个学生说得一针见血：这就像有人对我说，‘我们黎明即起航。’”

特朗普政府予以强烈反击。在哈佛大学回应后的数小时内，政府冻结了超过20亿美元的研究经费。此后，特朗普一直威胁哈佛大学的免税地位及其招收外国学生的能力。周五，教育部要求哈佛大学提供大量关于其与外国签订的合同和捐款的记录。

曾在特朗普第一届政府期间领导教育部民权办公室的肯尼斯·马库斯 (Kenneth Marcus) 表示，加伯和哈佛大学在反犹太主义这样一个爆炸性问题上违抗政府“不是一个好现象”。

“我们现在正处于危机之中，反犹太主义的程度几代人以来都未曾见过。联邦政府现在正采取全政府措施来应对，这与我们过去所见的情况不同，”马库斯说。他所在的组织路易斯·D·布兰代斯中心去年起诉哈佛大学，指控其未能保护犹太学生。

“就政府采取的非常措施而言，这是值得欢迎且必要的。”

与此同时，在哈佛大学反抗之后，其他大学领导层似乎也团结起来了。周一深夜，哥伦比亚大学代理校长克莱尔·希普曼首次暗示，该校可能会在与特朗普政府的谈判中划出红线。

她在全校范围内发表的讲话中写道，有些问题，包括“如何具体解决观点多样性问题，是不容谈判的”。

第二天早上，普林斯顿大学校长艾斯格鲁伯在社交媒体上写道：“普林斯顿与哈佛站在一起。”普林斯顿大学也面临联邦政府资金削减。

此后几天，密歇根州立大学、密歇根大学和其他院校的教务委员会敦促其领导人加入大学“共同防御协议”，联合起来抵制特朗普的压力运动。

或许更令人惊讶的是，哈佛大学的立场在学术圈之外引起了共鸣。哈佛大学政府学教授史蒂文·列维茨基说，他的一名学生告诉他，在加伯发表讲话后，哈佛商店的商品在线销量猛增。

周五晚上，在波士顿 House of Blues 举行的 Bright Eyes 音乐会上，主唱康纳·奥伯斯特 (Conor Oberst) 在舞台上高喊：“F*** 耶，哈佛，我爱你！”

另一位前哈佛大学校长拉里·萨默斯表示，过去一周，他在思考加伯的处境时，一直在想着哈里·杜鲁门。萨默斯现在是哈佛大学的教授，他认识并钦佩加伯50年，有时也会批评他。

萨默斯指出，杜鲁门和加伯一样，在富兰克林·德拉诺·罗斯福去世的关键时刻意外地被推上领导地位。杜鲁门带领美国度过了二战的尾声，随后又在马歇尔计划的框架下监督了欧洲的重建。

萨默斯说，加伯是“学术界的哈里·杜鲁门”。“他和其他人都没有想到如此重大的责任会落在他身上……他正以优雅的风度、坚韧的品格、强大的力量和娴熟的技巧，承担起巨大的责任。”

参议员墨菲在周五的一次采访中表示，最近几周，他震惊地看到私人机构——律师事务所、企业、大学——在特朗普的压力下倒闭。

墨菲说：“感觉我们正进入一个非常可怕的时刻，这个国家没有人、没有任何机构愿意站出来对抗他。”

特朗普让企业“跳……他们问跳多高。他让律师事务所签署忠诚承诺，他们问，‘你们想要什么？’他去了哈佛，说，‘跟我做个交易，别再给我添麻烦了。’他们说，‘法庭上见。’”

墨菲说：“这可能会成为一个非常重要的时刻。”

69岁的加伯以他一贯的风格，也曾说过几句低调的俏皮话，让人得以洞悉哈佛的处境——以及他自己的处境。这位哈佛大学前教务长一向以分析型学者著称，他曾说过：“过度规避风险本身就是一种风险。”

他的哈佛校长就职典礼也从多个方面反映了当时的情况：典礼于 12 月几乎秘密举行，此时距离他担任校长已近一年，而特朗普刚刚当选，并已开​​始制定打击大学计划。

谈到自己坐上霍利奥克教席（Holyoke Chair）——一张拥有450年历史的哈佛大学校长礼仪用木制座椅——的经历，加伯表示，它“并没有我想象的那么不舒服。毕业典礼上坐在上面，感觉出奇的温暖。”

“天气似乎一天比一天热。”

题图：2024年5月23日，艾伦·加伯抵达剑桥，参加哈佛大学第373届毕业典礼。 图片来源：Craig F. Walker/《波士顿环球报》员工

附原英文报道：

How Harvard president Alan Garber came to lead the higher ed resistance against Trump

By Mike Damiano Globe Staff,Updated April 19, 2025, 1:45 p.m.

Alan Garber arrived at the 373nd commencement of Harvard University in Cambridge on May 23, 2024.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff

CAMBRIDGE — To say Alan Garber is an unlikely figure to lead the resistance is an understatement.

A mild-mannered Midwesterner, he was a physician and a scientist before serving for more than a decade as a behind-the-scenes administrator at Harvard. He became Harvard’s president practically by accident, thrust into the role after the sudden resignation of Claudine Gay in January of last year.

