First They Came for Columbia
Like many autocrats before him, Donald Trump has launched what could be a devastating attack on universities.
Over the last week, the Trump administration has cancelled $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia University and $800 million in grants to Johns Hopkins University.
Both schools were on a list of 10 universities (including Harvard) that the Department of Justice announced it was investigating over politicized allegations of antisemitism. The Department of Education subsequently launched a similar investigation into 60 universities.
And last week, the administration arrested a former student seemingly not for a crime but for his political speech on campus. Trump, who has pledged to punish universities that permit “illegal protests,” called it “the first arrest of many to come.”
So far, America’s leading universities have remained virtually silent in the face of this authoritarian assault on institutions of higher education. That must change. Harvard must stand up, speak out, and lead a public defense of our freedom to speak and study freely.
Autocrats — both left-wing and right-wing — always attack universities. The public rationale varies. Some, like Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, reportedly accuse universities or students of supporting terrorism; others, like pro-government outlets in Viktor Orban’s Hungary, accuse them of working for foreign interests; still others, like Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico, accused universities of supporting “neoliberalism” and corruption.
But these are pretexts. Universities are independent centers of ideas and often prominent centers of dissent. Autocrats are allergic to sources of dissent, so they almost invariably seek to silence, weaken, or control them.
The Trump administration is no different. Its claim to be fighting campus antisemitism rings as hollow as Ortega’s reported claim to be fighting terrorism in Nicaragua’s leading Jesuit-run university. The administration has weaponized the fight against antisemitism as a means to another end: punishing and weakening universities.
Most universities — including Harvard — have responded to these attacks with strategies of self-preservation. They are lying low, avoiding public debate (and sometimes cooperating with the administration) in the hope of mitigating the coming assault. To our knowledge, no major university leadership has publicly denounced the attack on Columbia or Mahmoud Khalil. In the face of an open assault on a peer Ivy League institution and basic principles of free speech, Harvard remains silent. With American democracy on the line, the University has crawled into a protective shell.
Not only is silence in the face of mounting authoritarianism morally objectionable, but, as the Columbia case suggests, it’s not working. Columbia’s leadership made repeated concessions to right-wing critics, only to be the first to come under attack.
Remaining silent will not protect us — but it does come with at least two major costs.
First, Harvard’s failure to speak out discourages other, more vulnerable universities from taking action, which undermines our collective defenses. If Columbia or another university confronts the administration on its own, it will lose. If America’s nearly 6,000 universities and colleges launch a campaign in defense of higher education, odds are that Trump will lose.
Someone must lead this collective effort. And if Harvard and other leading universities remain in their protective shells, there is a good chance that no one will.
Second, and crucially, silence cedes the public debate. Public opinion is not formed in a vacuum. The social science research is clear: In the absence of a countervailing message, a one-sided debate will powerfully shape public opinion. As long as he faces no public counter-argument from leaders of higher education, Trump will punish universities and pay no cost in the court of public opinion. If Harvard and other universities make a vigorous defense of higher education and principles of free speech and democracy, much of the public will rally to its side.
Our ability to conduct research, teach, and speak freely is under threat. This may be an existential moment for higher education. Colleges and universities are a key part of the fabric of American society. What we do is critical to the U.S. economy, technology, public health, and scientific advancement more generally.
Americans have a stake in the success of institutions of higher education. Important stakeholders include businesses and their CEOs, hospitals and their physicians, public schools and teachers, parents, alumni, and elected officials. But many of them fear raising their voice. Harvard has the stature to mobilize them. It also has the financial and institutional strength to stand up to mounting antidemocratic attacks.
As schoolchildren, many of us read the German pastor Martin Niemoller’s poem “First They Came.” Written just after the Holocaust, Niemoller’s poem highlights the moral and practical cost of allowing fear (or indifference) to prevent us from speaking out when others are targeted.
We must learn from the past. We cannot remain silent in the face of authoritarian attacks on our peers, even if they have not yet come for us.
Ryan D. Enos is a professor of Government. Steven Levitsky is the David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and a professor of Government.
On Digis and Dispos
We’ve all seen it: It’s the week after finals, and you open Instagram to find a flood of semester photo dumps from your classmates. Among these is often a classic group picture taken at a formal or party where everyone is adorned in dresses and ties, cheesing at the camera, their pearly grins reflecting the flash — and sure enough, a yellow timestamp dots the corner of the photo.
