Whatever one thinks of Harvard University and other Ivy League schools, they are engines of innovation. Their research has led to scientific advancement, which has benefited all of us.
As I wrote this spring, university research funded by the U.S. government helped astronauts go to the moon and generated everything from the microwave to the internet. Just as important, today’s research grants may support tomorrow’s tech breakthroughs, which can lead to the founding of new companies and the creating of jobs.
Remember the Polaroid camera, which is again having something of a moment? Its inventor, Edwin Land, studied physics at Harvard before going on to found the Polaroid Corp.
“It’s one of the assets that the United States has that makes it such a powerful economy. That kind of research has fueled our economy for decades, and if we cut that research, there are significant economic consequences downstream,” Tom Mitchell, a computer scientist, an artificial intelligence researcher, and the Founders University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told me in April.
That is why it is puzzling and troubling to academic researchers that the Trump administration wants to make deep cuts to funding at these top universities, particularly at Harvard, the subject of a pair of cover stories featured in the June 30 Monitor Weekly. The reasons given by the administration include concerns that Ivy League campuses have become too liberal and intolerant of conservative thought, and that antisemitism is rife in the halls of academia.
Harvard, as America’s oldest and wealthiest university, is fighting back against the $3 billion in research grants that the government has frozen or cut. It is resisting the Trump administration’s attempts to dictate who can attend the school and what gets taught as part of the curriculum. Harvard is standing up because its leaders are convinced of the gravity of what’s at stake if scientific research gets caught in the crosshairs of a political fight.
Harvard, for now, has the financial resources and the gravitas to engage in this battle. Thousands of alumni and more than two dozen other highly selective schools have filed an amicus brief in support of Harvard. The brief argues against making funding cuts without due process and point out the decadeslong damage that such cuts could do to the university. A judge is expected to decide on the case in July.
“We want to continue to have the U.S. economy be the strongest economy in the world,” Dr. Mitchell told me. “You don’t want the U.S. to become a second-rate player in science and technology. We will be surpassed by other countries if that happens.”
This column first appeared in the June 30, 2025, issue of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly. Subscribe today to receive future issues of the Monitor Weekly magazine delivered to your home.
