← So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast
So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast
Ep. 249: FIRE Reacts — Where does Harvard go from here? With Larry Summers
01:08:50
2025 has not been kind to Harvard. To date, the Trump administration , demanding violations of free speech, academic freedom, and institutional autonomy in return for restoring the funding. In response, Harvard , raising First Amendment claims. ...
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- [00:01]
Larry Summers
Somewhere I read of the freedom of Speech.
- [00:04]
Nico Perrino
You're listening to so to Speak, the free speech podcast brought to you by fire, the foundation for individual rights and expression. Thanks, folks, for joining this edition of FIRE Reacts. As we mentioned in our notification email about this, we're going to be covering the latest with Harvard, which is ongoing and seems to never end. I'm joined here by my colleague at fire, President and CEO, Greg Lukianoff. Greg, welcome back.
- [00:32]
Greg Lukianoff
Hey, thanks for having me. Excited to talk to Larry.
- [00:35]
Nico Perrino
Yeah. So this is a collaboration between not only FHIR Reacts, our new program within FHIR for fast breaking responses to things that are happening in the news cycle, but also a collaboration between Greg, Substack, the Eternally Radical Idea, which covers all things free speech. And if you do not subscribe to it already, I will forgive you if you go over to a separate browser window and subscribe. Subscribe to Eternally Radical Idea and also a collaboration with the podcast I've hosted at fire since 2016, so to speak, the Free Speech podcast, which also has a substack that you can subscribe to. You can also subscribe to it on fire's website. Larry is running a few minutes late. Larry Summers is running a few minutes late, but I'll introduce him very quickly. He is the Charles W. Elliott University professor and President Emeritus of Harvard University. He's also a former U.S. treasury Secretary and a member of FIRE's Advisory Council. And Greg, who I've already introduced, I should also mention, had a book that just came out called war on words. 10 arguments against free Speech and why they Fail. Greg's currently looking on his bookshelf to see if he has a copy of it.
- [01:46]
Greg Lukianoff
I don't have a copy of it. I, I had like dozens. I, I had like handfuls of them before. Oh, that's embarrassing.
- [01:51]
Nico Perrino
Well, you were just in my office signing a bunch of copies, so. Yeah, I know they exist. They're just not right behind you.
- [01:56]
Greg Lukianoff
Yeah, War on Words with the great Nadine Strawson. Yeah. Larry's been on our advisory council for ages, and one time I did a presentation with him and I made the mistake of reading Larry's cv. And I've known him for a long time, so I didn't think to be totally intimidated. I was like, oh, that's right.
- [02:15]
Nico Perrino
Yes. One of the youngest ever professors at Harvard, I think, up there with Alan Dershowitz, who might have been the youngest ever faculty member at the law school. I don't know if that applies to the, the, the college as well.
- [02:27]
Greg Lukianoff
Yeah.
- [02:28]
Nico Perrino
But then was president, of course, for a period of time at the university as well. So a quick timeline before we begin this discussion. As many of our viewers here will know, Harvard has seen nearly $3 billion in research funding revoked by the federal government since April. And it's had that funding revoked because it initially rejected demands from the federal government that it said compromised its governance, admissions and hiring, which violated principles of free speech, academic freedom and institutional autonomy. It has since filed a lawsuit and oral arguments on that lawsuit actually were held on July 21, though no ruling has been issued on the claims that it made, which were First Amendment claims. Title VI of the Civil Rights act complain Claims and Administrative Procedure act complains Separately. As folks might remember, in May, the Trump administration attempted to revoke Harvard's certification to enroll international students. Harvard's student body, surprised me to find out, is actually 27% international. This the revocation of that certification would also apply to researchers, scholars, other faculty members. And that lawsuit that Harvard filed against that revocation of status was preliminarily enjoined in court. So that is on hold. Since then, as folks will know, many other universities have been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, most notably Columbia university, which on July 24 agreed to pay the federal government more than $220 million to resolve its disputes. Brown University also agreed to pay the federal government $50 million to resolve its dispute.
- [04:15]
Greg Lukianoff
They actually agreed to pay at a local charity, like a local Providence charity.
- [04:20]
Nico Perrino
Oh, did they?
- [04:20]
Greg Lukianoff
Million dollars. So Brown got off a lot. I think a lot of, I think Columbia's having settlement envy.
- [04:29]
Nico Perrino
There was also a settlement in sort of an unrelated matter with the University of Pennsylvania regarding trans athletes in sports. And reports indicate right now that Cornell is nearing a hundred million dollar deal with the administration. Now, on July 28th, the New York Times reported that Harvard was open to spending $500 million to resolve its dispute with the administration, although there was a Crimson Report, which is the student newspaper at Harvard, that said that was false and that the university is seriously considering resolving its dispute with the White House through the courts rather than a negotiated settlement. Professor Summers, welcome onto the show. I've just been giving listeners here some background on where the situation with Harvard stands and introducing the topic of the conversation. And you're actually on mute.
