UPDATE, June 7, 2025: Clyde Younger has started a resident’s petition to submit to the City Council. The petition is attached at the bottom of the letter. The letter was originally posted on May 29, 2025.
Dear Editor,
Upon employment by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), my Supervisor in Los Angeles would quote, “an education can never be taken from you.” This occurred during a period when the U.S. Government did not undertake actions to prevent the general public from pursuing their educational interests.
I wish to thank you for allowing me to pursue a special effort of inviting your readers to join me in petitioning the City Council to enact a Resolution supporting and standing with Harvard in this unprecedented attack on the school by the U.S. Government.
The United States has declared war on one of our most highly rated colleges; one considered a pillar of our educational system. We attribute the conflict Trump’s. However, when Trump took the Oath Of Office for the second time, he was no longer Citizen Trump. Trump is not Trump. He is the President Of The United States.
As President, he is charged with the Responsibility of Representing and Protecting Every Citizen and Resident in the United States. This is an awesome Responsibility and Partisanship By A President should be shuffled out the Back Door. A President of the United States should be Required To Wear Neutral Clothing as a Symbol of Unity. Unity or America’s alignment with its professed values, helps America deal with any and all Challenges.
Notably City Councilors are able to tout their ability carry out the renovation of the Elementary Schools along with constructing a New High School without a Tax Override. This is an important accomplishment. However, needless to say, a return is expected on the monies allocated to modernize the facilities; enhance curriculum and course offerings. Higher Education is Tiered and having our students accepted by the top tiered schools has been what we have strived for.
A student accepted by Harvard is within an exceptional group of scholars since Harvard only accepts around 3 -4% of their applicants. Harvard accepting our students cannot be overstated in terms of evaluating effectiveness of our course offerings and student achievement.
Our schools’ goal has always been to facilitate Watertown’s Students reach the level of self-actualization. The goal is reflective of the investment made by the City. We know are students are required to compete in a global economy more so today than any other period in America’s history.
Harvard College represents educational excellence at its very best. Harvard was the first college founded in the United States and leads prestigious colleges and Universities in many categories of Post – Secondary Education. Therefore, our attack on one of our premier colleges is an extreme action.
Instead, we should stand with Harvard in this era of unprecedented attacks on Education. The attack makes for an educational crisis. What happens to Education in America should Harvard fall to its knees and capitulates?
The College is being treated as though it is an adversary foreign country. Harvard’s Board of Overseers has not established a policy supporting Antisemitic Activity. Instead, the administration of Harvard launched an initiative addressing Antisemitism on Campus.
A Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israel bias on campus was established. Its final report was released on April 29, 2025 outlining specific recommendations to foster respectful dialogue and strengthen academic and residential life for Jews and Muslims.
We have not given them time to execute the Plan and an Opportunity For Cure is not granted. We have employed sanction after sanction. The United States Demand — Unconditional Surrender!
There is Precedence for action by the Council and State Representatives.
George Keverian served as Speaker of the Massachusetts House from 1985 to 1991. During his tenure he was able to obtain passive of a Bill requiring the State to recognize the Armenian Genocide. He also organized the first Commonwealth’s Observation of the Armenian Genocide at the State House, an event that continues today.
Rachel Kaprielian, who served on the Watertown Town Council, led the Council in recognizing the Armenian Genocide. In addition, Watertown’s State Representative.
Warren Tolman played a significant role advocating for recognition of the Genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish Government. Representative Tolman was instrumental in passing the 1998 Genocide Curriculum, ensuring the history was taught in Massachusetts Public Schools.
The granting of Centralized Control over education only suffocates independent thought, creativity and local decision making.
Thus, I am asking your support in petitioning the Council to step up and support Harvard in this moment.
Respectfully,
Clyde Younger
Former Town Council President
1-Petition-re.-Harvard-and-Antisemitism
100% on the money!!!
The attack on colleges and universities – Harvard being the biggest shiny target – is the anathema to American democracy. Washington, Adams and Jefferson recognized education as foundational to our way of life. Jefferson’s support of public education was to ensure children become citizens who participate in the process.
Colleges and universities are the counterbalance to the media, the government and religious houses. Sometimes these entities all align, and thankfully sometimes they don’t. This misalignment is crucial for democracy.
Bigger picture, all the institutions are showing chinks in their armor. Now is the time to renew them for the future, and everyone knows or senses this. The forces for democracy and the forces for retrenchment are jockeying for the position to have the dominating narrative going forward. The world is very chaotic now and many part are split open, but it will quickly coalesce around a dominating narrative as it always has after crisis-ending centuries.