Digital and disposable camera pictures have become something of a status marker among college students. In some cases, they might be an indication of wealth among students who are able to go out of their way to buy a roughly $50 device for a feature their cellphones are already equipped with. Owning these specialized cameras also suggests that these people are secure in their social lives, in that there will indeed be several opportunities for them to snap pictures — their purchase is thus considered an investment for their friend group, a pledge to continue creating and savoring memories.
But even beyond these measures, the effect of these photos on our generation must be considered in their context of being uploaded to social media, as this is certainly not the original purpose of these cameras. Gen Z has adopted and reclaimed more analog modes of capturing moments, perhaps as a way of grounding and slowing down in today’s high-tech, digital-first, AI-powered whirlwind. The appeal of these devices, then, is that they’re viewed as more classy, timeless, and therefore “elevated” forms of taking pictures than the merely convenient functions offered by smartphones. Yet, when the pictures are uploaded to Instagram — which is meant to be an accessible, standardized platform — to be seen on the same feed as smartphone photos, there’s an inherent air of superiority they may convey, in light of comparison.
It’s not always necessarily the case that photos taken on cameras are even higher quality. Disposable cameras, as implied by their name, are limited in their use as well as their settings, with limited room to adjust lighting and hues. Once developed, the pictures also tend to appear dim and grainy. Yet, it might actually be this reduction and simplification of photos that make these cameras appealing: They offer a form through which we can simultaneously preserve moments and varnish them, so that even mundane experiences can be captured to exude more warmth and luster.
So the assumptions we might make when encountering disposable or digital pictures on social media are possibly more rooted in the story we assign its characters: The person taking the photo, the owner of the camera and perhaps “photographer of the group” is someone who is committed to their use of analog devices and attempting to truly “living in the moment,” while their subjects excitedly encourage this curation, unabashedly posing, hoping they look their best, and awaiting receipt of the photos in anywhere from a week to several months, depending on the disposable variety. Either to be real or to show off, or some combination of the two, some photo dumps will even include a playful picture of the photographer with their eye to the camera itself, about to shoot — pridefully, literally flashing their craft.
Is the insistence on using these devices performative? Or is it an attempt to savor the moment and enjoy the little things in such a fast-paced world?
A recent NPR episode of “All Things Considered” on the return of the digital camera among Gen Z suggested that the revival was sparked by nostalgia for the early 2000s and a resurgence of vintage style. Yet, it also mentioned its association today with achieving a “trendy influencer look.” Undoubtedly, in today’s age, we must admit that the way we capture and share pictures is no longer just a matter of preference or preserving tradition, but a deliberate choice to shape how we are perceived by others.
While there might be a level of pretension implied by digital camera photos, as something more sophisticated and unlike the rest of the photos on our feed, their relevance among Gen Z is ultimately attributed to their virality on the very platforms they are being uploaded to. It’s possible that this is inherently subversive to the “authenticity” these forms are originally associated with, that which Gen Z strives for.
Just as Instagram was technically intended to make photo sharing effective from our smartphones, digital and disposable cameras were not designed with mass-distribution in mind — to be seen by an audience outside of your close circle, or even duplicable. The fact that Gen Z nevertheless combines these two forms, seemingly at odds with each other, perhaps shows we’ve invented a new form of photo sharing entirely. Ultimately, it proves we are willing to forgo convenience for aesthetics, either that of the photography experience itself, or of our feeds.
Whatever the benefit, we seem to get the best of both worlds. We’re afforded the enjoyment of opting to take pictures with specialized cameras as a way to “unplug” and be present in the moment, but also later, when we want to “reconnect,” to easily post the ravishing images for followers to see.
Aesthetics are our generation’s weakness. This camera phenomenon might just reveal our compulsion to romanticize more moments of our lives than necessary, and to make it publicly known. Now, maybe it’s time for us to step back and ask: Are we capturing memories, or are we simply curating them for the feed?
Sometimes, the photos we take matter less than the moments we’re truly present for.
—Associate Magazine Editor Chelsie Lim can be reached at chelsie.lim@thecrimson.com. Her column “Form Fitting” explores the social and physical structures by which we are contained, reconciling how their literal and metaphorical forms manifest into our experiences of them.