Veritas

Veritas is Latin for “Truth,” what universities strive to pass on to their students along with the habits of mind that allow students to question what they learn and, through research, perhaps add to what we know. Veritas is the motto of Harvard and several other universities.

When World War II ended, President Truman’s science advisor, MIT’s Vannevar Bush, issued a report, “Science, the Endless Frontier,” calling basic research “the pacemaker of technological progress.” Bush had seen what wartime government-academia collaboration could accomplish in nuclear energy, radar, and antibiotics. Universities had the research expertise but not the funds to tackle pressing national issues in healthcare, energy, and others, so Bush recommended the government provide competitive grants to universities through a National Science Foundation (NSF) and expanded National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

The NIH is the world’s premier biomedical research agency. Universities have used NIH grants to develop treatments and cures for heart disease, cancer, stroke, and other ills. Between 1971 and 2011, NIH funding developed 153 new FDA-approved drugs and vaccines. 

In 1988, the Department of Energy and the NIH invested $3 billion to launch the global Human Genome Project which has led to preventions and cures for a long list of diseases. In 2019, $3.3 billion in federal funds went to genomics research while in the same year genomics businesses employed 850,000 people in the U.S. who paid $5.2 billion in federal taxes. It’s been estimated that every $1 of NIH grants returns $2.46 in health and economic benefits. That’s a remarkable return on investment.

The NSF has funded about 25 percent of non-health university research in science and engineering. A local example is a 2024 grant of $26 million to KU as lead institution with partner universities Notre Dame and four others for research to develop climate-friendly refrigeration technology. Federal money pays for nuclear fusion research that could help power the future. Federal money made possible the internet and today’s trillion-dollar digital economy with its millions of jobs.

Now, however, the Trump Administration, desperate to reduce the federal budget to justify extending large tax cuts for the richest Americans, is canceling billions in research grants to Harvard and other universities across the country. The budget cutters claim to want an efficient government but haven’t done their homework. They seem not to know that university research is a powerful economic engine creating jobs, tax revenue, and countless public benefits. Last fall, The Economist called America’s economy “the envy of the world.” Our universities helped make it so, so why kill the goose that lays golden eggs?

Here's why: Since the 1930s, some conservatives have grown suspicious of universities as hotbeds of “radicalism.” But universities are marketplaces of ideas where students are free to choose from mankind’s accumulated knowledge. If students tend to adopt convictions that conservatives dislike, perhaps conservatives aren’t making their case persuasively or perhaps their convictions are simply unpopular. Or both.

          Mr. Trump is attempting to blackmail universities by demanding control over curricula, admissions, and faculty hiring in return for reinstating grants. When Harvard sued, Trump threatened to cancel its non-profit tax exemption (which he likely hasn’t the power to do). Now, dozens of our greatest universities, public and private, have agreed to develop a common strategy to resist government threats to academic freedom. The most reliable veritas comes from rigorous scholarship, not from the personal opinions of any government official. America’s universities are the jewel in the crown. Let’s preserve and protect them.