Recently, the Trump administration froze over $2.2 billion in grants and contracts from Harvard University, to quash antisemitic and pro-Hamas sympathies, dismantle DEI initiatives, and revoke international student rights. Harvard chose to litigate, and recently, a judge blocked President Trump’s ban on international students, as the legal case heats up.
As a Harvard alumnus, I wondered if there were any noteworthy patterns to the federal government’s rescindment. For example, were certain academic departments within the modern-day 21st-century research university most, or least, affected? Harvard President Alan Garber could leverage this information to forge a new path for the embattled university.
While patterns can be deceiving, I noticed that the disproportionate influence of the cuts seemed to fall on STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). For example, the T.H. Chan School of Public Health is reeling from the cuts, because 59% of its funding comes from the federal government, more than any other school.
But I also noticed another thing. The liberal arts — literature, language, philosophy, religion, fine art and music — came through relatively unscathed. Why exactly, I am not sure, although one could speculate that the Trump administration found little federal funding to pull, does not view these departments as threats, or simply engaged in an oversight.
At Harvard in the mid-1990s, I pursued academics, athletics and art. The first was taken care of by philosophy cum laude. Athletics was enjoyable when I played lacrosse and was accepted into the prestigious Harvard Varsity Club. Art was given its due when I spent all four years at the college radio station as a jazz music disc jockey.
DJ’ing jazz (known affectionately as African-American classical art music) and playing lacrosse (in the service of the noble all-American scholar athlete ideal) grounded me in the culture of both sides of the debate raging on campus back then: affirmative action students vs. legacies. Both had received preferential treatment but for different reasons.
You could imagine my distress when affirmative action candidates and legacies — both of whom were friends — sat around the same table in a hostile class meeting. I was forced to listen dispassionately, understand the logic behind each argument, point out any inconsistencies and then seek a resolution between the two. And I had to do it in real time.
It was certainly not the best of times when legacies and affirmative action candidates were contemptuous of and hated each other. But the formal arrangements gave both sides equal voice and time for self-expression. And the whole framework was not established out of apathy, but out of a legitimate attempt to foster humane learning and civilized debate.
I do not believe the humanities will be targeted for Trump’s wrath in the future. It just does not seem to register as a threat to him. But let us remember that Harvard started from such humble beginnings. If Trump tried to pull funding from the liberal arts and infuse a political ideology in the humanities departments, he would have a mutiny on his hands.
Garber may want to pivot Harvard’s own resources strategically away from STEM and more toward the humanities and forget about federal funding. It just seems to come with too many strings attached. Not to say that STEM should be forgotten (it won’t). I just mean that the humanities are Harvard’s original bread and butter. Let’s not forget that.
Philosophy gave me the ability to harmonize the conflict between elements of society. Sure enough, I lacked the specialized training of STEM subjects. But the other general skills proved indispensable post-college. The university cannot stand for everything. It must hew to its original vision and mission, lest it no longer be an institute of higher education.
This article originally was published in the Trib Live digital newspaper on Monday, June 2, 2025.
Please click on the link below to read the original version of this article:
https://triblive.com/opinion/jason-w-park-president-trump-vs-president-garber-a-game-of-cat-and-mouse/
Jason W. Park, a writer based in Los Angeles, earned his PhD in strategic management from the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business.
