Elena Lauroba: "Trump believes that creating science is not valuable to the society he desires."

BarcelonaElena Lauroba Lacasa is the vice-rector for organization and governance at the University of Barcelona (UB). She is also coordinating the drafting of the new UB statute. She spoke to ARA just hours after the Trump administration announced the Harvard University has been punished by freezing $2.2 billion in grants for refusing to cancel diversity programs and control students' ideological orientation.

How do you rate Trump's decision with Harvard?

— This is further evidence of how he wants to destroy intelligence. We are faced with an administration that denies climate change and a leader who believes that creating science is not valuable for the kind of society he desires. Trump has many acolytes behind him who want to erase complexities they don't understand by simply denying them.

Do you recall any other intrusion of this magnitude at the university?

— No, there's never been one this serious. There have been various threats, but we never thought we'd encounter something like this. The letter sent to Harvard is the worst of the worst scenarios we could have imagined. It's disrespectful to knowledge in general and can almost be interpreted as interventionism in a university. And on top of that, Harvard, which has always been our role model. It's a Kafkaesque scenario.

Are you concerned that this censorship could reach European universities?

— We want to believe that to address this, Europe must take measures that go beyond issuing a manifesto, which is also necessary. We must consider that in the US administration we no longer have valid interlocutors. Therefore, we must consider how we can be stronger, and I believe we can only achieve this if we are Europe with a capital E. That is, if we maintain our values and are clear about the role of the university we have created three centuries ago: working for democracy, freedom, and, above all, the dignity of people. All valid constructions of justice as a community, as a nothing public, have had universities as protagonists.

How should we strengthen ourselves?

— We must maintain these ideas and pursue them further. But we can't do so with an adversarial response against Trump, because that's what they would love. It can't work like this; it can't be a low-stakes ping-pong game.

Are we sufficiently aware of the seriousness of the situation?

— It's true that we only learned the news a few hours ago. But I'm concerned that sometimes it seems that when these things happen across the Atlantic or elsewhere, we don't recognize each other, and some people don't see it as so bad. And that's the problem. Look at the state of Europe right now, politically. I think we've now learned that we can't look the other way and that we must have the strength to continue moving forward as a society in which freedom is a highly valued asset. We need to express our absolute opposition to these absolutely primal and repugnant theories that go against human dignity.

If Catalonia were to experience a scenario of interventionism like this, do you think public universities would have the tools to defend themselves?

— I'm not sure. It's also true that the university is a reflection of society, and if we were to reach this point, it would mean we have an almost sick society. I want to be optimistic: I think we would find the tools. Just as we are now finding ways to generate and transfer knowledge with limited resources, I think we would find the drive to be cooperative and foster critical thinking over adversity.

Since Trump's attack on science began, there has been talk about what governments, universities, and researchers should do. What role do you think students should play?

— It's true that the idea we had thirty years ago of students seeing the university as their space for communication is no longer realistic. But I like to believe that a very significant number of students feel this undermines their civic and democratic convictions, with which we are educating them. One of the missions of the university is to foster a critical spirit, and I believe that letters like Trump's and Harvard's should be made known so that they too can position themselves. We have students who are somewhat self-involved. I think we should do something, and that we will do it, so that they have a good understanding of the situation and can defend a university that was conceived to nourish the knowledge society and to lead a better life as individuals and as a collective.