Pervez Hoodbhoy goes into a rant on Yawn.
Why Trump hates Harvard
but the subtitle is:
Just one word tells why there cannot be a Pakistani Harvard now, or in the foreseeable future.
First the rant: After American universities became the envy of the world,
And then came a felon, convicted under American law, currently president of the United States, who decided his country must be shot in the foot to Make America Great Again (MAGA). Behind him stand millions of Bible Belters, pot-bellied Budweiser-drinking football watchers, and assorted white American losers who blame Mexicans, Muslims, and black ‘welfare mothers’ for their long downward slide.
In 2024, J.D. Vance, now vice president, declared “Professors are the enemy”, adding, “We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country”.
MAGA’s White House crew forbade universities from discussing equity, diversity, race, affirmative action, climate change, vaccine efficacy, wildlife protection or anything considered ‘woke’. Criticism of Israel is tantamount to antisemitism, now punishable under the law. Should you see images of starving Gaza children being shot in the face by the IDF, you may not mutter “genocide”.
A vengeful throng is sadistically savouring the dismantling of the hated Eastern ‘liberal establishment’. Three-quarters (75 per cent) of US scientists are considering leaving the country, according to a March 2025 survey conducted by the prestigious science journal Nature.
Once-proud Columbia University has eaten humble pie, agreeing to pay $220 million dollars in damages to the US government plus $21m to Jewish employees who “were unlawfully targeted and harassed”. Pro-Palestinian protests are banned, the curriculum changed, and new faculty members in the Middle Eastern Studies department must be affiliated with the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. In return, the US government will release $400m in federal research funding.
Columbia’s shameful capitulation to MAGA’s extortion put Harvard next in the line of fire. Trump ordered withholding of $9 billion in government funds from Harvard and revoked its eligibility to host international students. Students panicked and Harvard responded by filing multiple challenge lawsuits. Hundreds of less well-endowed universities nervously await the court decisions knowing the axe could fall on them.
He then turns to Pakistan:
Today, Pakistan has hundreds of so-called universities. But in reality these are dark dungeons that contain and stifle thought......
Veritas! This one word tells why there cannot be a Pakistani Harvard now or in the foreseeable future. A security state, obsessed with maintaining absolute control over its people, seeks only propaganda machines and technical institutes. It cannot tolerate a free-thinking Harvard-like university.
Most Pakistani professors are quite comfortable with the present rot; they see Veritas as a hindrance, not a help. As for the real Harvard: how much survives by the time Trump exits remains to be seen.