And yet, on Monday, when Harvard defied the federal government’s attempt to force the university into submission, Garber became the leading figure resisting a crackdown on institutions that President Trump sees as standing in the way of his ambitions.

“I think it’s the most important thing that has happened so far this year to try to arrest Trump’s illegality,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who has sought to rally his party’s opposition to the president’s expansive agenda.

The question of which path Harvard would take — defiance or acquiescence — had hung over Harvard Yard for at least a month before Garber and the university took their stand.

In March, many at Harvard looked on in horror as Columbia University’s leaders acquiesced to an extraordinary list of government demands, which seemed only to provoke further threats.

Meanwhile, a handful of elite university presidents, notably Christopher Eisgruber at Princeton, had forcefully spoken out against the Trump administration. Garber, though, had remained largely silent, even in the face of open letters and protests urging him to push back. He also took steps that some saw as attempts to placate the Trump administration.

It seemed clear, though, that Harvard could be the next target.

After Columbia’s capitulation, former Harvard president Lawrence Bacow visited Garber in his office in Massachusetts Hall, a 300-year-old red-brick building in Harvard Yard.

Garber said he knew Harvard was going to have to fight, Bacow recalled. The question was, when was the right time to do it, he recalled Garber saying.

“It was very clear we weren’t going the Columbia route,” Bacow said in an interview this past week.

For many at Harvard, that was not always so obvious.

When the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force announced a review of billions of dollars in research funding for Harvard and affiliated hospitals on March 31, Garber’s public response made some on campus nervous.

He issued an open letter that was titled “Our Resolve.” But within it he promised to “engage with members of the federal government’s task force to ensure that they have a full account of the work we have done and the actions we will take going forward to combat antisemitism.”

Edward Hall, a Harvard philosophy professor and director of undergraduate studies, is a Garber admirer. But, “being perfectly honest,” he said, “when he sent his message out a few weeks ago I was, like, ‘Wow, he’s not pushing back.’”

To Garber’s critics, the message was on brand.

Here was a man who had not forcefully spoken out against Trump’s broadsides against universities during the presidential campaign. Instead, Garber had slowly reshaped Harvard to make it more agreeable to the president, critics contend.

Garber adopted a policy of institutional neutrality, which barred many university leaders, including himself, from taking positions on controversial issues of the day. He enforced protest rules that supporters said maintained order on campus but that critics said were designed to censor pro-Palestinian activism, a subject that has drawn the ire of the Trump administration.

Then, the day after Trump’s inauguration, Harvard adopted a definition of antisemitism favored by the Trump administration.

“All one could note from Garber’s behavior was essentially that he was willing to accept the substance of many of the concerns by Republicans and the Trump administration,” said Khalil Gibran Muhammad, a visiting scholar at Harvard who is on sabbatical from Princeton University.

Harvard declined to make Garber available for an interview.

In the two weeks after the funding review was announced, Garber and members of Harvard’s governing boards deliberated over how to respond. Some wondered whether an acceptable agreement could be reached; others believed negotiation was futile.

Garber’s first message had left open the possibility of dialogue. “We fully embrace the important goal of combatting antisemitism,” he wrote in that March 31 letter. He has said antisemitism is a problem at Harvard and that he himself has experienced it, even as president.

Then, a few days later, the government sent a list of demands. They were vague, many at Harvard observed, and some had little or nothing to do with antisemitism. The letter, delivered on Thursday, April 3, ordered Harvard to cut diversity programs and change hiring procedures to eliminate any racial preferences.

They also instructed the university to “commit to full cooperation” with the Department of Homeland Security at a time when federal agents were arresting international students on city streets.

In response, Harvard merely confirmed it had received the letter.

Then, silence.

During the week that followed, students, professors, and the mayor of Cambridge urged Harvard’s leaders, including Garber, to push back.

Did the pressure sway him? Bacow says no.

“The thing that is not clear to many people was that Harvard would be in a much stronger position to respond once the government stated clearly what they were demanding,” he said. “Once that message came through Friday night, Alan responded.”

That follow-up message from the Trump administration, delivered on the night of April 11, conveyed demands that some legal observers said were so expansive and intrusive they effectively would have placed Harvard into federal receivership.

Under the terms of the proposed agreement, Harvard would have had to submit numerous academic divisions, including the Medical School, the Divinity School, and the School of Public Health, to outside oversight.

It would have been obligated to turn over all data on admissions and hiring so the government could scrutinize it for any preferences on the basis of race or sex, which would have been banned under the agreement.

Harvard would have to submit to an audit assessing the “viewpoint diversity” of its faculty, student body, staff, and leadership. Then the university would have been obligated to implement reforms to boost diversity of viewpoints, which the letter did not define, in every division and department. Viewpoint diversity generally refers to a mix of ideological and political persuasions.

All of these measures, and others, would have remained in place “at least until the end of 2028.”

The demands were so extreme they shut down any possibility of negotiation, many Harvard insiders said.

