As Americans honoured their war dead this Memorial Day, a leading academic sounded an alarm about a different kind of battle—one being fought not with weapons, but with words and ideas.
Drew Gilpin Faust, former president of Harvard University and a respected historian, called on Americans to “speak up and stand up” against what she described as rising threats to democracy, rule of law, and academic freedom in the United States.
“We are being asked not to charge into artillery fire,” she wrote in a guest essay for The New York Times, “but only to speak up… in the face of foundational threats to the principles for which [those who died in the Civil War] gave the last full measure of devotion.”
Faust, who led Harvard from 2007 to 2018 and was its first female president, wrote her piece just as tensions between the university and Donald Trump’s administration have reached a boiling point. Trump has accused Harvard of antisemitism, threatened to strip billions in federal funding, and attempted to control the university’s hiring and academic decisions.
‘A Direct Assault on Democracy’
Rose Lincoln/Harvard University
While Faust did not name Trump, she left little doubt about whom she meant. She warned that constitutional checks and the rule of law are “once again at risk,” pointing to what she described as Congress’s deference to the presidency and the executive branch’s defiance of court rulings.
“These are not abstract dangers,” she wrote. “They echo Lincoln’s own fears during the Civil War—that the nation’s government ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’ could perish.”
She reminded readers that nearly three million Union soldiers had volunteered during the Civil War to defend democracy, at a time when it was failing in much of the world.
“Today, democracy is once again under threat—dismissed as disorderly and inefficient by autocrats from Budapest to Beijing,” she added. “Leaders our own president openly admires.”
Clash With the White House
The timing of Faust’s warning comes as Harvard is in a very public legal fight with the Trump administration.
On Friday, the university filed a lawsuit against several federal agencies and top cabinet officials, arguing that the government’s attempt to revoke its licence to enrol international students was unconstitutional. A federal judge quickly issued an injunction to pause the move.
Trump responded online with a threat. “I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard,” he wrote on his social media platform, adding that he would redirect the funds to trade schools.
Harvard denies the claims of antisemitism. Its current president, Alan Garber, who is Jewish, has said the administration’s actions are “illegal” and aim to dictate “who we hire and what we teach.”
The Past and the Present
Faust’s reflections drew heavily on American history. She referenced Abraham Lincoln’s defence of majority rule, restrained by constitutional checks, and Frederick Douglass’s push for justice and freedom during one of the country’s darkest chapters.
In her essay, she asked: “Can we trust ourselves to uphold the legacy they left us?”
Faust believes the answer lies in action—not silence.
“Our ancestors saved a nation,” she wrote. “They gave us a future. Now, we must not squander what they bequeathed to us.”
Her message was clear: democracy isn’t self-sustaining. It needs defenders—not just on the battlefield, but in classrooms, courtrooms, and public discourse.
