During the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump didn’t promise voters that he would launch an unprecedented offensive against some of the nation’s leading institutions of higher learning — but that’s precisely what the Republican has done since returning to power.
The public appears unimpressed. The latest Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll asked respondents whether they support “increasing the federal government’s role in how private universities operate.” Despite the rather anodyne phrasing, the results were lopsided: 70% of Americans said they oppose the White House’s efforts against universities, while only 28% approved. (Click the link for more information on the poll’s methodology and margin of error.)
The same national survey asked about Trump and his team’s ongoing clash with Harvard University, and as the Post’s report on the polling results noted, “About 2 in 3 Americans say they take Harvard’s side of this confrontation.”
Evidently, the administration doesn’t much care. CNBC reported:
The Trump administration on Monday announced investigations into Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review after a report that the prestigious legal journal was selecting articles for publication based on their authors’ race and not merit. … On Monday, the civil rights offices of both the Department of Education and the Department of Health & Human Services said they would investigate allegations of discriminatory practices at the Harvard Law Review.
It was the latest in a series of related steps.
As for how we arrived at this point, if you’re new to the story, the simmering dispute between the school and the administration reached a boiling point on April 11, when Harvard received a series of outlandish written demands from the Trump administration, including a “request” to install outside auditors who would monitor the school’s academic departments.
The university realized that failure to comply with the ridiculous demands would result in governmental punishment. But left with little choice, Harvard balked anyway.
The retaliation was swift: Immediately after Harvard said it would not comply with the apparent extortion attempt, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to Harvard. (There are federal requirements in place when imposing financial penalties like these, and the Republican White House appears to have ignored those requirements.) The Department of Homeland Security secretary also canceled nearly $3 million in agency grants to Harvard, and at Trump’s behest the IRS reportedly began scrutinizing the university’s tax-exempt status.
This week, the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services joined the parade, targeting Harvard because a student-run publication at the school prioritized diversity in a way Team Trump didn’t like. Harvard has already brought their concerns to court, but while its case advances, The Wall Street Journal reported this week that leaders from some of the nation’s most prestigious universities have “assembled a private collective to counter the Trump administration’s attacks on research funding and academic independence across higher education.” The report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added that the group, while currently informal, “currently includes about 10 schools, including Ivies and leading private research universities, mostly in blue states.” If the reporting is accurate, my advice for school officials: Hurry. The administration’s offensive is already underway; it’s unnervingly aggressive; and it’s unlikely that the White House will scale back its campaign any time soon. The faster universities can link arms and work cooperatively to push back against the efforts, the more effective the institutions will be.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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