Harvard Law professor and former Biden and Obama adviser Laurence Tribe is ripping President Trump’s attempted “takeover” at Harvard, calling it a move suited to a dictator such as Adolf Hitler, Viktor Orban or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Tribe joined CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday to discuss the Trump administration’s continued efforts to punish Harvard after the university rejected its demands to change policies.
“The basic claim is one that really connects what’s going on here to what’s gone on throughout history. When autocrats and tyrants and basically mafia-like leaders decide that they really don’t want universities to be independent … that’s what Hitler basically said,” Tribe said.
“That’s what Orban has done in Hungary. That’s what Erdoğan has done in Turkey,” he added later. “It’s a standard technique.”
The Trump administration has frozen $2.2 billion in funding to Harvard after the university became the first school to openly reject the administration’s demands to change its policies.
The administration demanded Harvard — and other universities — remove diversity, equity and inclusion policies and alter its hiring and admission processes, among other changes.
Trump has called the school “a joke” and threatened to end the university’s tax-exempt status, which researchers say will cost lives and have dire effects down the line.
The school sued the administration on Monday, saying it “wielded the threat of withholding federal funds in an attempt to coerce Harvard to conform with the Government’s preferred mix of viewpoints and ideologies.”
Tribe argued that the Trump administration has “crossed the line” with its executive orders.
“If we allow the government to take over private institutions that are centers of innovation, of medical advances, of advances in philosophy, of better understandings of history, we will play into the dictator’s handbook, because that it what dictators want,” he said.
Tribe said that other universities may follow suit now that Harvard has stood up to Trump. Columbia previously struck a deal with the administration after some of its funding was paused, but the university has yet to see the money restored.
“I think that Harvard is encouraging many others to stand up because when we will, and we will, they will realize that going along with dictatorial demands doesn’t get them anywhere,” Tribe said.
“If you stand up for your rights, resist, use the legal system, it’s surprising how well you can do,” he added.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
