Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: You've spent much of your career when you're in Washington
Speaker 2: as a professor at Harvard and then as president of
Speaker 2: Harvard as well. So we want to ask you about
Speaker 2: this letter that came in on Friday from the United
Speaker 2: States government. I've read the letter carefully. Set aside for
Speaker 2: the moment, some of the things that some people find draconian.
Speaker 2: Does the Trump administration have a point, particularly with respect
Speaker 2: to dealing with anti semitism and diversity of viewpoint? Those
Speaker 2: are things you have spoken out on before.
Speaker 3: David.
Speaker 1: I've been sharply critical of Harvard, and I continue to
Speaker 1: be critical on many dimensions. Anti Semitism is still not
Speaker 1: responded to strongly enough. There are still excesses of identity politics.
Speaker 1: There's still concerns about intellectual diversity.
Speaker 3: That's all right, But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: In America, you have to follow the law and the
Speaker 1: approach the Trump administration is taking of simply announcing and
Speaker 1: across the board, freeze is wildly extra legal in its approach.
Speaker 1: It is not at all consistent with the Civil Rights Act,
Speaker 1: it is probably not consistent with Harvard's First Amendment rights,
Speaker 1: and so The right thing to do was surely for
Speaker 1: Harvard to respond vigorously and strongly. All the more because
Speaker 1: this is not an isolated thing what's being done to Harvard.
Speaker 1: This is not a manifestation of a particular concern about
Speaker 1: aspects of universities. This is a part of a broad
Speaker 1: and sweeping effort to suppress institutions that challenge the presidential administration.
Speaker 1: It's part of what's being done to law firms. It's
Speaker 1: part of what's being done to countries. It's part of
Speaker 1: what's being done to judges. It's part of what's being
Speaker 1: done to legal residents.
Speaker 3: Of our country.
Speaker 1: And if a institution like Harvard cannot resist tyranny when
Speaker 1: applied to it, with Harvard's fifty billion dollar endowment, with
Speaker 1: all its network, with all its prestige.
Speaker 3: Then who can.
Speaker 1: So Harvard should not go interjecting itself into politics, but God,
Speaker 1: when it is the object of an extra legal set
Speaker 1: of orders and threats, I don't think it had any
Speaker 1: viable choice at all but to respond strongly.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about that extra legal part of what you're saying,
Speaker 2: at least defonic the representative Republican from New York actually
Speaker 2: give an Interview Today and Arrival Network saying, listen, colleges
Speaker 2: like Harvard don't have a right to money from the government.
Speaker 2: They don't have a right to tax mayor money. And
Speaker 2: if they don't have a right to tax mayor money,
Speaker 2: can't the government put conditions on that money?
Speaker 3: Show here's the thing.
Speaker 1: First of all, the money is not going It's not
Speaker 1: like the government's funding the DEI office at Harvard, not
Speaker 1: like the government is funding the student discipline mechanism at Harvard.
Speaker 1: The government is funding researchers who are doing vitally important
Speaker 1: research on diseases like diabetes and cancer and als. Show
Speaker 1: what sense does it make to cut their funding off
Speaker 1: because somebody doesn't like what the dean of students did
Speaker 1: in a student discipline case? And what remit does the
Speaker 1: government have to set as a condition the composition which
Speaker 1: beliefs are valued, in which beliefs are not valued in.
Speaker 3: The Harvard Sociology department.
Speaker 1: That's not the way free speech works are in a
Speaker 1: free society. And this is supposed to be done the
Speaker 1: power of the purse. Remember by Congress, it is not
Speaker 1: the prerogative of the executive branch. With three days notice,
Speaker 1: with no hearing, no judicial review, no transparent notification to
Speaker 1: Congress is mandated by statute to simply discriminately start cutting
Speaker 1: off previously promised and committed funds because it has a
Speaker 1: disagreement over an issue with the university.
Speaker 2: So, Larry, give us a sense of what is a
Speaker 2: practical matter this will mean if it continues through. You
Speaker 2: ran Harvard at one point. You know the budget, You
Speaker 2: know that fifty three billion dollars in down there. What
Speaker 2: will it do their operations?
Speaker 1: Look, they'll have to make some very important strategic choices.
