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This Isn’t Just About Harvard—It’s About All of Us
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Released: May 12, 2025

Expiration: May 11, 2026

John Marshall
John Marshall, MD
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MedBuzz: This Isn’t Just About Harvard—It’s About All of Us

 

It has indeed been a busy couple of weeks here in Washington and around our country. Specifically, the relationship between our new federal government and academic institutions. I mentioned this previously about the issues between the government and Columbia University. And as everyone knows who's listening in, the most recent confrontation is between the federal government and Harvard University. You know that recently Harvard has refused to comply with the government's demands. There's been a countersuit back from Harvard to the federal government, so I guess discussions are ongoing, Harvard did release the letter that was sent to them lead signator of this letter, I have it here in my hand, is a guy named Josh Gruenbaum, who is a government appointee by the new administration. He's the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service. He's co-signed by a couple of other people, I wanted to just make sure that our audience out there knows about this document can read some of the language that is in it because as a professor at an academic institution, as a member of a, a medical community out there trying to advance science, trying to be inclusive and not only who we take care of, but also who is doing the care taking. This I thought was worth bringing in short, but some high level discussion. It's a multi-page letter. You can find it online yourself first from the government. An investment, their grants, is not an entitlement, it requires that you uphold the civil rights laws, whatever those are. And they get to be the judge of whether you're holding those, upholding those civil rights laws. So, the first point they come forward with is government and leadership reforms. They want to reduce the power held by faculty, whether tenured or untenured, and administrators who are more committed to activism than scholarship. It's all it says. So how do you decide, how do you judge a faculty member's commitment to, you know, in their words, activism versus scholarship? Aren't those two in some ways connected? That was the first paragraph no longer can you hire based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. They're gonna contradict themselves here in a minute. No longer can you admit students based on that. No longer can you admit students, and here's the contradiction, from countries hostile to the American values, institutions inscribed in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, including students who are supportive of terrorism or antisemitism. So how are you gonna not do sort of biopsies of who people are, but at the same time not allow students who represent terrorism or antisemitism? They bring out this thing called viewpoint diversity. Which again seems to me to be contradictory. They were asking Harvard, not asking, telling Harvard to audit their student body, faculty and staff and leadership for viewpoint diversity. They're supposed to produce quarterly reports.

 

It's supposed to be by an outside group that the federal government approves. So, they're gonna have to hold up standards quarterly so that they're meeting this rule. there could be no program. with Records of antisemitism or any other bias. Pretty broad. One that's we are all struggling with is discontinuation of DEI. So, it can't be part of anything. And that students must be disciplined are not complying with all of this. So, it then puts the role of the leadership of the institution, the academic institution of overseeing and monitoring their students for compliance with all of these rules. And Mr. Gruenbaum signed that along with some others.

 

Can you imagine being the academic administrator who opened this letter and began to read it? You know that there are billions of dollars at stake with this relationship between just Harvard and the Federal government, and we as institutions are struggling with, do you just comply with these things? Because that's the new law of the land. Do you push back and say, that isn't the law of the land? Do you have to prove that? What really is the truth here and what do we have to do? But you can understand why this is threatening to what is truly been special about United States education, and that is the freedom of speech, the freedom of thought, the challenging of each other, and our thoughts. Acknowledging what we know, acknowledging what we don't know, whether that's around science or other fields, and investing in improving our knowledge and our understanding in that we make the world a better place for us all.

 

I worry about this letter a lot and I'm pretty sure you do too. For Oncology Unscripted, this is John Marshall. Let's keep our heads up. Let's keep figuring out the truth and let's make sure we share that with others. Every day makes the today a little bit better for someone nearby. That one little rock you throw in the puddle that makes the ripple, you never know how far that ripple will reach. And I'm convinced that if we keep our heads up, and, if we keep tossing those rocks in and keep making those positive ripples, that we will keep the world headed in a better direction.

 

John Marshall Oncology Unscripted.