On April 11, 2025, the Trump administration demanded that Harvard: vet students, faculty, and departments for “viewpoint diversity”; alter its hiring, admissions, and curriculum choices to conform to the government’s ideological preferences; submit to a third-party audit of programs that “reflect ideological capture”; and install new leadership committed to enforcing the government’s demands. When Harvard refused to “surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” the government responded by cancelling billions of dollars in grant funding and blacklisting the university from future federal research support. Harvard then filed a lawsuit challenging the government’s actions.
In coming to Harvard’s defense, the coalition’s amicus brief argues that the government cannot use its financial power to force any private institution—liberal or conservative—to adopt state-sanctioned views. The First Amendment, the brief emphasizes, guarantees that private universities retain autonomy over what to teach, how to teach, who will teach, and whom to admit—free from government control or interference.
Cecillia D. Wang, Ben Wizner, Vera Eidelman, Brian Hauss, Jessie J. Rossman, and Rachel E. Davidson at ACLU advanced the arguments in the amicus brief in President and Fellows of Harvard College v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The Rutherford Institute is a nonprofit civil liberties organization dedicated to making the government play by the rules of the Constitution. To this end, the Institute defends individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a broad range of issues affecting their freedoms.
This press release is also available at www.rutherford.org.
Source: https://tinyurl.com/4fknkee8
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