The magazine Time The February 15, 1999, issue of the magazine featured three men on its cover with a condescending air and the headline "The Committee to Save the World." In the center, Alan Greenspan, then the all-powerful chairman of the Federal Reserve (the Fed, the US central bank), appeared surrounded by US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and his deputy, Lawrence "Larry" Summers. The magazine highlighted the three economists' role in managing the recent financial crises in Mexico, Southeast Asia, and Russia. That cover served as a springboard for Summers, the least known of the three. In July of that same year, 1999, he replaced Rubin as head of the Treasury (equivalent to the Ministry of Economy) and for many years was one of the most respected economists in the US, where he stood out as one of the architects of the Democratic Party's neoliberal shift: he was a staunch advocate of financial deregulation, free trade, and free markets.

Harvard's most experienced researchers warned her: be careful, you're treading on slippery ground. But Joan Donovan continued leading a university investigation that sought to delve deeper into the secrets revealed by Facebook following a major document leak. Finally, after the Zuckerbergs gave €500 million to the American institution, her superiors informed her that the project was over. ARA interviewed this academic, who visited Barcelona as part of CIDOB talks on the erosion of democracies.

It's been almost fifteen years since Teju Cole (Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1975) published Open city –in Catalan in Quaderns Crema, translated by Xavier Pàmies–, an introspective and subtle novel about a boy who walks through contemporary New York and describes it with exquisite prose that is at the same time critical of the traces of racism and colonialism that can still be found in Cole1. Harvard, has visited Barcelona to present a new book, Black paper (Acantilado, 2025; Spanish translation by Miguel Temprano García). This collection of essays offers an intelligent and erudite tour of some of his many cultural interests: he devotes inspired pages to illuminating the painting of Caravaggio or to vindicating the shadows present in the paintings of Kerry James Marshall; he recalls his youthful interest in animals by asking whether black panthers exist or are an invention; he pays homage to one of his grandmothers; he remembers Edward Said, author ofOrientalism and defender of the Palestinian cause; he also explains how, since arriving in the United States from Nigeria at almost 18 years old, he began to define himself as "African".

I'm closely following Harvard's legal battle in defense of its freedoms (who to teach, what to teach, which professors to hire). Naturally, Harvard appeals to all lines of defense that are favorable to it. And that's why a central argument is that Harvard is a private institution and as such cannot be subject to the discretionary decisions of the political authority. But then I ask myself: how will Berkeley, which is a public university, defend itself, or how would we defend ourselves if tomorrow a minister of the branch were from Vox and wanted to play Trump?

Harvard University has won its first battle against the Donald Trump administration. A federal judge in Boston has decided to continue blocking the government measure that prevents the institution from enrolling international students. Judge Allison Burroughs had already issued a ruling. a precautionary order last week that blocked the Trump administration's initiative, but this Thursday held a hearing with representatives from Harvard and the US government and decided to maintain it and put the controversial presidential decision on paper.

The White House has asked its embassies and consulates to temporarily suspend interviews with applicants to study in the United States and to stop granting appointment times for these interviews, according to a report published Tuesday. PoliticalThe newspaper claims that the move is in response to the Trump administration's intention to expand its scrutiny of the content posted on social media by all these aspiring students.

One October night in 1938, when Orson Welles was 23 years old and hosting a radio show on CBS, adapted the novel by H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds (1898). The fake live broadcast pretending that Martians were invading New Jersey marked an era. The story, which began with the interruption of a music program due to supposedly breaking news, followed an anonymous scientist trying to survive and understand the scope of the catastrophe until the Martians were killed by Earth-borne microbes. The science fiction plot was so unsophisticated that the Martians arrived on Earth in large metal cylinders and used weapons such as heat rays and black gas to destroy cities and armies. But the alarm was credible, and for hours the broadcast caused uncertainty and panic.