- [05:25]
Greg Lukianoff
Yeah.
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Larry Summers
Nico and Greg, I'm very glad to be with you and happy to share some perspectives on Harvard and the general situation in higher education. I should say that my title is president emeritus. That means I'm not the current president and I'm not a current figure in the negotiations. So I'm not going to be able to provide anybody with any inside baseball what's happening right now or what's going to happen. But I've got some general reflections on the issues associated with academic freedom and universities, including Harvard's response to the current very troubling developments.
- [06:15]
Nico Perrino
Yeah, and I should say if I said president, I meant professor. You are currently a professor at the university, correct?
- [06:22]
Larry Summers
I am indeed, yes.
- [06:24]
Greg Lukianoff
Well, I also thought inside baseball is a good image because there's so many people we know, probably on this call, who follow Harvard like it is a major league baseball team.
- [06:32]
Larry Summers
Right.
- [06:32]
Greg Lukianoff
There you go.
- [06:35]
Nico Perrino
Well, I'm eager to jump in here. In addition to the various investigation and disputes with the administration that I've already laid out, I think there are as many as half a dozen investigations that the administration has launched since that initial dispute came into the public sphere in early April. Many of them done under the auspices of enforcing civil rights law and relating to Title six and anti Semitism concerns. But at the same time, you have President Trump who has lobbed attacks at Harvard that seem unrelated to civil rights claims and instead target the viewpoint and speech of faculty. For example, he posted on Truth Social that Harvard has been hiring almost all woke radical left idiots and bird brains who are only capable of teaching failure to students and so called future leaders. So I recognize, Professor Summers, that you are not the current president of Harvard University, but if you were, what would be going through your mind in this current moment?
- [07:36]
Larry Summers
I think I would. I feel that Harvard is on the one hand in need of very substantial strengthening on a number of dimensions. I think that Harvard has not been where it should have been on antisemitism for a long time. I think Harvard has venerated identity politics to substantial excess. I think there's inadequate viewpoint diversity at Harvard. I think there is an excessive politicization of the university towards social justice objectives, racism rather than towards the seeking of truth. So on the one hand, I believe that there's a very substantial agenda of reform that is appropriate for Harvard. Many of these are concerns I expressed during my time as president of the University. On the other hand, I believe that the university's ability to carry out its fundamental missions of developing new ideas, of teaching students, of promoting opportunity, of strengthening through its role as an institutional citizen, the United States, of creating a better world depend upon academic freedom, depend upon the university's ability to make choices, not all of which will be choices that I agree with the university's ability to be a community where Faculty and students are free to express even highly unorthodox, controversial to many offensive opinions. And so I would think that Harvard, like any other university, should both be focused on reform and on resistance to excessive overreach by the government in search of particular objectives that the government believes in. Part of what makes America a free society is that it is not the place of the government to tell me how I should raise my children. It is not the place of the government to tell fire what its objective should be as it works to support individual rights. It is not the place of the government to tell companies how those companies should run themselves to best serve the public. And it is not the place of the government to tell universities how they should operate. And so that would be the perspective, would be going through my mind and would be the perspective that I would bring.
- [11:22]
Greg Lukianoff
Yeah.
- [11:24]
Nico Perrino
Well, how would you balance institutional autonomy, concerns about academic freedom, with the interest that the university has in maintaining a relationship that's very financially lucrative, that funds a lot of research, including some important research, biomedical research, cancer research. What would you do? If you're the president of the university and you think the interest in those values can't coexist with a relationship with the administration in this current moment, do you. Do you continue to fight it out in court as they're doing now, or do you try and get a negotiated settlement, seeing that no matter what you do and what victory you achieve, the administration seems intent on punishing Harvard in some way.