Our City Council should mind our City’s business. That’s what for which they are. Period.
Poor little Harvard can defend itself. It already has the support of 99% of the MSM, so don’t feel too sorry about it.
Should the Council follow MIT’s example, as reported by CNN today, and do away with DEI(B) initiatives? I would support this one, as it does affect our City.
“ The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has announced it will shut down its DEI office, joining a raft of universities scrambling to scale back their diversity, equity and inclusion programs amid President Donald Trump’s anti-diversity push.”
MIT is retreating in the face of Trump and MAGA ignorance. The City of Watertown should do no such thing.
It is our business. We get income from Harvard in terms of professional incomes, rents, visits to Arsenal Yards, home purchases, and many other ways. Additional Harvard has produced a lot of good in the world. Residents are very lucky to have it in our backyards, as well as the world renowned hospitals that it supports.
Trump will not stop with at this University or higher ed, in general. Next it might be a hospital or construction site and for something as dumb as the construction site is run by a competitor to one of his cronies. Of course, he will couch as the company doing something deceitful.
It is not lost on a lot of people that Baron Trump applied to Harvard University and was not admitted. It’s also not lost on many that some in his administration went to Harvard university. If it was a bastion of heathens or whatever, then why did they attend? The attack on Columbia U involves a feud over a land deal the Trump was involved in. DEI is the red herring, control and revenge are the motives.
Firstly, it is Barron, not Baron.
Your assertion is false:
“Barron did not apply to Harvard, and any assertion that he, or that anyone on his behalf, applied is completely false,” Nick Clemens, spokesperson for the Office of the First Lady, said in an emailed statement.
It is apparent that this was lost on you.
The jury is out on that as the spokespeople for administration have zero credibility. They constantly spin fantastical tales.
Let’s see if the press can investigate. The Columbia University incident is true as reported by several, include Forbes. Per Columbia itself …Mar 31, 2025 — President Donald Trump publicly criticized the University after it refused to buy his Midtown property for $400 million.
If it’s not about Barron, then it’s about him. I hope Barron enjoys NYU; it’s a very liberal, places in the top 25 of liberal schools.
And our Federal Tax dollars subsidized this fraudster’s $1M salary.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/5/27/gino-tenure-revoked/
https://apnews.com/article/17e975d3ccba4a92a9b023dff8437b21
Do you really want to talk about fraud? Remember Trump University and the $25 million he had to pay to settle that case? This was before his infamy as a convicted felon of course.
The Orange Menace is perhaps one of America’s greatest fraudsters in the spirit of P. T. Barnum and Joe McCarthy.
But now he is your President, like it or not.
That is why his agenda must be opposed at every turn. People are nothing but pawns in his game. He has no belief in humanity.
All sane people should weigh in to support Harvard against Trump’s naked power grab. This MAGA move has nothing to do with antisemitism. It’s a desperate attempt to control a major institution in American life. Harvard is an easy target for the poorly educated MAGA base. Fortunately, the courts are shooting down many of the illegal Trump moves against the university. These “activist judges” – how dare they uphold the Constitution?
“Poorly educated MAGA base”? Not too inclusive of you. Where is DEI when you needed?
Why the need to insult?
Elitism from the left surfaces in the most unexpected places. Not a pretty sight.
You are included. But I won’t validate ignorance and naked attempts to overturn the rights guaranteed in the Constitution. If that’s elitism, so be it. And there is nothing pretty about MAGA and the hate they are spreading.
MAGA, MAGA, MAGA. Nothing wrong with it. And there is nothing you can do about it now. The only hate I see here is your demeaning characterization of others as “poorly educated MAGA base”. Would be alright to say “poorly educated” LGBTQ++ base? No. It would not. Just to put some perspective here.
Stop the insults.
Dear Mr. Younger,
Again, I thank you for the opportunity to disagree—and agree!— with you.
“Trump is not Trump. He is the President Of The United States.”
Praise the Lord!!! I give thanks every day.
“A President of the United States should be Required To Wear Neutral Clothing as a Symbol of Unity.”
What, like Chairman Mao? If by unity you mean uni-party, include me out. America thrives on disagreement. Unity yielded the Dred Scott decision, Japanese internment, the Chinese Exclusion Act, Roe v Wade. No thank you. No. No. No.
“As President, he is charged with the Responsibility of Representing and Protecting Every Citizen and Resident in the United States.”
