A weaker Harvard is a weaker America

IMAGINE if China or Russia tried to destroy a US asset that generates tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value, plays a major role in American leadership in science and technology, and turbocharges our prestige and soft power. We’d expect our government to go to war to defend it.

But in attacking Harvard University, that’s exactly the kind of damage the Trump administration is trying to do. Despite the school’s failures and flaws, it remains a vital national asset – and the administration’s actions are far more dangerous to America than they are to Harvard.

When you tour the UK’s Cambridge University, your guide will show you empty niches containing stone fragments. They’re the remnants of statues smashed by Puritan fanatics during the English Civil War. But Cambridge survived and flourished.