- [12:11]
Larry Summers
I remember being told by my parents as a child when I was going to be off on my own in cities, that if someone mugged me that my life was more important to me than the contents of my wallet, and that it was sometimes the right thing to do, to acquiesce in a manifestly unjust act. And I think that was prudent advice that my parents gave me. When somebody butts in line ahead of me at the airport, I do not normally pick a fight with them. When somebody drives a car in a way that cuts me off, I slow my car down. I don't hit their car, even if right is on my side. So I think that the right posture for universities is one of prudence that keeps in mind what their ultimate objectives are. There's a basic principle in any negotiation. We teach courses in negotiation at Harvard. And there's an important concept. It's called the batna. Best alternative to a negotiated agreement. If I'm selling my house and you're bidding for my house, the way I respond has to depend on if you walk away what it is that I'm going to be able to do with my house. That's a very broad principle. So I think the judgments that universities make at this moment have to be pragmatic judgments, not abstract judgments about purely right and wrong. I think there's a lot that prudent universities will do in this moment to strengthen their position. I think that universities are in a stronger position in the court of public opinion, probably in a stronger position to have the administration back off where that's appropriate if they are in fact engaged in desirable reforms, if they are creating an environment that is less hospitable to antisemitism, if they are making choices based on excellence and opportunity. So I think the first thing universities need to do to strengthen their position is to be reforming for excellence. I think that universities have an important role to play because important steps universities and their communities need to take to show that they can function where they have substantial resources, that they're prepared to deploy those resources, rather than simply to submit to threats. If a very wealthy university is doing research that it believes is fundamentally the difference between curing cancer and not curing cancer, it's hard to believe that whatever the federal government does away cannot be found to continue the financing of that research. So I think that universities need to show that they are not completely dependent on the federal government. It's always true to. It's always true that if you want to deal too badly, you'll get a bad deal. So that's something that universities need to be very much aware of. At the same time, life is about choices, and the university does not have the choice of not being under the kind of attack that it is under from the federal government today. And it needs to act pragmatically given that reality. All of us in life have made accommodations in difficult situations that did not correspond to our sense of how the world ought to be, but seemed the best way to move forward. And so I don't think there's any substitute for judgment on the part of universities. And I think the judgments ahead are. Are likely to be very difficult ones.
- [18:47]
Nico Perrino
Greg, I know you want to get in here. Before I let you in, I just want to note to our listeners that if you do have a question, we'll get to some questions at the end. You can ask your question by typing it into the Q and A feature at the bottom of the screen. Greg?
- [19:00]
Greg Lukianoff
Yeah, I mean, I think I agree with Larry on this point that essentially I. It still continues to sort of flabbergast me that from Talking to university presidents at many schools that a lot of them knew some reforms needed to be made and they did a lot less reforming in the period of the last several years than they should have. And my, you know, and I know that for some of our supporters, I can understand that they had a little bit of whiplash on the idea that, yeah, you know, Harvard ended not, you know, dead last on our campus free speech rankings twice. We're not shy about being critical of Harvard, but at the same time, we had to be on the opposite. We had to stand up for Harvard when the government started making up powers the government didn't have. And that's the only consistent civil libertarian position. The Trump letter saying that essentially you had to nationalize Harvard was, that's a non starter. But the frustrating thing is I at the same time believe that higher education reform really needs to happen. And now some of these schools that didn't do things back when they didn't have a gun to their head, everyone's going to just assume that they're only doing it because they have a gun to their head.
- [20:14]
Nico Perrino
Yeah, yeah. Professor Summers, you had tweeted something along those lines a while back where you said, you're on the, the left's 40 yard line in America and on the right 10 at Harvard. It should not be that way. And you said you tried to accelerate the process while you were president at Harvard, but the antibodies were enormous. What were some of those antibodies?
- [20:41]
Larry Summers
Universities, more than almost any other institutions in our society, are governed by those who they employ. In the context of Bell Labs. It is not the job of scientists to hire their own peers. It is the job of executives to consult with scientists and then make the best possible hires. It is a rarity, that, and a rare feature of universities that when a new important person is to be hired, a new professor of history, for example, the decision is made not by the chairman of the History Department or by the Dean of the Social Sciences, but by the members of the History Department. And so the deep commitment to faculty governance is understandable. And in many areas, it's appropriate to let professors decide what they're going to teach in their classes. But at a moment when university faculty are enormously, disproportionately of certain political perspectives, the fact that subsequent hiring is turned over to them, the fact that course content and curriculum, even of required courses, is turned over to them, the fact that statements on behalf of university centers are turned over to them, runs a real risk that without strong leadership, universities can become very political entities advocating the Views that the faculty at a current moment happen to have. And I think that kind of thing has been a contributor to Harvard's problems and to many universities problems over time. It is shameful that manifest disruptions on the campus were not met with discipline. We had a, for example, protesters over who were protesting, I would say in favor of Hamas who took over one of our buildings at Harvard, and one of the relevant deans fed them burritos as they engaged in conversation with them. Subsequently, students took over the yard, were given warnings about their need to leave, ignored those warnings, and it was the faculty idea that they should not be disciplined. I think that kind of faculty governance can be very, very problematic.