Not in the Constitution he isn’t. Congress represents the people. The President executes the laws Congress passes in the name of the people. Until a judge in Floyds Knobs, Indiana (not kidding) decides he can’t.
“What happens to Education in America should Harvard fall to its knees and capitulates?”
I have a guess: Jewish people would feel safe in Harvard Yard again. That’s more than enough, but as a bonus there would be a lot less plagiarism from lazy, entitled faculty.
All praise to George Keverian, Rachel Kaprelian, and Warren Tolman for their efforts to keep alive the memory of the Armenian Genocide, which is a mournful chapter in human history close to our hearts in Watertown. I happened to visit NYC’s Museum of Modern Art this week, and saw a room (albeit a small one) devoted to the spectacular art of Arshile Gorky. Seeing his genius on display among other modern greats couldn’t but make me proud to live in Watertown and of our recognition of his life among us.
“The granting of Centralized Control over education only suffocates independent thought, creativity and local decision making.”
Precisely. Which is why President Trump is breaking up the Woke monopoly on education, where the Far Left rules without opposition. I hope you agree with me that unity ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.
If the people of Watertown want to stand with Harvard University, I swell with pride. Not at their decision, but at their freedom to make it. I’m okay with being in the minority; it’s the tyranny of the majority I can’t stand.
This president has broken every convention which this country has stood for since its inception. He has used, and continues to use, his office to benefit his own pocket and that of his children, in complete violation of the U.S. Constitution. He is a whiny childish snowflake who uses the power of the executive branch to try to break anyone who dares to disagree with him. He has ruined our nation’s relations with its most sacred allies and has praised the worst and most evil despots in the modern world. Let’s hope people who support him become more and more the minority every single day.
Minority? Dream on. Not happening. ‘Whiny childish snowflake”? Oh, the TDS anger. Not very productive, is it?
Enjoy these numbers from Harvard CAPS-Harris poll:
Border Security: 76% of Americans support closing the border with additional security measures and policies.
・Deporting Criminal Illegal Immigrants: 81% support deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.
・Government Efficiency: 76% back a “full-scale effort to find and eliminate fraud and waste in government,” while 77% support a comprehensive examination of all government expenditures.
・Protecting Women’s Sports: 69% support keeping men out of women’s sports.
・Gender Definition: 68% support the government declaring there are only two genders.
・Race-Based Hiring: 65% support ending race-based hiring in government.
・Foreign Aid Review: 63% support freezing and re-evaluating all foreign aid expenditures.
Reciprocal Tariffs: 61% support reciprocal tariffs to protect American industries.
・Ending the Ukraine War: 60% support direct U.S. negotiations with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
・Offshore Drilling: 57% support ending the ban on new offshore drilling.
The poll also shows that most Americans approve of Trump’s job performance, with pluralities of men, women, independents, and residents of urban, suburban, and rural areas expressing support.
Nearly six in ten Americans say President Trump is doing a better job than his predecessor, President Biden.
So, there…
“Let’s hope people who support him become more and more the minority every single day.”
Don’t you remember Watertown voted for Biden over Trump by a margin of 3 1/2 to 1? (My district more like 5 to 1.) You want us to be MORE of a minority? That sounds like the more of the “eliminationist rhetoric” we’ve been encountering in this forum lately. Not three minutes later (according to the posting time), you also wrote this:
“Maybe those who don’t [want the town to opine on Harvard] simply don’t like the ‘anti-American leftists’ and want to silence their voices?”
As if! Why can’t the overwhelming majority just “take the win”? Watertown isn’t up there with Brookline, Cambridge, and Northampton in terms of Democratic dominance, but a whuppin’ is a whuppin’, so well done. Those of us in Watertown’s minute political minority don’t raise our voices to be popular. We do so because our support of free speech is so absolute, we’re willing to put our names to our (locally) decidedly unpopular beliefs (which Erik has shown are in the majority nationally). We expect and welcome your disagreement. The very idea that we few, we happy few, could somehow silence the many is incomprehensible—and the furthest thing from our minds. Your wishing us into oblivion, however, is part of a disturbing trend.
PS: Your quarrel is with Districts 11 and 12, which voted for Biden by “only” a 2 1/2 to 1 majority. Anyone for a rally on Warren Street? Didn’t think so.
Good points, Josh. The following helps me qualify the source when I read some of these comments:
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
Anonymous
Hence when we are called ignorants, racists, fascists, inhumane, etc. it means nothing to me as the insults are devoid of cogency.
