特朗普vs.常春藤盟校：大选年的较量
ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS, SHAWN HUBLER
2020年9月24日
When it comes to criticizing the nation’s most elite universities, the Trump administration has had a busy year.
说到批评美国最精英的大学，特朗普政府这一年可是忙得不可开交。
In recent months, it has accused Yale of discriminating against white and Asian-American applicants and opposed Harvard’s affirmative action policy. It threatened to force international students to leave the country if their coursework was entirely online — a policy that would have disproportionately affected Harvard and other elite research universities. And last week, it began a civil rights investigation of Princeton, based on a letter from the university’s president that expressed concern about systemic racism at the school, and vowed to combat it.
近几个月里，它指责耶鲁大学歧视白人和亚裔美国人申请者，并反对哈佛大学的平权行动政策。它威胁要将课业全在网上完成的留学生驱离美国——这一政策对哈佛和其他顶尖的研究型大学的影响会更大。而在上周，它开始对普林斯顿大学进行民权调查，依据是该校校长在一封信中表达了对学校里系统性种族主义的担忧，并誓要与之斗争。
To anyone who has listened closely to President Trump, himself an Ivy League graduate, the actions might not have seemed surprising. Over the years, he has depicted many American colleges as engines of “radical left indoctrination” and “propaganda,” questioned their patriotism and called for a review of their tax-exempt status.
任何一个仔细听过特朗普总统（他自己也是常春藤校毕业生）讲话的人，可能并不会对这些行为感到惊讶。多年来，他把许多美国大学描绘成“激进左派洗脑”和“宣传”的引擎，质疑它们不爱国，并呼吁重新审查它们的免税地位。
But to many university leaders, the attacks represent something more ominous: the election-year weaponization of federal agencies — principally the Education Department and the Justice Department — to energize conservative voters who have long viewed the nation’s elite universities as liberal bastions.
但对许多大学领导者来说，这些攻击代表了更为险恶的前景：在大选年，联邦机构——主要是教育部和司法部——的武器化，使长期以来一直将美国精英大学视为自由主义堡垒的保守选民得到了鼓动。
“It’s seven weeks until the election, and this is a political attempt by the Trump administration to play to his base by going after an elite educational institution,” Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law scholar and dean of the University of California, Berkeley, law school, said of the investigation of alleged racism at Princeton. “If you look at the demographics, college-educated voters overwhelmingly vote Democratic, and his base is overwhelmingly white.”
“距离大选还有七周，抨击精英教育机构就是特朗普政府迎合其基层选民的政治尝试，”宪法学者、加州大学伯克利分校法学院院长埃尔温·舍梅林斯基(Erwin Chemerinsky)在谈到对普林斯顿涉嫌种族主义的调查时表示。“如果你看下人口统计数据，受过大学教育的选民绝大多数都支持民主党，而他的票仓绝大多数是白人。”
Trump administration officials do not deny that they have confronted top universities on issues ranging from admissions to free speech to sexual assault. But they deny that it is all about election-year politics, saying the administration is mainly concerned with protecting the rights of students.
特朗普政府的官员并不否认，他们曾就招生、言论自由、性侵犯等问题与精英大学进行过交锋。但他们否认这都是为了大选年政治，称政府主要关心的是保护学生权利。
The Justice Department, for instance, has said that it is questioning affirmative action admission policies at Harvard because “unconstitutionally partitioning Americans into racial and ethnic blocs harms all involved by fostering stereotypes, bitterness, and division among the American people.”
例如，司法部对哈佛的平权行动录取政策表示质疑，因其“以违宪的方式对美国人进行种族和民族隔离，会在美国人民中滋生成见、怨恨和分裂，从而损害所有人利益”。
“President Trump shares the concerns of the American public that many colleges and universities are failing in their public mission to expand economic opportunity and provide students a relevant, timely, and affordable education,” Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said in an email.
