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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Bernard E Harcourt

Trump’s war on Harvard was decades in the making. This letter proves it

US President Richard Nixon meets with Vice President-Designate Congressman Gerald Ford, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and Chief of Staff Alexander Haig Jr in the Oval Office in 1973
‘In a taped conversation with Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig Jr in the Oval Office, Richard Nixon attacked university professors, claiming they were the enemy.’ Photograph: Nixon Library/Reuters

On the shelf in my library, I have an autographed copy of a book written by a former Republican congressman from New York, John LeBoutillier, titled Harvard Hates America: The Odyssey of a Born-Again American. It was published in 1978, two years before LeBoutillier was elected to Congress – and decades before the Trump administration’s assault on the institution. But its message is familiar in 2025.

The book is a scathing criticism of Harvard University, in large part over its supposed left-leaning professors who allegedly indoctrinate their undergraduates. Its thrust is straightforward: Harvard is America’s problem.

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