介绍： MAGA’s remaking of universities could have dire consequences
For higher education, innovation, prosperity and freedom
美国政府的大学重塑可能带来严重后果
高等教育，创新、繁荣和自由
“THIS IS an economic revolution and we will win.” Donald Trump’s line on tariffs sounds like something from Robespierre or Eng...

介绍： MAGA’s remaking of universities could have dire consequences
For higher education, innovation, prosperity and freedom
美国政府的大学重塑可能带来严重后果
高等教育，创新、繁荣和自由
“THIS IS an economic revolution and we will win.” Donald Trump’s line on tariffs sounds like something from Robespierre or Engels. And as any revolutionary knows, to sweep away the old order it is not enough just to raise import duties. You also have to seize and refashion the institutions that control the culture. In America that means wresting control of Ivy League universities which play an outsize role in forming the elite (including Mr Trump’s cabinet). The MAGA plan to remake the Ivies could have terrible consequences for higher education, for innovation, for economic growth and even for what sort of country America is. And it is only just beginning.
“这是一场经济革命，我们会赢。”唐纳德·特朗普的关税路线听起来像是罗伯斯庇尔或恩格斯的话。正如任何革命者都知道的那样，要扫除旧秩序，仅仅提高进口关税是不够的。你还必须抓住并重塑控制文化的机构。在美国，这意味着争夺对常春藤盟校的控制权，这些大学在组建精英阶层（包括特朗普的内阁）方面发挥着巨大的作用。MAGA 重塑常春藤大学的计划可能会对高等教育、创新、经济增长甚至美国是一个什么样的国家产生可怕的后果。而这才刚刚开始。
The target has been exquisitely chosen. Over the past decade elite universities have lost the bipartisan support they used to enjoy. This was partly their own fault. In too many cases they succumbed to faddish groupthink about oppression, became scared of their student-customers and turned away speakers in the name of safety. At the same time, American politics became more polarised by educational achievement. Kamala Harris lost the popular vote in the 2024 presidential election. But she won Americans with post-graduate degrees by 20 points. This combination left the academy vulnerable.目标经过精心挑选。在过去的十年里，精英大学已经失去了他们过去所享有的两党支持。这在一定程度上是他们自己的错。在太多的情况下，他们屈服于对压迫的时髦群体思维，害怕他们的学生客户，并以安全的名义拒绝演讲者。与此同时，美国政治因教育成就而变得更加两极分化。卡玛拉·哈里斯 （Kamala Harris） 在 2024 年总统选举中失去了普选票。但她以 20 个百分点的优势赢得了拥有研究生学位的美国人。这种组合使学院变得脆弱。
But the most substantive change has been within the Republican Party. Conservatives considered elite universities to be hostile territory even before William F. Buckley published “God and Man at Yale” in 1951. Yet they also respected the basic compact that exists between universities and the federal government: that taxpayers fund scientific research and provide grants for students from poor families, and in return, universities do world-changing research.但最实质性的变化是在共和党内部。甚至在威廉·巴克利（William F. Buckley）于 1951 年出版《耶鲁的上帝与人》（God and Man at Yale）之前，保守派就认为精英大学是一个敌对的领域。然而，他们也尊重大学和联邦政府之间存在的基本契约：纳税人资助科学研究，为贫困家庭的学生提供助学金，作为回报，大学从事改变世界的研究。
Some of the researchers may have views that irk the White House of the day. Many are foreigners. But their work ends up benefiting America. That is why, in 1962, the government funded a particle accelerator, even though some people who would use it had long hair and hated American foreign policy. And why, later that decade, researchers at American universities invented the internet, with military funding.一些研究人员的观点可能激怒了当时的白宫。许多人是外国人。但他们的工作最终使美国受益。这就是为什么政府在 1962 年资助了粒子加速器，尽管一些使用它的人留着长发并且讨厌美国的外交政策。以及为什么在那个十年的后期，美国大学的研究人员在军事资助下发明了互联网。
This deal has been the source of military as well as economic power. It has contributed to almost every technological leap that has boosted output, from the internet to mRNA vaccines and GLP-1 agonists to artificial intelligence. It has made America a magnet for talented, ambitious people from around the world. It is this compact—not bringing car factories back to the rust belt—that is the key to America’s prosperity. And now the Trump administration wants to tear it up.这笔交易一直是军事和经济实力的来源。它为几乎所有提高产出的技术飞跃做出了贡献，从互联网到 mRNA 疫苗，从 GLP-1 激动剂到人工智能。它使美国成为吸引世界各地才华横溢、雄心勃勃的人的磁铁。正是这种契约——而不是让汽车工厂回到铁锈地带——才是美国繁荣的关键。现在，特朗普政府想撕毁它。
His government has used federal grants to take revenge on universities: the presidents of Princeton and Cornell criticised the government and promptly had over $1bn in grants cancelled or frozen. It has arrested foreign students who have criticised the conduct of Israel’s war in Gaza. It has threatened to increase the tax on endowments: J.D. Vance (Yale Law School) has proposed raising it on large endowments from 1.4% to 35%.他的政府利用联邦拨款来报复大学：普林斯顿大学和康奈尔大学的校长批评政府，并立即取消或冻结了超过 10 亿美元的拨款。它逮捕了批评以色列在加沙战争行为的外国学生。它威胁要提高捐赠基金的税：J.D. Vance（耶鲁大学法学院）提议将大额捐赠基金的税率从 1.4% 提高到 35%。
