By Om Prakash Dwivedi
“Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges,” contends Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform. He goes on to say, “Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds.” But then, America is no exception. The condemnation and assassination of the institution’s reputation have become a fait accompli of late. As the state’s grip on renowned public and private universities continues to grow muscularly, we are witnessing a global struggle for the freedom of universities.
We are told that this scathing broadside by Trump has its roots in the university’s failure to curb antisemitism sentiments on its campus. Freezing $2.2 billion in funding while recommending changes to hiring and admission processes and questioning the reputation of an institution that has produced 161 Nobel laureates are apparently juvenile demonization of the very idea of what university are meant to be.
Harvard’s rise to popularity is not a fluke rather it is rooted in its deep vision and staunch support for multiculturalism and its commitment to humanitarian values. No wonder, it decided to change its status from a state university to a private university reinforcing and heightening its moral imperative for public purpose. One could claim that in neoliberal parlance, people’s resources and intellectual moorings are invariably subjected to cannibalistic practices. Universities are pushed to fraying edges, scholarly pursuits are termed “disposable knowledge”, and activism is legitimized only if it tows the powerful echelons.
The saddest part of all of this is its normalization and incorporation into the quotidian life of America as well as several other nations. For example, a report from the Guardian points out that “the US has severed research funding at six [Australian] universities – Monash University, Australian National University (ANU) and the University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, University of New South Wales and University of Western Australia” as US agencies target to meet President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda.” Such patronizing practices are an attempt to put a leash around the intellectual’s neck under the garb of making a nation great. The unplumbed depth of mediocrity in conjunction with authoritarianism has led us to that critical juncture of universities’ future where the world is experiencing a growth of what John Sexton, the former President of New York University calls “secular dogmatism.” “What we have seen is a marginalization of seriousness,” he argues. “What we need instead is a marginalization of dogmatism.” In our world of populism and demagoguery, dogmatism qualifies as an essential virtue of national pantheons.
If universities have survived for so long, it is only because of our secular spirit of camaraderie, not dogmatism. It is also because it continues to be rooted in the celebration, promotion, and institutionalization of public reason. Universities have also managed to survive and thrive for so long due to their convincing demonstration that the greatest good of the public does not always lie to take sides with those in power, but to question them. It is the power of uncompromised questions that have protected us all irrespective of our class, caste, race, and gender. Demonstrating this fidelity, Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a message to the community, “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” He added: “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.” While one can question the distorted meaning of “private” that Garbar uses here, since Harvard University receives almost 68 per cent of funding from the state, the pressing matter, however, is about maintaining the sacrosanctity and secularity of universities, or as the renowned Indian author, Dr Amit Sarwal advocates, “in theory and practice, universities need independence of thought.”
Apparently, in the world of globalization, everything seems affordable except the common sense for public good. Ours is a time when the realm of public good is judged against the realm of value of an individual or a group of people. Those who refuse to listen and understand this simple fact need to be reminded that the commitment to the public good can never be sacrificed at the altar of self-interests lest we run the risk of turning our public institutions into predefined templates of national level mediocracy, which unfortunately has become the leitmotif of our times. Exactly, why, we can witness a crack in the way universities are being imagined and judged on an everyday basis, which is an irony in itself because the life and value of universities can only be measured in their organic growth over a period aimed at intellectual inquiry and mutual respect of public purposes. Also, because universities are not stock markets that can give you monetary returns on a daily basis. This scalar ruin project, then, has been possible because University values have been replaced. Perhaps, we have reached that cursed crossroad where academics are categorically told to lessen their voice until they forget the purposive action of universities, and in so doing, also forget to speak at all. That damned silence will be a global violence on the very idea of public reason and public good. As my dear friend, Mustafa Zeki Cirakli, told me on the phone, “Nietzsche, once declared “Death of God”; Barthes declared “Death of Author”; T.S. Eliot and Gennette declared “death of originality”; AI recently declared, “The Second Death of Author”; and academia declared “death of academics.”
Not that choice to speak or re-entry to academic culture is difficult. The question is also not “what should I do?” but “what should I do given the situation?” It is also a question of who dares to speak in what clearly appears to be times of eulogization and celebration of sameness. It is, therefore, not surprising to find “The replacement of public experts with propogandists,” which according to the Vice Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, is “being presented in glowing terms” nowadays, relishing the perks of fidelity and mediocrity. To forestall this foreclosure of thinking and the public good, academics, including the University leaders, need to turn institutions into sites of both work and struggle, “because it is only in [Universities] where there already exist all the elements for the establishment of a community of wealth, and this community will be established here or it will be nowhere.”
Contributing Author: Prof. Om Prakash Dwivedi is a literary critic and columnist.
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