- [24:51]
Nico Perrino
One of the issues that has come up during this Harvard ordeal is the decentralized nature of Harvard. One of the things that I didn't realize before the last couple of years was that each of the colleges within the university kind of has its own governance structure, if I'm not mistaken. And so when you look at the federal government's finding letters against Harvard, one of the ways it demonstrates deliberate indifference under Title 6 is by saying you had disparate punishments. But some of that can be attributed to the fact that each of these colleges are responsible for their own disciplinary procedures. Some of them are going to. Might be more ideological than other colleges and as a result render discipline in different ways. I believe President Garber and the university have recently reformed some of those processes. But is that the sort of thing that you're, that you're talking about makes it hard for a president of Harvard?
- [25:50]
Larry Summers
You know, I, I'm in general in support of that. I think, I think they're. But I think the questions are very difficult. If, if FIRE has an office in Philadelphia and an office in New York and some of the policies in the New York office differ from the policies in the Philadelphia office. Is that's necessarily a major problem? Even if one accepted that they were fundamental policies and that it was a major problem, would it be the place of the federal government to insist that FIRE have more unified policies? These are not easy questions. I do think that ultimately universities are nonprofit institutions chartered by governments, and that is their legal and juridical status. And the rest is a construct that is a feature of history and that shouldn't be treated as God given and not subject to change. So I do think that the fiduciaries of universities too often are too unwilling to wield authority in support of fundamentally necessary policies. But I do recognize that these issues are very difficult. It's all very well to say that university trustees should do more, to insist on ideological diversity, all very well to say that university trustees should do more to impose student discipline. But it's worth recalling that in the 1950s, university trustees were insisting to purge Keynesian economists on the grounds that they were more supporters of communists than supporters of the United States. And at that time, it was felt that strong trustees were very dangerous. So I think one has to be cautious in rushing to judgments. I'm relatively comfortable with the beliefs that universities need very substantial reforms, that it will be much the best if those reforms are achieved without the application of government power, except where there have been clear violations of law. But when universities are reluctant to make the necessary reforms, the issues do become quite difficult.
- [29:24]
Greg Lukianoff
So. So, Larry, the. In terms of specific reforms that you think schools should be engaged in, like, what would be, I don't know, like your. Your top three things you think schools should consider doing.
- [29:38]
Larry Summers
You know, I think fire has been a constructive force. I think speech codes are really a very, very bad idea with respect to speech by individual members of the faculty or individual students. I think it's appropriate for university leaders to stand up for broad values in the way in which they speak. Think when groups of students use their free speech rights to ostracize or attack or isolate other students. I think it's appropriate for university leaders to speak up and to speak out, if not in favor of the beliefs that ostracized students are expressing in support of their right to be able to express their beliefs. At the same time, I think it's very, very important that university leaders act to ensure that no one is able to arrogate the prestige of the university behind their particular agenda. That's why I thought when 35 student groups at Harvard endorsed Hamas, it was immensely important for the university administration to recognize their free speech right to speak as they wished, but also to make clear that they were not speaking on behalf of the university and that it was a reasonable judgment that their convictions were not shared by most people who are at the university. So I think resisting the prevention of free speech, preventing the arrogation of the university's prestige behind political agendas, standing up for the broad values associated with an open society, rational argument, reasoned discussion, open debate, the absence of discrimination against groups. I think these are things that universities and their leaders should stand for and should speak out about. I think universities should model, in many ways, open communities, and that means not tolerating those who disrupt and deny others the right to speak. But these are very difficult questions of balance. I have been concerned that for too many, academic freedom as they understand it, includes freedom from criticism, which it seems to me is a very problematic notion. It seems, it seems to me that debate, criticism, resistance of instrumentalizing universities are very much part of what university leaders should stand for. And I worry that people will interpret the desire for free speech as implying that leaders have no obligation to lead, including on matters relating to morality. And I worry that ideas of academic freedom are profoundly important, but that one needs to recognize that there's a very substantial distinction between maximizing academic freedom and maximizing professorial prerogative.
- [34:46]
Nico Perrino
One of the more.
- [34:47]
Larry Summers
That's an important distinction to draw.
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Nico Perrino
Yeah. One of the more controversial things that college presidents have done in recent decades is opine and issue statements on domestic and international affairs. And Harvard, I believe, adopted an institutional voice policy that outlined where its leadership should and should not opine on these matters that have a close connection to the affairs of the university or the values of the university. How do you see it? You know, Harvard President Claudine Gay issued, I believe, seven different statements after October 7th and got blowback for it seems like all of them. Do you think that's a fraught enterprise? What do you mean when these administrators or these leaders should take moral stance, does it need to pick and choose which conflicts to to take a stand on? Or is it better to just, as one of my colleagues put it, be like Odysseus tying himself to the mast and just say I'm not going to do it, because that way lies peril.
