... But more important than Harvard’s loss would be the victory for autocracy and extortion and lawlessness that a settlement would represent. It would be a colossal and grievous and historic mistake, no matter what’s in the fine print.
Replies
How could this institution ever foster future lawyers, judges & teach history & the rule of law ever again if they fold to the will of a tyrant?
jul 28, 2025, 11:41 pm • 9 1 • view
how is it suddenly ok for a US President to shake down Universities and media outlets
jul 28, 2025, 10:43 pm • 18 4 • view
It's only okay if they capitulate. If none of these institutions capped to him, he couldn't do it. If no law firms, media outlets, universities made deals w/this extortionist, he would have no control. But the big ones are. They're collapsing our democracy.
jul 29, 2025, 10:07 pm • 1 0 • view
Move over ‘veritas,’ Harvard’s motto will be ‘fascistis cedimus’
jul 28, 2025, 11:23 pm • 0 0 • view
They can't. They have power and money. They can outlast this corrupt regime. If they give in, they will destroy Harvard forever and with it, academia across the country. Who the fuck is advising them to do this???
jul 28, 2025, 11:59 pm • 4 2 • view
If Harvard doesn’t fight, none will.
jul 28, 2025, 10:49 pm • 5 1 • view
Absolutely correct…a sell out to an evil, tyrannical traitor & stupid puppets.
jul 28, 2025, 11:40 pm • 0 0 • view
So we take some of the brightest students and teach them cowardice? Ivy education 2025.
jul 28, 2025, 10:50 pm • 0 0 • view
Especially when those $$$ will be filling his personal pockets and will in no way benefit the nation he is supposed to serve.
jul 28, 2025, 11:05 pm • 2 0 • view
Shame on Harvard!
jul 28, 2025, 11:29 pm • 0 0 • view
If they think the money will satisfy him. they're wrong. He'll bleed favors and capitulations forever. He digs in like a tick. At no point can they plead stop!
jul 29, 2025, 12:52 am • 0 0 • view
This is very disturbing.
jul 28, 2025, 10:40 pm • 0 0 • view
Where is this money going?
jul 28, 2025, 11:03 pm • 0 0 • view
How then could Harvard maintain ANY credibility with its faculty & students, past, present & future? Giving in to a tyrant is in itself hypocritical when instructing others in independent thought & critical thinking. It's throwing historical ideals out the door in obeyance to ignorant luddites.
jul 28, 2025, 10:48 pm • 1 0 • view
When did the government become an extortionist? Where are these payments even going?
jul 28, 2025, 10:42 pm • 24 3 • view
When a convicted felon, a con man, a pedo who's a Russian flunky, was elected Prez of the United States.
jul 29, 2025, 2:51 am • 0 0 • view
Trump is the answer to both questions.
jul 28, 2025, 11:23 pm • 10 1 • view
Not to mention Trump takes capitulation for weakness and always demands more. Real mafia stuff.
jul 28, 2025, 11:29 pm • 1 1 • view
You should ask for refund if they go ahead and settle.
jul 28, 2025, 10:52 pm • 0 0 • view
Trump is winning ...... and that should shame Americans and horrify the world. Every US institution has crumbled.
jul 28, 2025, 10:41 pm • 12 2 • view
The Americans who have been fighting this for over 10 years are not shamed. We are pissed off. And are getting more and more pissed off at all the assholes bending the knee.
jul 29, 2025, 1:30 am • 1 0 • view
Everybody is too busy talking about Epstein. While everybody should be fucking on the streets and striking their butts off.
