14 May 2025
The Financial Times has published a letter from Oxford academics from a wide range of disciplines expressing their solidarity with Harvard colleagues whose institution is seeking to resist the interference of the Trump administration in its admissions procedures, teaching and research.
12 May 2025
Letter: Trump attack on academic freedom ‘must be resisted’
From Avi Shlaim and others
On April 11, the Trump administration sent a letter to Harvard University demanding a series of “reforms”. These included accepting federal government intervention into its admissions procedures; screening international students for their political views; reforming an array of schools, centres and programmes specified by the Trump administration; ending all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives; and clamping down on student political organising, with a number of named student groups to be targeted.
Harvard’s rejection of these demands has led the Trump administration to freeze over $2.2bn in federal funds and threaten to strip the university of its tax-exempt status (“Donald Trump says he will revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status”, Report, FT.com, May 2).
In response, on April 21, Harvard sued the Trump administration in federal court (“Harvard sues Trump administration over funding freeze”, Report, FT.com, April 22).
As academic staff at the University of Oxford, we express our resolute support for our colleagues at Harvard University and at universities across the US. We reject in the strongest possible terms President Donald Trump’s weaponisation of charges of antisemitism to mount an outrageous assault on institutions of higher education in the US. And we assert the inviolability of academic freedom for the functioning of universities. This includes the ability of universities to govern themselves and to decide whom they should hire and admit, in accordance with the law but free of undue political influence.
Our solidarity is with all our colleagues under attack in the US. We focus on Harvard in this letter because its administration has been the most prominent to resist President Trump and has therefore become his “main target”.
We salute Harvard President Alan Garber’s refusal to accede to the demands of the Trump administration, which marks a departure from a series of worrying capitulations by other universities. At the same time, we ask Harvard colleagues, particularly those in senior positions within the institution, to stand in solidarity with the most vulnerable members of their community at this time, especially international students, junior faculty and those involved in political protest in support of Palestine.
We are deeply concerned that in the run-up to the April 11 letter, Harvard had already acquiesced to pressure in several areas, reportedly forcing out two academic leaders of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and suspending a research partnership with a Palestinian university.
We welcome recent collective action across the higher education sector in the US, including the statement published on April 22 by the American Association of Colleges and Universities denouncing the Trump administration’s “over-reach and political interference”.
It is imperative that scholars around the world resist attempts by authoritarian leaders and governments to control our research, target our students and turn us into tools of their personal power. The costs of resisting President Trump’s vindictive campaign against universities are high, but the costs of acquiescing to his demands will be higher still.
If Trump is successful, other leaders and regimes around the world will be sure to follow his lead in encroaching on the freedom of their own sectors of higher education. On a global scale, the very survival of universities as independent institutions is at stake.
Avi Shlaim
Emeritus Professor of International Relations
Amia Srinivasan
Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory
Laura Ashe
Professor of English Literature
Walter Armbrust
Professor of Modern Middle Eastern Studies
Robert Evans
Regius Professor Emeritus of Modern History
Katrin Kohl
Professor of German
Peter Thonemann
Professor of Ancient History
Katherine Ibbett
Professor of French
Andrew Hurrell
Montague Burton Emeritus Professor of International Relations
Barbara Harriss-White
Emeritus Professor of Development Studies
Filippo de Vivo
Professor of Early Modern History
Kate Crosby
Numata Professor of Buddhist Studies
Morgan Clarke
Professor of Social Anthropology
Oreet Ashery
Professor of Contemporary Art
Patricia Daley
Professor of the Human Geography of Africa
James McDougall
Professor of Modern and Contemporary History
Annie Sutherland
Professor of Medieval Literature
Tim Schwanen
Professor of Transport Geography and Director of the Transport Studies Unit
Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee
Professor, Faculty of English
Federica Genovese
Professor of Political Science and International Relations
Paul Betts
Professor of History
Nikita Sud
Professor of the Politics of Development
Michael Willis
Professor of North African Politics
Raihan Ismail
Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies
Dev Gangjee
Professor of Law
Alpa Shah
Professor of Social Anthropology
Catherine Pope
Professor of Medical Sociology
Arathi Sriprakash
Professor of Sociology and Education
Robin Cohen
Professor Emeritus of Development Studies
Thomas Charles-Edwards
Professor Emeritus of Celtic
David Gellner
Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology
Naomi Waltham-Smith
Professor of Music
Kate Tunstall
Professor of French
Peter Boxall
Goldsmiths’ Professor of English Literature
Musab Younis
Associate Professor of Political Theory
Sneha Krishnan
Associate Professor in Human Geography
Faridah Zaman
Associate Professor of History
Stuart White
Associate Professor of Politics
Thomas Cousins
Clarendon-Lienhardt Associate Professor in the Social Anthropology of Africa
Daniel Altshuler
Associate Professor of Semantics
Hannah Skoda
Associate Professor of History
Nathan Lane
Associate Professor of Economics
Zuzanna Olszewska
Associate Professor in the Social Anthropology of the Middle East
Jeanne Morefield
Associate Professor of Political Theory
Elizabeth Ewart
Associate Professor of Social Anthropology
Lauren Hammond
Associate Professor of Geography Education
Reece Oosterbeek
Associate Professor of Engineering Science
Simukai Chigudu
Associate Professor of African Politics
Katherine Paugh
Associate Professor of History
Leila Ullrich
Associate Professor of Criminology
Timothy Michael
Associate Professor of English
Umberto Bongianino
Samir Shamma Associate Professor in Islamic Numismatics, Epigraphy and Material Culture
Elizabeth Murphy
Asset and Space Management
Alexis McGivern
Head of Stakeholder Engagement, Oxford Net Zero
Dorothée Boulanger
Career Development Fellow in Gender Studies
Holly Cooper
DPhil Student, Faculty of History
Dori Kimel
Reader in Legal Philosophy
Vladimir Bortun
Lecturer in Politics, St. John’s
Ana Castaño
Lecturer in Spanish
Jasper Friedrich
Teaching Associate in Political Philosophy, Blavatnik School of Government
Lucy Radley
Research Assistant, Psychiatry department
Madelon de Jong
Senior Clinical Immunologist
Juliet Brown
Principal Library Assistant
Carlos Tapia
IT Services
Joseph da Costa
Research Fellow
Miguel Moctezuma
Coordinator Oxford Global Security Programme
Carina Uchida
DPhil Candidate and Tutor in International Relations
Emilie Vrain
Senior Research Fellow of Environmental Social Science
David Ewing
Stipendiary Lecturer in French (Queen’s College)
Michael Mayo
Director of the Visiting Student Programme and Stipendiary Lecturer
Anton Jäger
Departmental Lecturer in the History of Political Thought and Political Theory
Jackie Turner
Communications
Katherine Lebow
Associate Professor of History
Roger Nascimento
Medical Faculty
John Broome
Emeritus White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy
Alison Smith
Senior Research Associate, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford
Diego Sánchez-Ancochea
Professor of the Political Economy of Development
Dr Rachna Begh
University Research Lecturer
Matthew Lloyd
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Pharmacology
Liam Shaw
Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow
Paola Quevedo
Communications Assistant Medical Sciences Division
Anne Ferrey
Senior Lecturer, Course Director MSc Translational Health Sciences, University of Oxford
Mori Reithmayr
Postdoctoral Fellow, Rothermere American Institute
Juliet Addenbrooke
Accreditation Administrator
Adham Faramawy
Senior Lecturer Fine Art, The Ruskin, Oxford University
Thomas A. Püschel
Associate Professor in Evolutionary Anthropology
Daniel Cullen
Researcher, Centre for Criminology, Faculty of Law
Gordon Reavley
Tutor Short Online courses, History of Art, Assessor, Certificate of Higher Education, Supervising Tutor
Susan Tibbles
Senior Library Assistant
Jad Moawad
Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute of New Economic Thinking
Alex Gunn
DPhil Candidate and Tutor in English
Zeynep Yurekli
Associate Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture
Samira Barzin
Senior Researcher
Ms Emily Dyson
Graduate Teaching Assistant in Political Theory
Kevin Matlock
Postdoctoral Researcher in Student Wellbeing
Samuel Wainwright
DPhil Candidate and Tutor
Marta Zboralska
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Ruskin School of Art
George Haggett
Stipendiary Lecturer in Music, Somerville College
Selçuk Bedük
Lecturer in Comparative Social Policy
Elizabeth Cullinane
DPhil candidate and Tutor in Music
Michael Sackur
DPhil candidate
Yamina Boukari
Bennett Institute Junior Research Fellow in Applied Health Data Science
Tessa Reardon
Research Fellow in the Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry
Marko Ilić
Departmental Lecturer in the History of Art
Dylan Carver
Departmental Lecturer in English Literature
Elizabeth Dawson
Kellogg College
Tanvi Rai
Senior Researcher
Andonis Marden
Executive Director of the Refugee-Led Research Hub
Christy Wensley
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Faculty of English
Ed Penington
Researcher in Health Economics, Department of Psychiatry
Aura Raulo
Browne Junior Research Fellow in Biology, Queen’s College
Rod Chalk
Centre for Medicines Discovery
Heather Stallard
Communications and Events Officer
Narmin Ismayilova
Visiting Research Fellow, Faculty of AMES
Paul Dresch
Emeritus Fellow, St John’s College
Roger Just
Professor of Social Anthropology (retired)
Ellen Dyer
Senior Research Associate in African Climate Science
Sabina Lovibond
Emeritus Fellow in Philosophy, Worcester College
Chloe Pieters
Early Career Teaching and Research Fellow in History, St Edmund Hall
Dr Alexandra Pugh
Hamilton Junior Research Fellow in French
Dr Penny Cartwright
Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow
Jonathon Turnbull
Junior Research Fellow in Geography
Günseli Gürel
Departmental Lecturer, Islamic art and architecture