- [35:52]
Larry Summers
I did not find these issues terribly difficult during my time as president of the university. I have to say I adopted the rule for myself that I did not speak on political issues of the day in my position as Harvard president, with one very limited set of exceptions. I spoke to questions about economics and finance where I felt that the interest in my opinion would derive from the fact that I used to be Treasury Secretary and that I used to be a professor of economics rather than the fact that I was president of the university. And I made clear that when I spoke on an economics question, I was speaking as a professor of economics, not speaking as the president of the university. I did speak on issues that I thought were fundamental for the university, importance of equality of opportunity. What I regarded as the inappropriate wrong headedness of calls for the university to divest itself of assets that were of companies that were invested in Israel, the appropriateness of affirmative action as policies. I did see my role as to do that. I also saw my role as being to protect the reputation of the university. And so, for example, when we had a Harvard project that identified itself as the Harvard Project on Financial Regulation or some such, I suggested that I thought that the members of the project could express whatever views they wished. But I didn't think it was appropriate for there to be a Harvard University position on financial deregulation in either direction. And to the extent that there were positions taken that appeared to a reasonable observer to be being taken on behalf of the university by university centers or by substantial groups of faculty members, I saw it as my role to make clear that those were not the positions of the university, that the university did not have positions. And I saw it as my role to limit the ability of other members of the community to arrogate the prestige of the university to their positions. And I think that's right. I am quite concerned that the current concept of neutrality is one that limits university presidents and top leaders, but does not limit others ability to speak on behalf of the university. It seems to me that it should be an important part of what university presidents do to clarify that the university is not speaking on behalf of the university. For example, the dean of Harvard's Divinity School gave a convocation address a year ago in which she suggested substantial parallelism and indeed treated in parallel the Holocaust and what she labeled as the Nakba, the founding of the state of Israel. I thought that was a morally entirely inappropriate position. I thought that it was inappropriate for a university leader, speaking as a university leader, to take such a position. And I thought it would have been appropriate for the trustees of the university or the president or provost of the university to very strongly disavow that position. And I think that many have somehow got themselves twisted into a box on these neutrality questions, where somehow it would be okay for a dean or a center director to take such a position, which then appears to be the position of the university, but not okay for that position to be contradicted by others in positions of even higher authority. So I don't think that Harvard or other universities have this exactly calibrated Right. I also find bizarre the idea that a university is politically neutral, but open to the idea of divestiture of its endowment over political issues, because it seems to me that the divestiture of your endowment over a political concern, rather than a concern about how to be financially prudential, is not just a political statement, but a political action. And any principle that says the university should not be a political actor, it seems to me, should surely cover its actions as well as its speech.
- [42:34]
Nico Perrino
Yeah, I know that Divestiture question.
- [42:35]
Larry Summers
It seems to me to be another example of where a concept of academic freedom has sort of become morphed into a concept of professorial prerogative.
- [42:50]
Nico Perrino
Yeah, I know that. I know that question of university divestiture is also one that has generated controversy surrounding institutional neutrality. It's also one that was actually considered by the University of Chicago's Calvin Report, and it seems like it says, no, we should remain neutral in the operations of the university in that way as well. I just want one last question to get in here before we open it up to some listener questions and we close things out. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you, as a former Treasury Secretary overseeing the irs, what you make of President Trump's threats to revoke Harvard's tax exempt status? My recollection is that after the Nixon presidency and his enemies list and the audits of his enemies, Congress passed a law that said the Vice President, the President, can't order investigations into individual taxpayers and their tax exempt status. How do you look at that situation? As someone who was involved in those sorts of issues in the past.
- [43:47]
Larry Summers
I am not sure that you have the history exactly right, and I might not. I believe that prior to the actions of President Nixon, it was illegal for the President or any political official to become involved in the treatment of any specific taxpayer. In any event, a extremely strong norm was established that it was not the place of the Secretary of the treasury, the Assistant Secretary of the Tax Policy, any member of the White House staff, and certainly not the President of the United States, to give instructions to the IRS with regard to the treatment of any individual taxpayer. So I believe that was a clear statutory violation and a profound violation of norms, in much the same way that the President is not involved in traditional matters relating to criminal justice enforcement. So it seemed to me that was a very ominous kind of development and one that I at least thought was very inappropriate.
- [45:17]
Greg Lukianoff
Yeah, Well, I was hoping to get to listener questions, and one of the clearest and I think most important ones is asked by Laura Smith, what is your best guess of the outcome for Harvard?