“特朗普总统和美国公众一样担心，许多学院和大学没有履行他们的公共使命，即扩大经济机会，为学生提供相关、及时且负担得起的教育，”白宫发言人贾德·迪尔(Judd Deere)在一封电邮中表示。
“The president believes these failures have gone unchecked for far too long and only gotten progressively worse at the expense of the next generation.”
“总统认为这些失败已经不受控制太久，而且只会变得越来越糟，让下一代付出代价。”
Mr. Trump’s criticism of elite universities follows in a Republican tradition that dates back at least to President Richard Nixon. Mr. Nixon, who was offered a scholarship to Harvard but stayed closer to home to attend Whittier College in California, accused elite universities of fostering anti-Americanism among their professors and students.
特朗普总统对精英大学的批评遵循了至少可以追溯到理查德·尼克松(Richard Nixon)总统时期的共和党传统。尼克松获得了哈佛的奖学金，但留在了离家较近的加州惠蒂尔学院(Whittier College)就读，并指责精英大学在教授和学生中助长了反美情绪。
“Richard Nixon made a concerted effort to penalize institutions of higher learning, especially the elite institutions he considered to be tolerant of the antiwar movement,” said Timothy Naftali, director of the undergraduate public policy major at New York University and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif.
“理查德·尼克松用全面的行动来惩罚高等教育机构，特别是那些被他认为对反战运动持宽容态度的精英机构，”纽约大学公共政策本科专业主任、理查德·尼克松图书馆与博物馆创始馆长蒂莫西·纳夫塔尔(Timothy Naftal)说。
“He instructed the Office of Management and Budget to find a way to cut federal funding to those schools. He focused on M.I.T., but he didn’t like the Ivies, and he wasn’t happy with the University of California.”
“他指示管理与预算办公室(Office of Management and Budget)想方设法削减对这些学校的联邦资助。他专注于对麻省理工学院动手，但他不喜欢常春藤盟校，也对加州大学不满。”
But the difference, Mr. Naftali said, was that Mr. Nixon’s own appointees and good-government Republicans stepped in and stopped him. “Nixon believed in government; Trump doesn’t,” Mr. Naftali said.
但纳夫塔尔表示，尼克松的不同之处在于，他自己任命的人以及良性政府里的共和党人介入并阻止了他。“尼克松相信政府的作用；而特朗普不信，”纳夫塔尔说。
For most of his presidency, Mr. Trump — who has often bragged of his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School — did not focus as much on education as on more signature issues like curbing immigration or cutting federal regulations. But he has taken on education issues when they fit with his broader agenda.
在担任总统的大部分时间里，特朗普——他经常吹嘘自己拥有宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院(University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School)本科学位——关注的重点并不是教育，而是遏制移民或削减联邦法规等更有代表性的议题。但当教育议题符合他更广泛的议程时，他会采取行动。
For example, the president’s antagonism toward China has spilled over into the academic world, with many college presidents fearing an exodus of Chinese students, who often pay full, nonresident tuition.
例如，总统对中国的敌意已经蔓延到学术界，许多大学校长担忧中国学生会大批离开，而这些学生通常会支付全额的非居民学费。
“We opened our arms to Chinese citizens, only to see the Chinese Communist Party exploit our free and open society,” Michael R. Pompeo, the secretary of state, said in July in a speech at the Nixon library. “China sent propagandists into our press conferences, our research centers, our high schools, our colleges, and even into our P.T.A. meetings.”
“我们向中国公民张开双臂，换来的却是中共利用我们自由开放的社会，”国务卿迈克尔·R·庞皮欧(Michael R. Pompeo)7月在尼克松图书馆的演讲中表示。“中国派出宣传人员进入我们的记者会、我们的研究中心、我们的高中、我们的大学，甚至还有我们家长教师协会(P.T.A.)的会议。”
In February, the Education Department notified Yale and Harvard that it was investigating whether the two universities had failed to report at least $375 million from countries including China, Iran, Russia, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The Education Department sought records related to two Chinese telecommunications companies, Huawei and ZTE, that the Trump administration has labeled security risks or sanctions violators. Republican lawmakers have also raised alarms over U.S. schools’ relationships with China, in particular its government influence in American academia.