What it wants in return varies. Sometimes it is to eradicate the woke-mind virus. Sometimes it is to eradicate antisemitism. It always involves a double standard on free speech, according to which you can complain about cancel culture and then cheer on the deportation of a foreign student for publishing an op-ed in a college newspaper. This suggests that, as with any revolution, it is about who has power and control.它想要的回报各不相同。有时是为了根除清醒的病毒。有时是为了根除反犹太主义。它总是涉及对言论自由的双重标准，根据这种标准，你可以抱怨取消文化，然后为在大学报纸上发表专栏文章的外国学生被驱逐出境而欢呼。这表明，与任何革命一样，它关乎谁拥有权力和控制权。
So far, universities have tried to lie flat and hope Mr Trump leaves them alone, just like many of the big law firms that the president has targeted. The Ivy presidents meet every month or so, but have yet to come up with a common approach. Meanwhile, Harvard is changing the leadership of its Middle East studies department and Columbia is on its third president in a year. This strategy is unlikely to work. The MAGA vanguard cannot believe how quickly the Ivies have capitulated. The Ivies also underestimate the fervour of the revolutionaries they are up against. Some of them don’t just want to tax Harvard—they want to burn it down.到目前为止，大学一直试图躺平，希望特朗普放过它们，就像总统针对的许多大型律师事务所一样。常春藤大学校长们每个月左右都会开会，但还没有想出一个共同的方法。与此同时，哈佛大学正在更换其中东研究系的领导层，哥伦比亚大学在一年内更换了第三位校长。这种策略不太可能奏效。MAGA 先锋不敢相信常春藤队投降的速度有多快。常春藤大学也低估了他们所面对的革命者的热情。他们中的一些人不仅想向哈佛征税——他们还想把它烧毁。
Resisting the administration’s assault requires courage. Harvard’s endowment is about the same size as the sovereign-wealth fund of the oil-rich sultanate of Oman, which should buy some bravery. But that mooted tax could shrink it quickly. Harvard receives over $1bn in grants each year. Columbia’s annual budget is $6bn; it receives $1.3bn in grants. Other elite universities are less fortunate. If even the Ivies cannot stand up to bullying, there is not much hope for elite public universities, which are just as dependent on research funding and do not have vast endowments to absorb government pressure.抵制政府的攻击需要勇气。哈佛大学的捐赠基金的规模与石油资源丰富的阿曼苏丹国的主权财富基金差不多，这应该会带来一些勇气。但这项有争议的税收可能会迅速缩小它。哈佛每年收到超过 10 亿美元的赠款。哥伦比亚大学的年度预算为 60 亿美元;它获得了 13 亿美元的赠款。其他精英大学就没有那么幸运了。如果连常春藤大学都无法承受欺凌，那么精英公立大学就没有太大希望了，它们同样依赖研究资金，也没有大量的捐赠基金来吸收政府的压力。
How, then, should universities respond? Some things that their presidents want to do anyway, such as adopting codes protecting free speech on campus, cutting administrative staff, banning the use of “diversity” statements in hiring and ensuring more diverse viewpoints among academics, accord with the views of many Republicans (and this newspaper). But the universities should draw a clear line: even if it means losing government funding, what they teach and research is for them to decide.那么，大学应该如何应对呢？他们的校长无论如何都想做的一些事情，比如通过保护校园言论自由的法规，裁减行政人员，禁止在招聘中使用 “多样性 ”的声明，以及确保学术界的观点更加多样化，这与许多共和党人（和本报）的观点是一致的。但大学应该划清界限：即使这意味着失去政府资助，他们的教学和研究也是由他们自己决定的。
Like Ike
This principle is one reason why America became the world’s most innovative economy over the past 70 years, and why Russia and China did not. Yet even that undersells its value. Free inquiry is one of the cornerstones of American liberty, along with the freedom to criticise the president without fear of retribution. True conservatives have always known this. “The free university”, said Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell presidential address in 1961, has been “the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery”.这一原则是美国在过去 70 年中成为世界上最具创新性的经济体的原因之一，而俄罗斯和中国却没有。然而，即便如此，它也低估了它的价值。自由调查是美国自由的基石之一，还有批评总统而不必担心报复的自由。真正的保守派一直都知道这一点。德怀特·艾森豪威尔 （Dwight Eisenhower） 在 1961 年的总统告别演说中说，“自由大学”一直是“自由思想和科学发现的源泉”。
Eisenhower, who was president of Columbia before he was president of the United States, warned that when universities become dependent on government grants, the government can control scholarship. For a long time that warning seemed a bit hysterical. America never had a president willing to exert such authority over colleges. Now it does.