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Last night I sent Harvard a gift of $100. I sent this note along with it:

This is my first gift to Harvard since I graduated 47 years ago.

I haven’t been a donor for two reasons: 1) I’m not wealthy, well below average, I suspect, for a Harvard grad; 2) There were many other causes I felt were more in need than Harvard, given its massive endowment and major funding sources.

I am giving tonight — and will likely give again in the future — in appreciation for the stance Harvard has taken in response to the reprehensible and extortionist threats made, and (now) penalties imposed by the lawless and tyrannical Trump regime.

It is absolutely essential that Trump’s targets — be they academic institutions, law firms, media, or nonprofits — band and stand together. And that requires leaders with courage and an ability to comprehend just how critical that stance is to the fate of our republic (and much of the rest of the planet).

Columbia University apparently did not comprehend and has failed this test dismally, as have a half dozen or so big law firms, one of whichonce employed me.

I am proud to be an alumnus of a university that did comprehend and seems to have steeled itself to pass the test, fully aware of how swift and punishing Trump’s retribution would be.

I was not pleased to see Claudine Gay railroaded out of her presidency by the likes of Elise Stenfanik and her fellow MAGA ghouls on the Hill, along with their deep-pocketed collaborators like Bill Ackman.

That shameful chapter — which I recognized as an opening salvo that ominously foretold far worse to come – put a stain on my college memories.

I confess I was not optimistic when Trump trained his tactical nukes on my alma mater, which had already signaled, in the Gay affair, its acquiescence to political/financial bullying. What he is demanding — submitting to government audits of admissions and staffing, a forced march towards political alignment with the Trump administration, stifling or curtailing student and faculty activities that do not pass government muster, etc. — is as unconscionable as it is unconstitutional, a castration of academic freedom.

The current action taken by Harvard — telling Trump to go peddle his extortion racket elsewhere — goes a long way, in my estimation, towards its redemption as a proud, free, and independent academic institution. And as a model and inspiration for the multitude of other institutions facing their own moments of truth.

But it seems clear to me that this is but Round 1 of a cage match that will only intensify. The pressure to “negotiate” — to find some face-saving way of giving Trump his pounds of flesh — will be immense.

My contribution bears the hope and faith that your fortitude is not short-lived or performative, and that Harvard continues to stand tall among the leaders defending our American democracy against a profoundly evil man and his deadly dangerous movement.

Jonathan D. Simon, ’78

A Drop in the Bucket?

It was only a hundred bucks. Donald Trump has now frozen $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard, with threats of more to come. And Trump is reportedly also targeting Harvard’s tax-exempt status, the lifeblood of both academic and nonprofit institutions.

It’ll take an awful lot of angry alumni, sending an awful lot more than a hundred bucks, to even make a dent in that penalty. This is not some shot across the bow — it’s a full blast amidships.

The work being stopped is not tree-pruning in Harvard Yard but ongoing research into such scourges as ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and radiation sickness. Such vital projects are hardly a function of Harvard’s allegedly “woke” politics, let alone its supposed failure to crack down on antisemitism, a rather perverse demand from a regime bearing more than passing resemblance to Hitler’s Third Reich.

Why, you may ask, should you care? Harvard’s endowment of $53.2 billion makes it the world’s richest academic institution. Does it really need that federal money, let alone my measly hundred bucks? Can’t it just limp along on what it’s got in the kitty and the income that generates?

Yes, it probably can. Which surely factors into its decision to fight Trump. But before you chuckle “Poor Harvard, down to its last $50 billion,” you should understand that that impressive endowment is not cash under the mattress. The lion’s share of it is tied up with miles of string, essentially inaccessible for the purpose of meeting the ongoing operating costs of the university.

Indeed, Harvard is pursuing a $750 million loan and is already issuing stop-work orders and charting layoffs.

The work being stopped is not tree-pruning in Harvard Yard but ongoing research into such scourges as ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and radiation sickness. Such vital projects are hardly a function of Harvard’s allegedly “woke” politics, let alone its supposed failure to crack down on antisemitism, a rather perverse demand from a regime bearing more than passing resemblance to Hitler’s Third Reich.

Harvard’s Response, in Context

It also bears noting that the prevailing ethos among the well-endowed — whether individuals, businesses, or institutions — in 2025 America is two-fisted greed. To make and have more, to risk little, to sacrifice nothing.

Look no further than Columbia, with its not insubstantial $14.8 billion endowment, which fell all over itself caving to Trump for a mere opportunity to resume negotiating with Trump over restoration of frozen funds. For a mere $400 million — considerably less proportional to their respective endowments than the bite Trump is taking out of Harvard, with a far bigger chomp threatened.

Or law firms, like Paul Weiss and Skadden, Arps, whose partners rake in millions apiece in annual compensation, and who pledged, respectively, eight- and nine-figures worth of pro bono work for Trump’s chosen causes, rather than fight his extortionist threats to their business interests in court.

We have witnessed, over the past month or so, a great schism among the powerful institutions facing Trump’s constitutionally dubious threats and acts of vengeance. It’s hardly surprising that he has succeeded in dividing them as he has succeeded in dividing all of America.

The difference is that institutions of higher learning and exponents of the rule of law (all attorneys swear, at minimum, to uphold the Constitution) should — and do — know better than the average low-information voter. They’re experts, not rubes. These cavers all know the cost.

Harvard’s Long Walk to This Moment

The history of Harvard is in many ways reflective of the history of America. It has been, by turns, enlightened and obtuse, pioneering and atavistic, embracing and bigoted, idealistic and cynical. You could write a book celebrating Harvard’s achievements — and you could write a book condemning its failings.

Even in the modern era, Harvard has often behaved shamefully as an employer, landowner/landlord, and investor. Its internal politics have always been complex, its struggles with questions of academic freedom ongoing and unresolved. It is, like virtually all human conglomerations, imperfect.

But let’s be real: Trump’s attacks on Harvard and its sister institutions — like his attacks on the legal profession, agencies within his own government, state and local governments, the media, nonprofits, and countless individual “enemies” — have nothing to do with making any of these entities better.

They are driven, rather, by envy and enmity, and ultimately by a tornadic will-to-power.

If there were a single symbol or avatar for everything Trump personally, and MAGA World more generally, both envies and despises, it would be Harvard. Coastal elites, woke, incomprehensible science, the scientists who do comprehend it, genuine intellectuals with expertise on a variety of subjects: check, check, check, check, and check.

Harvard checks all the boxes. Which is why Team Trump sees its anti-Harvard jihad as a political winner. And why the pressure on Harvard to fold — with or without a fig leaf — will almost certainly intensify. Negotiations are reportedly quietly underway.

My hundred bucks can’t buy much in the way of fortitude. I hope, if Harvard holds firm, there will be more — perhaps enough to have impact beyond the merely symbolic.

Harvard, if you’re listening, don’t let us down — stay strong, buck up!