2月，教育部通知耶鲁和哈佛，他们正在调查这两所大学是否没有上报从中国、伊朗、俄罗斯、卡塔尔和沙特阿拉伯等国获得的至少3.75亿美元资金。教育部找到他们与两家中国通信企业——华为和中兴——相关的记录，特朗普政府已将他们列为存在安全隐患或违反制裁的公司。共和党议员还对美国学校与中国的关系——特别是中国政府对美国学术界的影响提出了警告。
In April, Mr. Trump demanded that Harvard pay back $8.6 million in relief money from a coronavirus stimulus package that the president himself had signed the month before, saying that with a $41 billion endowment, Harvard did not need taxpayer relief. Harvard turned down the money, despite financial challenges created by the pandemic, as did Princeton, Stanford and Yale. Mr. Trump and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, did not criticize the $15 million allocated to Liberty University, whose former leader, Jerry Falwell Jr., is a key Trump ally and boasted in February that its $1.6 billion endowment was ballooning and “outpacing Ivy League schools.”
4月，特朗普要求哈佛归还860万美元的救济金，这笔资金来自总统自己一个月前批准的冠状病毒经济刺激计划，他说哈佛有了410亿美元的捐款，不再需要纳税人的救助。尽管大流行带来了财务困难，但哈佛拒绝了这笔钱，普林斯顿、斯坦福和耶鲁也是如此。特朗普和他的教育部长贝茜·德沃斯(Betsy DeVos)没有批评拨给利伯缇大学(Liberty University)的1500万美元，该校前校长小杰里·福尔韦尔(Jerry Falwell Jr.)是特朗普的重要盟友，2月时还在夸耀该校的16亿捐款正在迅速膨胀，并且“超过了常春藤校”。
Mr. Trump’s attacks on what he criticizes as left-wing ideology in American education have also strayed into secondary school curriculum. On Thursday, the president denounced what he called “left-wing indoctrination” in the country’s classrooms, and schools that teach “America is a wicked and racist nation.”
特朗普批评美国教育中的左翼意识形态，而这些攻击也波及中学课程。周四，总统谴责了他所谓的美国课堂上的“左派洗脑”，以及教导“美国是一个邪恶的种族主义国家”的学校。
Mr. Trump said he would create a new “1776 Commission” to help “restore patriotic education to our schools.” It is unclear what this commission will do because the federal government does not control curriculum in local school systems.
特朗普说他要成立新的“1776委员会”，帮助“恢复我们学校里的爱国主义教育”。目前还不清楚这个委员会将做什么，因为联邦政府不能控制地方学校系统的课程。
The administration also threatened at one point this summer to cut federal funds to public schools that did not open during the pandemic. And this is not the first time Mr. Trump has attacked Princeton. In June, after Princeton removed Woodrow Wilson’s name from its public policy school, citing his segregationist policies, Mr. Trump tweeted, “Can anyone believe that Princeton just dropped the name of Woodrow Wilson from their highly respected policy center.”
今年夏天，对于那些没有在疫情期间开放的公立学校，特朗普政府还一度威胁要削减联邦经费。此外，这不是特朗普第一次攻击普林斯顿大学了。6月，在普林斯顿大学以其种族隔离主义政策为由，将伍德罗·威尔逊(Woodrow Wilson)的名字从其公共政策学院院名中移除后，特朗普发推说，“有人能相信吗？普林斯顿大学刚刚把他们大名鼎鼎的政策中心的伍德罗·威尔逊冠名去掉了。”
Mr. Chemerinsky said that Mr. Trump’s use of the Justice Department for political gain was exceptional. “I cannot think of any president who has ever used the Justice Department as an extension of his political effort as much as Trump has done,” he said. “Even Nixon, with his Justice Department, wasn’t to this extent.”