Donald Trump's new attack on Harvard University –the veto on foreign students– has caught Professor Oliver Hart – Nobel Prize winner in economics in 2016 – off campus. He himself came to the United States in 1971 as a foreign student from the United Kingdom. He earned his doctorate from Princeton and after teaching at Cambridge, the London School of Economics, and MIT in Massachusetts, he joined the Harvard faculty in 1993. He now holds the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser Chair at the institution. He received the Nobel Prize, along with Bengt Holmström, for their contributions to contract theory. The interview was conducted by telephone minutes after, this Friday afternoon, It has become known that a federal judge has blocked Trump's executive order.

–Do you have any messages to send, Mr. President?

I lived in the United States between 2007 and 2018. Like so many young people around the world, I left home, Reus, at nineteen, in search of opportunities while the crisis shook Catalonia and Spain. In the US, I earned my undergraduate degree and doctorate. I also worked in various places, many of them related to my career as a musician, composer, and producer. I met my wife there. I grew personally and professionally, and therefore I will always maintain an emotional connection.

In the continuum of recent abusive power plays in the United States, we should celebrate one piece of good news: the return of the university as an influential civic institution. The blackmailing actions of the anti-democratic Trump administration have brought back the university's original purpose: to guide society and offer responses to the autocratic tendencies of rulers in constitutional democracies like the United States and some European ones. All of us who dedicate our professional lives and our vocation to public service must get involved and remain vigilant.

My reaction to Trump's election by an absolute majority was to say "they'll do it" and refrain from writing about the domestic life of the United States. But I can't maintain my resolution. It wasn't rational. We Europeans depend too much on that domestic life. Besides, it wasn't an emotionally sustainable decision for me. I've lived in the United States for more than a quarter of a century. My children have been born. I worked at three universities: Minnesota, Berkeley, and Harvard. I love all three, and all three are among the ten Trump has singled out for special attention in his infamous assault on academia. I'll focus on Harvard, because of its prominence and because it's the first to stand up and raise the banner of resistance.

In the midst of an ideological offensive against universities and thought in general, Trump has encountered resounding resistance from Harvard University, which has refused to accept the demands placed on it—directly impacting the freedom of research and programming—in order to receive state funding. And it is alarming that it has been the only university that has reacted openly in defense of the very existence of academic institutions.

In a new stretch, Donald Trump has proposed canceling university grants, including Harvard, the oldest university in the country, in an attempt to reverse the "ideology" he considers hostile to his surprising political ideals. woke.

Today, as we march past Easter Monday, we focus our analysis on a couple of ideas, one global and one local.

If we had to cite a key factor that explains the hegemony of the United States during the 20th century and what we have experienced in the 21st, it would be the excellence of its higher education, something that gives it a great competitive advantage. In any ranking of the best universities in the world, you will always find North American universities at the top, especially the most prestigious of all, with institutions such as Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Berkeley, and Yale. These universities attract the best researchers in the world and lead research in a multitude of fields, knowledge that is then transferred to society and, especially, to businesses. Now, however, all this is in danger because Donald Trump has decided to declare war on universities with a method that is not very different from what a hood any mobster: either you comply with my designs or I'll cut off your funding.

Donald Trump declares war on Harvard. The US administration has announced it is freezing $2.2 billion in federal funding for the prestigious university. This is a punishment after the institution refused to end its diversity programs and refused to monitor the ideological orientation of its foreign students, among other government demands, in addition to being accused of not doing enough to combat antisemitism on its campus. According to the New York Times, the measure also leaves a $60 million contract up in the air.

Harvard President Claudine Gay was one of the first university leaders to resign under scrutiny from the Republican-led committee investigating the anti-Gaza war protests. Now the university has become the first institution to stand up to Donald Trump's culture war on higher education institutions. The Department of Education has punished Harvard by freezing $2.2 billion in federal funding and suspending $60 million in federal contracts after the school refused to budge from the new administration's campaign to try to control university operations.