Speaker 1: I hope that the university will find ways even if
Speaker 1: there is a cutoff for some interval of funds, to
Speaker 1: maintain vitally important programs, to not cut back research. But potentially,
Speaker 1: if the US government goes to war with our great universities,
Speaker 1: it means a sharp reduction in the kind of scientific
Speaker 1: progress that has caused the United States to be the
Speaker 1: envy of the world and pull so far ahead of
Speaker 1: Europe and Japan. It means the end of efforts at
Speaker 1: cures to diseases like cancer and diabetes. It means a
Speaker 1: substantial risk to our national security because one of our
Speaker 1: great national assets has been our capacity for innovation which
Speaker 1: resides very heavily in our leading academic institutions. So a
Speaker 1: short run problem, I think that can be managed painfully
Speaker 1: until the judiciary steps in and does what's necessary, a
Speaker 1: long run war against the universities that is going after
Speaker 1: what is our hugest asset. You know, if I think
Speaker 1: about all the different sectors of the economy, it's hard
Speaker 1: to think of one where we are as.
Speaker 3: Dominant as in higher education.
Speaker 1: All the students from all over the world, at least
Speaker 1: until this administration came, wanted to come to the United States.
Speaker 1: A vast fraction of the world's innovation takes place in
Speaker 1: American universities.
Speaker 3: If we put at this put.
Speaker 1: That at risk, we are making, I believe, a very
Speaker 1: very grave mistake. And yes, these issues should be pursued.
Speaker 1: But destroying medical research grants because you don't think people
Speaker 1: have been disciplined severely enough, it really doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: Larry, I wonder if there's cautionary tail here that maybe
Speaker 2: the higher education system has become too intertwined with the government,
Speaker 2: that's why they're so dependent upon them.
Speaker 1: There may be questions that can be asked of that kind.
Speaker 1: But gosh, if the government is not prepared to fund
Speaker 1: basic research, the research which ultimately will make possible the
Speaker 1: development of new products.
Speaker 3: I think we have a problem.
Speaker 1: If the government is not prepared to fund scholarships that
Speaker 1: promote opportunity for our poorest students, who are very able
Speaker 1: and generate social mobility, I think we have a problem.
Speaker 1: I think what we need, frankly, is a more mature
Speaker 1: relationship between the government, the broader society, and the universities. Yes,
Speaker 1: the universities have made some very serious mistakes, and yes
Speaker 1: they should be pressured and pressured with escalating strength to
Speaker 1: change that. I didn't even have an objection to the
Speaker 1: way in which the Biden administration opened civil rights cases
Speaker 1: with respect to a variety of universities.
Speaker 3: And anti semitism.
Speaker 1: But that's a very different thing than the kind of
Speaker 1: persecution that is involved here. And this escalated yesterday, David
Speaker 1: in a profoundly troubling way, when the President of the
Speaker 1: United States endeavored by social media to engage in an
Speaker 1: individual specific tax matter, namely Harvard's five oh one C
Speaker 1: three deduction, and to suggest that it be decided on
Speaker 1: the basis sh of a political ground.
Speaker 3: That's the kind of interference.
Speaker 1: With the IRS that it's a sacred duty of the
Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary to resist. It's exactly what was alleged to
Speaker 1: have happened six levels down, and many people got very
Speaker 1: upset in connection with the so called Loess Learner case
Speaker 1: involving five O one C three deductions and conservative groups.
Speaker 1: If there was punishment of conservative groups, people were absolutely
Speaker 1: right to have been hugely outraged about it during the
Speaker 1: Biden administration.
Speaker 3: I don't know anything about.
Speaker 1: The merits of the case, but for the President of
Speaker 1: the United States to be calling for changing the tax
Speaker 1: status of his adversaries, this is new, and I believe
Speaker 1: authoritarian and a real question about our democracy.
Speaker 2: Larry, one last question, since we're on taxes and this
Speaker 2: is tax week, basically, what do you make of the
Speaker 2: actions that the Trump administration is taking with respect to
Speaker 2: the IRS.
Speaker 1: I think it's possible that the Treasury Secretary and his
Speaker 1: senior colleagues are being seriously delinquent in their duty. I
Speaker 1: look at tens of thousands of people being pushed out
Speaker 1: of the IRS, even as tax compliance is a massive problem,
Speaker 1: and hear so many stories have increased tax chieting as
Speaker 1: a consequence. I see the elevation of a person with
Speaker 1: no experience, no administrative or information technology experience, to be
Speaker 1: the temporary Commissioner of the IRS, chosen on the basis
Speaker 1: of political loyalty to the Trump enterprise.
Speaker 3: I look at what are.
Speaker 1: Probably the extra lawful agreements entered into without even speaking
Speaker 1: to people at the IRS with respect to information sharing
Speaker 1: and immigration. I look at the president's involvement in specific cases,
Speaker 1: and I see the most important line that I thought
Speaker 1: I was supposed to defend when I was Treasury Secretary,
Speaker 1: a political tax enforcement, neutral professional tax enforcement, not driven
Speaker 1: by politics. And I see that line being crossed with
Speaker 1: the Treasury Department hearing it on, and it makes me
Speaker 1: both very sad and very angry.