On Sec. McMahon’s Letter to Harvard

It’s Worth a Look

Earlier this week, Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent a letter to the president of Harvard University informing him that Harvard needn’t bother applying for any more federal funds in the future—the school won’t be getting any. In so doing, the Trump Administration has escalated its fight with the university, which began last month. On April 11, the Trump Administration sent Harvard a list of demands that, if refused, would jeopardize the university’s access to taxpayer dollars. The Trump Administration justified its actions by claiming that Harvard was fostering an anti-Jewish cultural atmosphere on campus. Harvard refused the government’s demands, and so here we are.

All of the above was duly reported earlier in the week before other news claimed the spotlight. But in case you missed it, I want to draw attention to how Sec. McMahon expressed herself in this most recent letter to Harvard. There are sentences like this:

“Where do many of these ‘students’ come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country—and where is there so much HATE?”

Hm. I’m pretty sure it’s no real mystery who the students of Harvard or any school are, where their home address is, and how they are admitted. No, the Secretary here is indulging in what I’d call the Disingenuous Question, a rhetorical move meant to mean-spiritedly put another person down. Anyone who has worked in customer service has had a Disingenuous Question thrown at them, like when you’re a cashier and you tell a customer “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” and you get asked “do you even speak English?” (This happened to me once).

The Secretary goes on, a couple of paragraphs later, to land a straight-up insult:

“As if it were trying to embarrass itself even further, Harvard hired failed Mayors Bill De Blasio and Lori Lightfoot, perhaps the worst mayors ever to preside over major cities in our country’s history, to supposedly teach ‘leadership’ at their School of Public Health. This is like hiring the captain of the Titanic to teach navigation to future captains of the sea.”

Okay. Let’s put aside the actual merits of De Blasio and Lightfoot. This is just

rudeness, pure and simple.

It’s one thing for the Secretary of Education to threaten universities with cessation of federal funding. It’s an entirely different thing to do so in crass, bullying language. Do we want the Secretary of Education to write to university presidents like this? I don’t.

But there are many in this country, I have no doubt, who do like this tone. They probably see this rhetoric as more than justified, as part of Trump’s righteous struggle against ivory tower snobs.

To rebuild a culture of respect and civility is part of our job now. I’m afraid it’ll take a long time.

Until next time—

Sources: The government’s fight with Harvard: “Trump Finally Drops the Anti-Semitism Pretext” by Rose Horowitch, posted to The Atlantic app, 6 May 2025. The Administration’s April demands: https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2025/04/Letter-Sent-to-Harvard-2025-04-11.pdf McMahon’s recent letter: https://x.com/EDSecMcMahon/status/1919517481313427594