Barack Obama’s efforts to rally voters against Donald Trump in the 2024 election met an unexpected wall: younger Black and Latino men. Now, just months after Kamala Harris’ failed bid to the White House, the former president and elder statesman of the wounded Democratic party is making his voice heard again—not on the campaign trail, but in the halls of higher education.
At a speech last week at Hamilton College in New York, Obama delivered a forceful rebuke of what he views as the Trump administration’s authoritarian overreach and its targeting of elite American universities.
“It is up to all of us to fix this,” Obama said during the event, warning citizens, students and institutions alike that “you may actually have to sacrifice” to preserve democratic values.
Speaking about the Trump administration’s move to pull federal funding unless universities dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and institute what amounts to federal oversight of their operations, Obama added: “If you are a university, you may have to figure out: ‘Are we, in fact, doing things right?… If not, and you’re just being intimidated, well, you should be able to say: ‘That’s why we got this big endowment'”.
The White House’s campaign to reshape higher education through funding threats is part of a broader ideological push. President Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon have targeted Ivy League and other top universities for what they call “ideological capture” and “civil rights failures,” especially around antisemitism.
Photo: Adam J. Brockway / Hamilton College
As schools like Columbia gave in to the pressure from the administration, Harvard pushed back. Within days of the remarks from Obama – perhaps Harvard’s most distinguished living alumnus — the university publicly refused to comply with the Trump administration’s sweeping list of mandates.
What’s the cost of defiance? A loss of nearly $2.3 billion in federal grants and contracts. In a striking message to his staff and students, Harvard President Alan Garber declared: “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights”.
Obama quickly took to social media, praising Harvard’s position as “an example for other higher-ed institutions—rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom”.
Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and… https://t.co/gAu9UUqgjF
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 15, 2025
The former president was back in the fight.
Not Cautious Anymore
This moment marks a shift in Obama’s post-presidential public life, which has been marked more by lucrative media contracts with tech platforms like Netflix and Spotify than full-throated “resistance” politics. Once cautious about overshadowing Democratic candidates like Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, he now appears freer to act—and speak—independently, especially with no clear Democratic frontrunner emerging after Harris’ humbling defeat.
“Being a former president is a sensitive role. You don’t want to overshadow the current candidate—you want to give them the spotlight while offering support behind the scenes. Obama was very mindful of that balance,” Veteran Democratic strategist Robert Creamer told Newsweek.
Still, the wounds of 2024 are fresh. About three in 10 Black men under 45 voted for Trump, nearly double the share he received in 2020. Young Latino men also broke with the Democratic Party, with only about half voting for Harris—down from 60 percent who backed Biden four years earlier.
That shift is personal for Obama, who became America’s first Black president on the back of the support of about 95 percent of Black men and roughly three-quarters of young Latino voters in 2008.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP Photo
As Democrats lose ground with these formerly iron-clad supporters, some of the 2024 backlash landed squarely on Obama. In the election’s post-mortem, several commentators questioned his delayed engagement in Harris’s campaign, with several reports suggesting he had serious doubts about her electability.
Imani Cheers, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, told Newsweek that the disconnect wasn’t entirely about Obama’s influence—it was about who had the loudest megaphone. “Trump’s rhetoric was louder,” she said. “People often respond more to the loudest voice in the room.”
Cheers also noted that economic frustrations, particularly around the rising cost of groceries and everyday essentials, played a major role in the president’s decisive victory.
Creamer echoed that sentiment, emphasizing that Obama shouldn’t shoulder the blame for the party’s poor performance last year. “It wasn’t his campaign in the first place,” he said, pointing instead to broader structural issues. Creamer argued that the Democratic Party failed to lead with a “populist economic message” that could resonate with working-class voters.
Filling The Void
The Hamilton College event, along with the Harvard standoff, reflects a turning point for the 44th president. “Now we’re at one of those moments where, you know what? It’s not enough just to say you’re for something; you may actually have to do something,” Obama said at the leafy campus in Upstate New York.
“Obama is setting that example,” Creamer told Newsweek. “And he should be applauded for it.”
That call appears to have been heard. Just a month from Columbia’s capitulation to the administration, fellow Ivys like MIT and Yale are following Harvard’s lead. This week, both vaunted institutions issued statements reaffirming their commitment to academic freedom and rejecting federal interference in curriculum and admissions policy.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, doubled down. In a statement issued Tuesday, a federal task force accused Harvard of embodying a “troubling entitlement mindset” and warned other universities that federal investment “does not come without responsibility.”
Scott Eisen/Getty Images
President Trump weighed in on Truth Social, arguing that Harvard should be taxed “as a political entity” if it continues to promote what he called “ideological and terrorist-inspired sickness.” Representative Elise Stefanik, a Harvard graduate and a Republican, also said it was time “to totally cut off U.S. taxpayer funding to this institution.”
With more than 60 colleges and universities still under federal review, the divide is becoming increasingly clear: some, like Columbia, are willing to yield in order to preserve their funding, while others, like Harvard, are drawing a line in the sand to defend their values.
That dividing line is now embodied by the two most admired — and polarizing — presidents of the 21st century. For the prestigious universities that sit at the apex of American higher education, the choice is now: Are you with Trump, or are you with Obama?