jul 28, 2025, 10:52 pm • 3 0 • view
We can talk about Epstein (which we need do keep doing) and be on the streets. And do others things too all at the same time
jul 29, 2025, 1:31 am • 0 0 • view
I don’t see that enough. In the beginning, I thought “yes, the protests are growing”. But no, how long since a national protest? It’s ridiculous. You should focus on what is certain, not on what is in certain. Certain: ICE raids, attacks on democracy, etc (the fascist is long, it doesn’t even fit
jul 29, 2025, 9:48 am • 0 0 • view
here, just look at Project 2025). Uncertain: a mix of true events mixed with conspiracy theories that have no use to bring them until you fixed the certain things. I fear that the American people will look back at their own Putin moment while they still talk about Epstein… Apparently, most
jul 29, 2025, 9:48 am • 0 0 • view
Americans like their X-Files more than their democracy…
jul 29, 2025, 9:48 am • 0 0 • view
It’s like 2 dogs fighting over a thrown bone and the third one runs away with the bone “Democracy”. Conspiracy theories allover the place, focusing on uncertainties that have no use at all because the system is already compromised. Asking to release the Epstein files (while there is no certainty
jul 28, 2025, 11:47 pm • 1 0 • view
what’s in those files), while the law enforcement and judiciary apparatus is completely rigged, is nuts. It’s like asking to the fire department to take out a fire while you damn well know they no longer use water but gasoline to take out fires. Meanwhile the ICE raids continue, the martial law
jul 28, 2025, 11:47 pm • 1 0 • view
experiments continue, the preparations for rigged midterms began in Texas (switching districts) etc etc. Those are certainties and yet everybody sits behinds his desk to focus on the Epstein files. It drives me nuts. I hoped that Americans proved to be better resistance fighters (it’s in their
jul 28, 2025, 11:47 pm • 1 0 • view
blood and history) but I find this all very disturbing and disappointing.
jul 28, 2025, 11:47 pm • 1 0 • view
Grow a spine, Harvard and other institutions of higher education! Do not negotiate with regime-sponsored blackmailers.
jul 28, 2025, 11:17 pm • 1 0 • view
Agreed. That’s exactly why I argue that Columbia would’ve been better off rebuilding from scratch than capitulating to that despot. History has its eyes on you!
jul 28, 2025, 11:08 pm • 2 1 • view
I totally agree. If you think about it, the only logical reason, though still a bad one, is if the institution believes that autocracy is now a permanent way of life in the country.
jul 28, 2025, 11:13 pm • 1 0 • view
It just empowers him to be a bigger autocrat
jul 28, 2025, 10:39 pm • 65 2 • view
If Harvard agrees to this I am going to ask them to repay me the hundreds of thousands of dollars I have donated to them over the years. I won’t ask for tuition refunds because I got a good education, but if they do this it’s clear alumni appeals were based on false statements of principle.
jul 28, 2025, 10:50 pm • 115 13 • view
Good luck with that. Dont think they will. But they have to know this does piss off the alumni
jul 28, 2025, 11:07 pm • 0 0 • view
They wouldn’t - don’t really expect it. But the threat of a lot of alums asking will make them worry and may make them stand their ground. Btw - i am not a flaming liberal and have donated even though they have given tenure to idiots like Adrian Vermuele. But giving in to Trump is a bridge too far.
jul 28, 2025, 11:26 pm • 0 0 • view
All alumni have to do the same. This is absolutely insane.
jul 29, 2025, 8:11 pm • 0 0 • view
Don't wait to let them know, contact every office you can and tell them what will happen if they capitulate.
jul 28, 2025, 11:00 pm • 53 4 • view
Have already emailed my HAA “handler.”
jul 28, 2025, 11:02 pm • 33 1 • view
When they solicit money next time, you might ask if it would be more expedient if you just sent the cash straight to Trump's PAC to save Harvard the bother of forwarding it themselves.
jul 29, 2025, 6:09 am • 3 0 • view
I will be very disappointed
jul 28, 2025, 10:45 pm • 1 0 • view
Where does this money go?
jul 28, 2025, 11:35 pm • 1 0 • view
who's organizing in cambridge???
jul 29, 2025, 12:15 pm • 0 0 • view
Don’t Harvard!!
jul 28, 2025, 10:57 pm • 1 0 • view
If you had told me in 2016 that I would find myself agreeing with George Conway about politics on a daily basis in 2025, I would not have believed it. Yet here we are. No offense meant, we just come from very different ideological backgrounds.
jul 28, 2025, 11:22 pm • 1 0 • view
Ivies doing what they can to ruin their "brand." They are corporate like the rest of the elite. If Harvard can't stand up; they should just fold.
jul 28, 2025, 10:43 pm • 5 1 • view
With a father in law (1949), an uncle, a niece, an ex girlfriends’s dad, I approve of this post.