- [45:33]
Larry Summers
Oh, I don't think it's for me. You don't seek to speculate to speculate on what's going to happen. My hope would be that an agreement will be found in which Harvard will reform itself on a variety of these dimensions and in the process will be seen to be reforming itself, and there will not be mandates of an inappropriate sort imposed on it by the federal government.
- [46:17]
Nico Perrino
We have another question about the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism, which Harvard incorporated into its policies prior to the conflagration with the Trump administration. The lawsuit with the Trump administration and many free speech advocates raise concerns about this definition insofar as it's used to police speech, because it has a number of specific examples that could constitute antisemitism, including denying the Jewish people their right to self determination by claiming that the State of Israel is a racist endeavor, applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. Some of these examples are very, very offensive, but in the First Amendment context would constitute protected speech because there is no such exception to hate speech. How do you look at that definition and also the broader question of anti Zionism, anti Semitism?
- [47:16]
Larry Summers
So I think I have a somewhat different view than the one you expressed or most of the views that I have heard. I have not understood the sentence. Harvard is the juxtaposition of two sentences that are pervasively said. One is we at University X are committed to academic freedom while we are a private university, and so we are not governed by the First Amendment. We choose, in committing ourselves to academic freedom to adopt First Amendment free speech standards. That is a ubiquitously stated proposition by most leading universities. A second proposition that is frequently stated by the same universities is we will not tolerate racism, we will not tolerate sexism, we will not tolerate antisemitism at our university. I believe if you state both of those sets of propositions, you find yourself in a quite inconsistent position. I am not a lawyer, but my confident understanding is that Supreme Court jurisprudence is very clear that racist speech can and often is First Amendment protected and that speech which does not imminently threaten physical harm or some standard very much like that is protected even if it is racist or sexist or anti Semitic or homophobic. So I do not believe that universities should assert that they will not tolerate anti Semitic speech because it seems to me that if they are committed to the First Amendment, they are obliged to tolerate anti Semitic speech. Saying that they are not committed saying that they are prepared to tolerate anti Semitic speech is not saying that they are prepared to tolerate anti Semitic acts, nor saying that they have a neutral view of anti Semitic speech and that they are quite prepared to condemn, call out ridicule, seek to embarrass, seek to discourage people from engaging in anti Semitic speech. So from my perspective, it is appropriate to define anti Semitic speech, just as it is appropriate to define racist speech, but not for the purpose of not tolerating It. So I think that the IHRA definition, which defines antisemitic speech in a way more broad than some would prefer, that sees actions to single out Israel for opprobrium as potentially highly problematic. In the same way that I think most observers would think that if African countries were being singled out for sins that many other countries were guilty of that were not African, I think it would be often asserted and legitimately asserted that there was a suspicion of racism surrounding those attacks. I actually think the IHRA definition is right, is right as a way of thinking about antisemitism, but it is not right as a way of providing a basis for not tolerating or punishing speech for as long as there's a commitment to the First Amendment.
- [52:07]
Nico Perrino
Greg, did you have questions you wanted to turn to next? And yeah, what I meant and I don't recall exactly, would you agree with that?
- [52:13]
Larry Summers
Greg, you, as somebody who has been in this world for a very long time, would you accept my idea that universities shouldn't say they will not tolerate antisemitism or that they will not tolerate racism? If they wish to assert that they are committed to the First Amendment, but that it is appropriate for them to define it and call it out, would you accept that view?
- [52:49]
Greg Lukianoff
I am troubled by defining anything as discrimination by particular viewpoints, particularly at a university. And we've been making this point that because, like, I've been right ahead of the line and so is fire saying we want reforms to Title VI to make it clear that Title VI protects Jewish students, it protects them from anti Semitic harassment, you know, for example. But what the IHRA does wrong in our opinion is it lists a number of opinions that would. That are evidence of discrimination. And we warned that essentially this is gonna be picked up by other groups to say these opinions are offensive, for example, to Muslims. And this is actually currently happening in Europe. So that's always been the crux of our disagreement because I do think it established an orthodoxy where it doesn't need to. And this is the thing that's really blown me away about this, Larry, is that by adopting the IHRA definition, and you know how I feel about this, I believe there is a genuine anti Semitism problem. And I've been saying this for years, particularly on elite campuses. But I do think that by adding actual opinions to the list of what could constitute anti Semitism, they also gave the law a fundamental constitutional vulnerability that they wouldn't have if they just simply defined patterns of behavior that are discriminatory towards, towards Jews with all the protections in place that wouldn't be an issue at all.
- [54:18]
Nico Perrino
And by that pattern, behavior. Greg, you're speaking of the Davis definition, the severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies the student a right.