When Garber and Harvard responded midday Monday, April 14, there was no longer any mention of engaging with the task force, no intimation an agreement might be reached.

Instead, in an open letter, Garber affirmed Harvard’s commitment to open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, free speech, and combatting antisemitism.

But, he wrote, “These ends will not be achieved by assertions of power, unmoored from the law.”

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” he said.

Harvard’s outside lawyers sent a separate letter that challenged the constitutionality of the administration’s demands, which many legal observers read as an implicit threat to sue.

To Bacow, this was precisely the kind of response Garber had been aiming for. “He was patient,” Bacow said. “It was a much stronger message given that he could say, ‘Look at what they’re asking for.’”

“The government’s demands spoke for themselves,” Bacow said. “They were an attempt to seize control of the institution.”

On Friday night, The New York Times reported the administration’s antisemitism task force had sent the April 11 letter by mistake, although a White House official stood by its demands. “The task force, and the entire Trump administration, is in lockstep on ensuring that entities who receive taxpayer dollars are following all civil rights laws,” Madison Biedermann, a Department of Education spokesperson, said on behalf of the task force on Saturday.

Garber’s message on Monday was the kind of text — a carefully argued, eloquently written defense of science and academic freedom — that resonates with a Harvard audience.

It was a “shot in the arm for morale” on campus, Hall, the philosophy professor, said. “One of my students put it brilliantly: It was like being told, ’We ride at dawn.’”

The Trump administration hit back hard. It froze more than $2 billion of research funding within hours of Harvard’s response. Since then Trump has threatened Harvard’s tax-exempt status and its ability to enroll foreign students. On Friday, the Department of Education demanded extensive records about the school’s contracts and donations from foreign sources.

Kenneth Marcus, who led the Education Department’s civil rights office during the first Trump administration, said it is “not a good look” for Garber and Harvard to defy the government on an issue as explosive as antisemitism.

“We are now in a crisis situation seeing levels of antisemitism that we haven’t seen in generations. The federal government is now responding with a whole of government approach, which is unlike what we had seen in the past,” said Marcus, whose organization, the Louis D. Brandeis Center, sued Harvard last year for allegedly failing to protect Jewish students.

“To the extent that the government is using extraordinary remedies this is both welcome and necessary.”

Meanwhile, other university leaders seemed to have rallied after Harvard’s defiance. Late Monday night, Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, signaled for the first time that her university might draw a red line in its negotiations with the Trump administration.

Some issues, she wrote in a campus-wide message, including “how specifically to address viewpoint diversity issues, are not subject to negotiation.”

The next morning, Eisgruber, the Princeton president whose institution is facing its own federal funding cuts, wrote on social media: “Princeton stands with Harvard.”

In the days since, the faculty senates of Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and other institutions urged their leaders to join a “Mutual Defense Compact” of universities banding together to resist Trump’s pressure campaign.

Perhaps more surprisingly, Harvard’s stand resonated beyond the confines of the academy. Steven Levitsky, a Harvard government professor, said one of his students told him that online sales of merchandise at The Harvard Shop shot up after Garber’s message.

During a Bright Eyes concert at the House of Blues in Boston Friday night, front Conor Oberst shouted from the stage: “F*** yeah, Harvard, I love you!”

Another former Harvard president, Larry Summers, said he’s been thinking of Harry Truman this past week as he considers Garber’s situation. Now a professor at the university, Summers has known and admired Garber for 50 years and, on occasion, criticized him.

Summers notes Truman was, like Garber, unexpectedly thrust into leadership at a pivotal moment: with the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Truman guided the country through the end of the Second World War and then oversaw the rebuilding of Europe under the Marshall Plan.

Garber is “a kind of Harry Truman of the academic world,” Summers said. “He and others didn’t expect such awesome responsibility to land on him. … He is stepping up to huge responsibility with grace, character, strength, and skill.”

Senator Murphy, in an interview Friday, said he had watched with alarm in recent weeks as private institutions — law firms, corporations, universities — folded under pressure from Trump.

“It felt like we were entering a really dire moment where nobody, where no institution in this country might be willing to stand up to him,” Murphy said.

Trump told corporations “to jump…and they said how high. He told law firms to sign a loyalty pledge and they said, ‘What do you want?’ He went to Harvard and said, ‘Cut a deal with me and stop giving me such a hard time.’ and they said, ‘See you in court.”

“It may go down as a very important moment,” Murphy said.

In his characteristic way, Garber, 69, himself has dropped a few understated quips that offer insight into Harvard’s situation — and his own. Ever the analytical academic, the former provost at the university has said, “An excessive aversion to risk is a risk itself.”

His induction ceremony as Harvard president also spoke to the circumstances in several ways: It was conducted practically in secret in December, nearly a year after he began leading the school, and just after Trump had been elected and was already laying plans for his crackdown on universities.

Of his occupying the Holyoke Chair, a 450-year-old ceremonial wooden seat for Harvard’s president, Garber observed that it was not “as uncomfortable as I expected it to be. But it was surprisingly warm when I sat on it during commencement.”

“It seems to be growing hotter by the day.”