“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” president Alan Garber wrote in a message to the campus on Monday. “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

Take, that President Trump!

But Garber didn’t stop there in his nearly 800-word note of defiance — aptly titled “The Promise of American Higher Education.” It was a level of fire I didn’t expect from the medical doctor-turned-college administrator who took the reins just over a year ago after the resignation of Claudine Gay.

“Our motto — Veritas, or truth — guides us as we navigate the challenging path ahead. Seeking truth is a journey without end,” he wrote. “It requires us to be open to new information and different perspectives, to subject our beliefs to ongoing scrutiny, and to be ready to change our minds. It compels us to take up the difficult work of acknowledging our flaws so that we might realize the full promise of the University, especially when that promise is threatened.”

Some of you may be wondering: What’s the big deal? Why wouldn’t the world’s richest and most powerful university fight back and do everything it can to resist Trump’s assault on diversity, truth, and education?

It has not been a foregone conclusion that Harvard would. Far from it. Just three weeks earlier, the university forced out the director and associate director of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies amid criticism by some Jewish groups that saw some of the center’s programming as antisemitic.

Some — myself included — interpreted the move as Harvard acquiescing to the Trump administration’s threats to pull federal funding from universities that it said failed to address campus antisemitism amid the war between Israel and Hamas that started in October 2023. Harvard’s shake-up of its Middle Eastern Studies program came a week after Columbia University caved to nearly all of Trump’s demands, including how it hires faculty and handles campus protests and student discipline.

I really wondered if Harvard would sell out too, joining Columbia and an ever-growing list of Big Law firms tripping over themselves to comply with Trump’s executive orders to avoid financial ruin.

After all, Harvard has felt like it has been in a tailspin since the unceremonious departure of Gay, who lasted only six months as the university’s first Black president. Gay resigned in January 2024, amid controversy over her handling of campus antisemitism and allegations of plagiarism in her own scholarship. Donors and alumni have been upset, even withholding donations.

Perhaps it would have been easier for Harvard to just fall in line. There are, after all, billions of dollars at stake. Besides, the resistance that greeted the first Trump administration from the women in knitted pink “pussy hats” to the chief executives in Corporate America — well, that all seems so 2017.

During Harvard’s annus horribilis, Newton Congressman Jake Auchincloss has been both a critic and champion of his alma mater. Auchincloss, who is Jewish, does not think Harvard has done enough to address campus antisemitism and thinks the progressive left has captured too much of the university’s teaching and learning mission. Yet he vehemently disagrees with Trump’s approach to dealing with Harvard by threatening its research funding.

But Auchincloss liked what he saw Monday from the university and called its current plan to address antisemitism “a step on the road back for Harvard.”

Making references to the university’s motto — veritas, the Latin word for truth, Auchincloss said “to pursue truth, the university must be free from political pressure, whether the progressive orthodoxies of the left or the authoritarian impulses of the right . . . Harvard needs to pursue truth independently of both of those forces, and today, it rejected the authoritarian impulses of the right.”

Almost immediately, we were reminded that courage comes at a cost. On Monday night, the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force said it would freeze more than $2 billion in research funding to Harvard, saying the university’s statement reflected a “troubling entitlement mindset.” That’s a real loss to Harvard, to science, and to Greater Boston.

But if Harvard capitulates, the price will be far greater for all of us. No less than the future of higher education in America is at stake.

Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].