- [54:27]
Greg Lukianoff
To an education, which is the same standard for race, the same standard for gender, etc. So, yeah, that's. And sometimes people don't understand that. That's why it's our objection to ihra. And I wish we didn't have to keep fighting the ihra, but there's a better way to achieve the goal of protecting Jewish students.
- [54:46]
Larry Summers
I guess my problem is that I don't think the only objective of a university leader is to protect certain groups of students. I think that, for example, part of intellectual leadership is standing up for evolution against creationism, standing up for astronomy against astrology.
- [55:14]
Greg Lukianoff
Yeah.
- [55:14]
Larry Summers
Standing up for. For, frankly, vaccine science against its alternative. And so I think it's appropriate for those in positions of academic leadership to judge ideas and to distinguish between ideas that they find more valuable and ideas that they find more problematic. Not to condemn the expression of the ideas that they find more problematic, but not to say that they can't be expressed, but to provide their perspective on what are better ideas and what are worse ideas. And it seems to me that the definitions like the IHRA definition serve that purpose. And so I think that in deciding when it's reasonable to label a paragraph anti Semitic, I don't see how one should. One could reasonably take the position that no one's allowed to provide guidance on the question of when a paragraph is anti Semitic.
- [56:42]
Greg Lukianoff
Oh, and. Nor. And we don't take issue with that either.
- [56:45]
Larry Summers
But definitely that's all that the IHRA definition is.
- [56:50]
Greg Lukianoff
But it's a question of who's citing it. If professors are citing it and departments are citing it, that's one thing. But we believe in institutional neutrality, where essentially the question.
- [57:01]
Larry Summers
I don't understand your position, actually, because you believe that it's entirely appropriate for university presidents to comment on matters that are central to what's happening on the campus. So you don't believe that institutional neutrality means that they can't comment on matters that are fundamental to the campus?
- [57:23]
Greg Lukianoff
Yeah. And if students are being harassed, by.
- [57:25]
Larry Summers
All means, forget harassment. Forget harassment. Can a university president legitimately state that creationism is, in their view, not legitimate intellectual science?
- [57:38]
Greg Lukianoff
Of course they can. But my big concern is the establishment of orthodoxy that essentially we allowed this window and it just kind of. There was a slippery slope.
- [57:50]
Larry Summers
If you accept, Greg, that a university president recognizing that the world is fallible and occasionally people and people will make statements that history will come to regret that they made. But if you accept that, it may or may not be wise. But it is not a violation of institutional neutrality to say we believe in evolution, we do not believe in creationism. Here is how we distinguish evolution from creationism. But of course, anyone in our community is free to express any opinion they wish. But I'm expressing an opinion as the president of this university on the question if you think that's okay.
- [58:45]
Greg Lukianoff
Yeah.
- [58:45]
Larry Summers
Back to evolution and creation. I don't understand why you don't think it's okay to express a definition of anti Semitism as long as you're clear that the statement of disagreement with that definition or statements with inconsistent with that discrimination do not provide a basis for punishment.
- [59:13]
Greg Lukianoff
Well, when I started this job way back in 2001, I wasn't the biggest fan of the Calvin report. And it took me a long time to see the kind of slippery slope effect of when university presidents.
- [59:26]
Larry Summers
But you're not. You're avoiding my point.
- [59:28]
Greg Lukianoff
No, I'm not. I'm actually addressing why I came around to Calvin.
- [59:31]
Larry Summers
Okay. No, no. But is your concept of Calvin under your concept of Calvin? If the president of the university of X. Yeah. Says I believe that evolution is overwhelmingly supported by science.
- [59:51]
Greg Lukianoff
Yeah.
- [59:52]
Larry Summers
That creationism is not supported by evidence and that the effort to instruct students in creationism as truth is deeply problematic, do you believe that statement does or does not violate Calvin?
- [60:17]
Greg Lukianoff
I think it's. If it's about something that's directly happening on the campus, it doesn't. If it's just some president deciding to give his opinion on evolution not being science out of the blue, it's like, no, you probably should not do that too often. But if someone's trying to say that on this campus we're now going to teach creationism, then sure, it becomes a local controversy.
- [60:37]
Larry Summers
Okay, so then if a student, if a professor, if a president wishing to engage in a controversy about what is good to teach on the campus and bad to teach on the campus is allowed to express an opinion about evolution versus creationism, why isn't said president also allowed to express a definition about what would be teaching anti Semitic material?
- [61:11]
Greg Lukianoff
Well, I do believe that they can. And the main thing about Calvin is.
- [61:15]
Larry Summers
Doesn't violate Calvin.
- [61:17]
Greg Lukianoff
Yeah. Is that they have to be careful and restrained. And they haven't been careful or restrained.
