The College Fix

Here we go again …

A pair of Harvard government professors believe the university must “take a stand” against President Trump as “democracy is in greater peril today than at any time in modern U.S. history.”

Ryan Enos and Steven Levitsky write in The Crimson that Trump “ran an openly authoritarian campaign” last year, and is now making good on pledges to “prosecute his rivals, punish media critics, and deploy the military to repress protest.”

“The threat to democracy is unambiguous,” the professors say. “Like his authoritarian counterparts in Hungary, Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela, Trump is purging government agencies like the Justice Department, the FBI, the IRS, and the military and packing them with loyalists.”

Enos and Levitsky worry about the weaponization of government and how it’s “deployed against critics,” lawsuits generated by the administration, and that Trump’s pardons of January 6 “insurrectionists” give a “clear signal that violence by his supporters will be tolerated.”

The professors also say “there is mounting evidence” Trump supporters are “intimidating” non-MAGA Republicans into backing Trump and his policies.

Despite Harvard’s policy of institutional neutrality, which Enos and Levitsky say they support, the pair say the university “must speak out, clearly and forcefully” against Trump.

Harvard President Alan Garber should “give a high-profile speech defending democracy and condemning the administration’s assault on it” despite the recent “pile-on against elite universities,” Enos and Levitsky argue.

They add that Harvard still “retains considerable prestige,” and if the university community succumbs to “fear,” who will confront Trump’s dismantling of the Republic?

Similar sentiments have been expressed by academics and college communities almost endlessly since Trump’s election, and especially inauguration. Professors from Michigan State, Yale, and Penn State a few weeks ago recycled a 2024 piece in which they, like Enos and Levitsky, point out Trump’s (alleged) similarities to authoritarian leaders in Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela.

MORE: Harvard professors decry Trump’s impact on foreign affairs

A “parade of professors” at a recent University of Michigan teach-in argued Trump and Elon Musk are “engaging in lawlessness and anti-democratic extremism to the detriment of the country.”

Professor Jerry Davis used the term “Nerd Reich” to describe the Big Tech “founder class” that is “clearly enthralled by an anti-Democratic ideology.”

Last month college students organized 50 protests in 50 states, the “50501” movement, to demonstrate against Trump’s “anti-democratic and illegal actions” and Project 2025.

Given his support of institutional neutrality, Harvard’s Enos (pictured) interestingly supported the removal of Republican U.S. Rep. (and Harvard graduate) Elise Stefanik from the school’s Institute of Politics Senior Advisory Committee due to her objections over certifying Joe Biden the winner in 2020.

Enos said Harvard should “adopt ‘minimum standards'” for any relationship with the school that “include supporting free elections and not encouraging violence.” (Stefanik had issued a statement condemning any January 6 violence.)

Last year, Levitsky said Stefanik “scares [him] in several ways” because she “appears to be willing to go down Trump’s authoritarian path wholeheartedly.” And expressing concern about Trump in 2018, Levitsky noted that “no more than 2 percent of Germans” had joined the Nazi Party in Germany before it actually gained power, but Hitler was a “shrewd demagogue who benefited from the blindness of political insiders who accommodated [him].”

Oddly enough, Harvard’s Institute of Politics hosted Democratic Maryland U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin in 2022 to talk about the January 6 “insurrection” and Trump’s impeachments … despite his objections to the certification of Donald Trump as president in 2017.

The College Fix could find no objections to Raskin’s appearance from either Enos or Levitsky in the Crimson or via Google search. However, Levitsky attended a panel discussion with Raskin in 2019 which talked about “how the descent into constitutional hardball affects American democracy and how best to respond to it.”

MORE: Harvard ‘Intellectual Vitality’ event features ‘comedian’ who just rips Trump, supporters

IMAGES: Facebook, Harvard U.

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