jul 28, 2025, 10:49 pm • 0 0 • view
True that
jul 29, 2025, 2:42 am • 2 0 • view
HUGE mistake! Hope they listen to you and many scholars and students and us!
jul 29, 2025, 10:04 pm • 0 0 • view
Thank you.
jul 28, 2025, 11:22 pm • 1 0 • view
It would be just the first payment. Trump wants at that giant endowment.
jul 28, 2025, 11:08 pm • 1 0 • view
"Fight fiercely, Harvard, fight, fight, fight!"
jul 29, 2025, 12:38 am • 0 0 • view
Exactly
jul 28, 2025, 10:40 pm • 0 0 • view
They’re all caving. No one has the stones. We’re cooked.
jul 28, 2025, 10:58 pm • 1 1 • view
I thought of you when I saw this story. I know you were sure Harvard would be different, and so was I. My 13yo daughter is still deciding what she wants to do with her life, but she knew she wanted to apply there as a long shot based on the name alone. That’s what Harvard is for people.
jul 28, 2025, 11:05 pm • 1 0 • view
The name and reputation will forever be tarnished if this happens. The slow march towards authoritarianism seems almost impossible to stop, and this just makes me slip more into hopelessness. I could just scream and cry, but it would be pointless. Screaming into the void.
jul 28, 2025, 11:12 pm • 2 1 • view
I have never in my lifetime seen one of our presidents extort money from another institution.
jul 28, 2025, 10:45 pm • 0 0 • view
Columbia prioritized "enduring". Is there a point in enduring if you surrender your integrity easily?
jul 29, 2025, 12:17 am • 2 2 • view
and there goes American higher education. because Trump lost a hotel deal to the Pritzkers.
jul 28, 2025, 10:53 pm • 3 1 • view
Actually the felon was a lousy partner to the Pritzkers
jul 29, 2025, 12:25 am • 0 0 • view
and they won -- he didn't . and one of the Pritzkjers is ...board chair of the Harvard Corporation ..
jul 29, 2025, 12:56 am • 0 0 • view
Penny is awesome
jul 29, 2025, 12:56 am • 0 0 • view
Extortion is not a core duty of the Frankenstein Roberts created. Utter fascism.
jul 28, 2025, 11:49 pm • 0 0 • view
It turns out that a very very small percentage of the people in the world care about anything besides their income. We see it daily with politicians. Now we see it with Harvard leaders. It’s disgusting.
jul 28, 2025, 10:42 pm • 5 1 • view
When I remember 1st really learning about WWII I wondered would I have had the guts as a European civilian to fight back. I will never understand in 2024 all we had to do was just show up & vote & 15m+ of registered voters couldn't even bother & every 1 of them will know a person hurt/dead due 2 dt
jul 28, 2025, 11:24 pm • 0 0 • view
How do all the alumni feel about their “gifts” to the elite school being given to the first dictator of the United States? That’s gotta hurt! Harvard is a joke.
jul 29, 2025, 12:33 am • 0 0 • view
WTF??? So these prestigious schools really aren’t!! This is ridiculous!
jul 28, 2025, 10:41 pm • 1 1 • view
If Harvard caves, every single alumni should stop their endowments, conrtibutions!!!!!
jul 28, 2025, 10:47 pm • 1 1 • view
Absolutely agree. And JB Pritzker's presidential campaign will have some explaining to do about how he's ready to fight the Trump Admin while his sister Penny oversaw this capitulation to the same administration.
jul 29, 2025, 1:44 am • 1 0 • view
and it would set a terrible example for a lot smaller and less powerful universities.
jul 28, 2025, 10:50 pm • 0 0 • view
How are these not bribes legally anyway? Trump is insatiable as well
jul 28, 2025, 10:41 pm • 1 0 • view
And, it won’t be the end of Trump’s demands. Don’t they get that??? What part of the admissions classes will be forced to be from Christian schools??
jul 28, 2025, 10:52 pm • 15 3 • view
Well said. If you cave he pushes more
jul 29, 2025, 6:31 pm • 2 1 • view
Harvard gives Trump a win, and that will be the end of it. Right.
jul 28, 2025, 10:42 pm • 4 0 • view
One more time, with gusto: DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE.