- [61:28]
Nico Perrino
Before we sign off here and we continue this line of discussion which is very interesting, I should note that as we are having this conversation at 4:49pm that the new York Times is reporting that the Trump administration and Harvard University are nearing a settlement. Over the past week, it seems like they've come closer to an agreement. And according to the New York Times. I'll read it directly here. Under the framework coming together, Harvard would agree to spend 500 million on vocational and educational programs. Three of the people the New York Times spoke with said that figure, currently penciled in to be paid out over years, would meet a demand from President Trump that Harvard spend more than double what Columbia University agreed to pay last month. It would also satisfy Harvard's wish that it not pay the government directly, as Columbia is doing. Harvard would also make commitments to continue its efforts to combat anti Semitism on campus. And in return, Harvard, one of the largest recipients in higher education of federal research money, would see its research funding restored and avoid the appointment of a monitor, a condition the school has demanded as a way to preserve its academic independence, according to two people familiar with the matter.
- [62:34]
Greg Lukianoff
Glad to get rid of the monitor. That would be. That's one of the most.
- [62:37]
Nico Perrino
I realize neither of you have actually seen this story, and I am now just skimming it as it is on the New York Times homepage there, but it does seem like there is a settlement that's coming closer. The parties haven't agreed to anything yet, but they are coming closer. Closer to an agreement.
- [62:53]
Larry Summers
I would think that a commitment to support desirable educational activities in the absence of a monitor and the normal academic life being permitted to be restored, I would think was a very positive outcome relative to the outcome I might have feared 45 minutes ago when this conversation began. I do think there's a very important question In a free society, the. The tendency of the Trump administration to translate leverage into financial extraction is, I think, deeply problematic.
- [63:51]
Greg Lukianoff
Agreed.
- [63:52]
Larry Summers
In a free society. I was very troubled by. I can understand positions that would support or would oppose export controls on each 20 chips to China. But the idea that if Nvidia pays the government enough money, then it will be permitted to give money to get to export to China seems to me to be deeply problematic.
- [64:27]
Nico Perrino
Yeah.
- [64:27]
Greg Lukianoff
And this was the news today. Everybody just.
- [64:29]
Larry Summers
I could understand. I could. I personally thought that the Nikkei steel acquisition of US Steel was pretty clearly desirable. But I could understand arguments for why the government would block that. But turning the government's power to block that into a reason why the government should get a certain amount of equity in U.S. steel seemed to me to be substantially problematic. It seemed to me that when the government threatened law firms with not allowing them to be involved in certain cases or into federal buildings, or to enter federal buildings. That seemed to me to be highly problematic. But if there was a rationale for those acts, then I was open to hearing the rationale. But the suggestion that the payment of money by those law firms or the provision of services for free by those law firms would constitute a basis for a change in the federal policy seems to me to be quite problematic. So I think we're seeing a very disturbing trend towards what might be called deals based capitalism rather than rules based capitalism.
- [66:14]
Nico Perrino
It also raises the question of what that sort of spending on educational or vocational programs has to the administration stated concerns surrounding antisemitism or other violations of civil rights law. These might be good things in and of themselves that Harvard is spending money on these programs.
- [66:34]
Larry Summers
That's essentially, Nico, the point that I'm making, that it's the translation of leverage into financial contribution, where the financial contribution is not approximately related to anything except the fact that leverage affords the opportunity to extract it, that I think is quite, quite problematic. I mean, in some ways this goes back to something very old, the sale of indulgences. And, you know, I think most of us have always felt that, that people who've done wrong or to accept punishment, people who've not done wrong ought not to be punished. But the fact that a case can be brought against you for being wrong is a basis for asking you to pay substantially, has never seemed to me to correspond to any particularly attractive notion of either economic efficiency or justice.
- [67:53]
Nico Perrino
Well, this is a very fluid story, as we can see here. You know, there are a lot of beats in it. As I was preparing the outline to set up this conversation, and as we were talking again, 50 minutes into the conversation, we got word that the Trump administration and Harvard University are nearing a settlement. No settlement has agreed to yet. Maybe we should have another conversation tomorrow and we'll get more progress. But Professor Summers, Greg, thank you for having this conversation and thank you again to our listeners. If you're interested in sharing this conversation, it will be posted to the so to speak podcast feed. Greg, I believe it'll also be shared on the eternally radical idea.
- [68:31]
Greg Lukianoff
Yes.
- [68:32]
Nico Perrino
And Professor Summers, thank you again for joining us and for lending your perspective as someone who has deep connections to Harvard and experience in a lot of these matters.
- [68:41]
Larry Summers
Thank you very much.
- [68:42]
Greg Lukianoff
Thanks, Rep.