舍梅林斯基说，特朗普利用司法部牟取政治利益的做法令人叹为观止。“我想不出有哪位总统像特朗普这样，把司法部作为其政治努力的一个延伸，”他说。“就连尼克松和他的司法部都没达到这种程度。”
That said, the Trump administration is not alone in using executive power to shape the behavior of higher education institutions. The Obama administration’s Department of Education issued “guidance” that forced schools to be more attentive to allegations of sexual assault on campus, and that many schools considered heavy-handed.
即便如此，利用行政权塑造高等教育机构的行为的并不只有特朗普政府。奥巴马政府的教育部曾发布“指导方针”，迫使学校更加注意校园性侵的指控，许多学校认为此举属于高压手段。
The Trump administration changed course, writing a new rule to give more protection to the accused in such cases. “Too many students have lost access to their education because their school inadequately responded when a student filed a complaint of sexual harassment or sexual assault,” said Ms. DeVos as she announced new regulation in May.
特朗普政府改变了做法，编写了一条新规定，对那些在类似案件中遭到指控的一方给予更多保护。“因为当有学生投诉性骚扰或性侵犯时，学校处理不当，太多学生失去了受教育机会，”德沃斯5月宣布新规定时说。
It was speech that triggered the investigation of Princeton last week, specifically a letter from Princeton’s president, Christopher Eisgruber, to the university community that acknowledged “systemic racism” at Princeton and in society, and outlining some steps to correct it. Mr. Eisgruber’s aides later described the letter as an attempt at “grappling honestly” with the nation’s legacy of systemic racism.
引发上周普林斯顿大学调查的言论，出自校长克里斯托弗·埃斯格鲁伯(Christopher Eisgruber)的一封致大学社区的公开信，在其中承认普林斯顿及社会上均存在“系统性种族歧视”，并且列出了一些改正措施。埃斯格鲁伯的助手后来将该信描述为“诚实对待”美国系统性种族歧视传统的一个努力。
Many universities had issued similar letters over the summer, addressing concerns about racism raised in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd and other Black people at the hands of the police.
在乔治·弗洛伊德(George Floyd)及其他由于警方造成的黑人死亡后，许多大学都在夏天发出类似公开信，以解决相关事件引发的种族主义问题。
Pedro Ribeiro, spokesman for the American Association of Universities, which represents the nation’s 65 leading research universities, called the investigation a “stunt” that could hardly be taken seriously, although Princeton was compelled to respond and to spend time and money on legal work and producing documents sought by the government.
尽管普林斯顿大学已经被迫做出回应，花费大量时间和资金用于法务工作以及出示政府索取的文件，但代表全美65家顶级研究型大学的美国大专院校联合会(American Association of Universities)发言人佩德罗·里贝罗(Pedro Ribeiro)仍称这次调查是个“噱头”，不能当真。
Mr. Eisgruber did venture a little further than most into the vein of mea culpa, to his peril. “Racist assumptions from the past also remain embedded in structures of the University itself,” he wrote.
与其他人相比，埃斯格鲁伯确实在承认过错方面更为大胆。“来自过去的种族主义假设仍根植于大学本身的结构中，”他写道。
Such language caught the attention of Robert King, the assistant secretary of education, who signed the letter requesting records that would document discrimination at Princeton.
这样的言辞引起了教育部助理部长罗伯特·金(Robert King)的注意，正是他签署了要求普林斯顿交出该校歧视记录的信件。
“While we can’t comment on an open investigation, we would point you to the (Princeton) President’s letter that clearly states that there are current racist practices at Princeton,” an Education Department spokesperson said in an email on Friday. “The department is clearly under obligation to investigate.”
“尽管不能就尚在进行中的调查做出评论，我们可以援引（普林斯顿大学）校长的公开信，其中明确表示普林斯顿大学目前仍存在种族主义行为，”周五，教育部一名发言人在一封电子邮件中表示。“教育部明显有责任对此展开调查。”