And you are right in that they wish us into oblivion. I have news. It ain’t gonna happen.
I agree that the City of Watertown should pass a resolution supporting Harvard. Many Harvard faculty and staff live here. And, in the main, I believe that most Watertowners stand for knowledge, scholarship and academic autonomy over hatred, ignorance and authoritarianism.
If we don’t stand up for freedom, some day we will regret it. MAGA has no good intentions here.
The City Council is elected and paid to administer the City of Watertown. It’s not elected to weigh in on matters outside of its jurisdiction PERIOD. Its role is municipal governance, not promoting the radical agendas of hardcore anti-American leftists.
Agree. This is yet another attempt to infiltrate our institutions with their leftist TDS agendas. Let those supporting it complain all they want about MAGA, MAGA, MAGA. That’s all they have left – as their rudderless Democrat leadership (lack thereof) has nothing to offer.
Where is it written that the City Council should have no interest in what the state or federal government is doing? The insane DOGE nonsense and the “Big Beautiful Bill” have already had a direct impact on state and local programs in a fundamental way. I would want my local officials to weigh in against this insanity. Maybe those who don’t simply don’t like the “anti-American leftists” and want to silence their voices?
I want my local officials in my City of Watertown to do nothing when it comes to showing support for Harvard. At least I have standing to tell them so.
Watertown should oppose fascism in any form. What’s going on in the T-rump Administration meets the definition of fascism.
We must oppose fascism at every turn because it is only a matter 0f time before they come for us and our neighbors. This is a moral obligation.
No. It does not. Here’s the definition for you.
fascism /făsh′ĭz″əm/
noun
A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
We do not have a dictator. We have Mr. President Trump. Duly elected and supported by millions of citizens. We have an open economy. Where is the violent suppression? Belligerent nationalism and racism?? Where do you get this?
I guess the Harvard poll above is completely wrong? No. I don’t think so.
I and many other of your townsfolk know fascism when we see it. We are seeing it now in the repression of academic freedom and scholarship and the repression of views that the president doesn’t agree with.
Sorry, if the jack boot fits, ya gotta wear it.
“A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator. . .”
“. . .belligerent nationalism and racism. . .” Check!
Sounds like the Trump administration to me. Governing by fiat and undermining the other co-equal branches of government.
I know from experience, Joe, that when you say “sorry”, you’re probably not. But I appreciate the sentiment nevertheless.
Anyway, jackboots have been pure camp since at least Mel Brooks’s “The Producers” (1967), if not before. It’s the steel-toed boots favored by Antifa one has to watch out for. And the “milkshakes” and Molotov “cocktails”they are so quick to hurl. But since the Democratic slush funds have dried up, such “grassroots” protests have been revealed as astroturf. For the best, as I know you reject violence as strongly as I do.
You are right, the “sorry” was insincere. In this case read it to mean, “Despite your many and vigorous protestations. . .”
Jackboots are making a comeback. They seem to be quite fashionable in some quarters.
Cut the Antifa nonsense. Antifa is a right wing fantasy dreamed up to justify a lot of bad actions.
Yes, you should “oppose fascism in any form” Start with Cory.
https://nypost.com/2025/06/01/us-news/new-jerey-sen-cory-booker-roasted-for-nazi-salute-at-california-democratic-convention/
Lighting Jews on fire, as in Colorado, is also peak Nazism.
The NY Post and Fox News are equating a wave from a liberal black Democrat to a Nazi salute from a right-wing white South African racist billionaire. It’s precisely the same thing. Good catch!!
It is the same thing, Paul: precisely nothing. As we told you at the time Elon was slandered. Or when Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Tim Walz, and Kamala Harris gave made exact same gesture. Sometimes, a wave is just a wave.
Which is great news! There are many (many, many… many) fewer Nazis than some around here think. Be of good cheer, people! We only just held a parade to celebrate the victory over Nazis and other enemies of freedom. Let’s not taint the memories of so many who fought to defeat utter evil by demeaning the value of their sacrifice. Standing out in the rain in front of a Tesla dealership is not storming the beaches of Normandy. One is your First Amendment right; the other is why you still have it.
We absolutely support Harvard.
And that’s OK for individuals and advocacy endeavors. We just don’t want our City Council to get involved where they should not.
Thanks for all the comments.
Any new comments about the topic of the letter are welcome but I think this has gotten a bit “into the weeds” and heated.
Thanks
Agree Charlie. Time to move on.