jul 29, 2025, 1:33 pm • 9 0 • view
Profile in Cowardice if they do this. If they do it the Kennedy's should return JFK's degree to Harvard saying it isn't worth the paper it is printed on.
jul 29, 2025, 12:48 am • 0 0 • view
CALL THEM @gtconway.bsky.social. Tell them NOT to give in. PLEASE.
jul 28, 2025, 11:12 pm • 0 0 • view
What is Harvard’s alternative here? Have private donors stepped up with offers to replace the billions in research funding? Have other universities rallied to their defense—financially? If all Harvards foreign students lose their visas, are they just “collateral damage”, worth the sacrifice?
jul 29, 2025, 1:35 pm • 5 0 • view
It's called winning their case. Once you give a bully your money they'll come back for more.
jul 29, 2025, 7:57 pm • 0 0 • view
When is #PedoTrump going to be arrested for his crimes??
jul 28, 2025, 11:25 pm • 0 0 • view
Every other university should be passing the hat and offering Harvard some money … if it keeps fighting. Once Harvard goes they all do.
jul 28, 2025, 11:05 pm • 4 0 • view
Harvard has plenty of money. But they may require medical assistance. A spinal transplant specifically.
jul 28, 2025, 11:29 pm • 1 0 • view
Why would they cave like this??
jul 28, 2025, 11:28 pm • 1 0 • view
I get the sinking feeling that all this will end with no institution or leader left to respect in this country.
jul 29, 2025, 2:10 am • 3 0 • view
How could anyone take a university seriously after caving to a dictator? They’d do better to go down fighting than wither and die from the complete loss of credibility as institution of free thought.
jul 28, 2025, 11:09 pm • 4 0 • view
You can't do business in America without paying Trump's extortion fees
jul 29, 2025, 1:52 am • 0 0 • view
Why are they surrendering now?
jul 28, 2025, 10:54 pm • 2 0 • view
The calculation is that the corrupt courts will ultimately side with Trump, and it will all be over in 3 1/2 years. Easy for us to be blithe about the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding.
jul 28, 2025, 10:46 pm • 0 0 • view
So you give this orange person hundreds of millions of dollars because you don’t want him to take away hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding? And when he refuses to leave in 3-1/2 years, or ups the ante every year, it will be way to late to say, “but you promised!”
jul 28, 2025, 11:29 pm • 0 0 • view
All well-taken objections, of course
jul 28, 2025, 11:34 pm • 0 0 • view
How exactly do we get this fact through to Larry Summers? He appears to be listening to a small circle of craven people telling him what he wants to hear. And people like him seem to run the show. Suggestions?
jul 29, 2025, 10:19 pm • 0 0 • view
Yep!
jul 29, 2025, 8:30 pm • 0 0 • view
Which means they'll do it.
jul 29, 2025, 2:20 am • 1 0 • view
Harvard is being blackmailed
jul 28, 2025, 10:58 pm • 1 0 • view
Baffled and appalled. While I was proud of their initial defiance something told me to keep my checkbook in my pocket. Come on, folks, suck it up and stand up.
jul 29, 2025, 12:42 am • 0 0 • view
and who will leave an endowment to Harvard now....? what Harvard alumni want to see their donations going to Trump....?
jul 28, 2025, 10:40 pm • 19 6 • view
They can’t touch the endowments-
jul 29, 2025, 12:23 am • 1 0 • view
How many times have we heard, “They can’t…”, yet they do.
jul 29, 2025, 3:46 pm • 2 0 • view
Some are legally only to be used as the donor designated- it would be a mass of lawsuits
jul 29, 2025, 3:47 pm • 1 0 • view
I’m not disagreeing with you, I’m just saying not much has slowed this regime.
jul 29, 2025, 4:39 pm • 2 0 • view
WTF! Jesus Christ. Don’t these institutions know they have a duty beyond education, just as media companies have a duty beyond just broadcasting the news? They should be a bastion against censorship by the government. If Harvard folds I feel like we’re just about done, and that breaks my heart.
jul 28, 2025, 10:59 pm • 7 2 • view
We ALL need to call and email NOW.
jul 28, 2025, 11:25 pm • 0 0 • view