Welp, that didn’t take long.
When last we left our Jew-hating, racially discriminating Ivy League money grubbers, they’d been sent to reform school by the Trump administration for having steadfastly refused to uphold our nation’s civil rights laws. And now, just as predicted, they’re suing.
It was perhaps the least courageous prediction any scribe has ever made. I mean, what else could Harvard do, straighten up and fly right? LOL, as the kids used to say.
To be fair, the Trump administration’s list of demands would be a shock to the system of any “elite” [read: leftist] institution. Among them are reforms to governance and leadership; implementation of merit-based hiring and admissions; prioritization of ideological (as opposed to pigmental) diversity; reform of programs with a history of anti-Semitism; discontinuance of diversity, equity, and inclusion [read: race-based] initiatives; reform of an international admissions system that invites the America-hating rabble; improvements to student discipline and accountability; whistleblower protections; and transparency in monitoring.
The horrors. To be fair, some of these demands are more reasonable than others. After all, what does higher education exist for if not to indoctrinate our children? If not to turn them against us? If not to undo all the wisdom we’ve imparted to them for the entirety of their young lives?
As to the specifics of the 51-page lawsuit, which it filed yesterday in district court, Harvard claimed that the Trump administration’s grant-funding freeze was unconstitutional and a violation of the First Amendment for its imposition of “viewpoint-based conditions on Harvard’s funding.”
The university thus seeks to halt the freezing of some $2.2 billion in government grants. (Remember: Harvard’s endowment is a jaw-slackening $53.2 billion — which is more than the GDP of Cambodia or Bolivia or Latvia or nearly other 100 sovereign nations. Any lesser penalty would’ve likely failed to get the university’s attention.)
As the lawsuit alleges, “The tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the Government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions.”
How, exactly, the university’s ideological purity and race-based hiring and admissions policies beget these cutting-edge medical breakthroughs and scientific discoveries isn’t quite clear to us in flyover country. But whatever. The complaint continues:
The Government has not — and cannot — identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation.
Is that right? If the university is arguing that its rank leftism doesn’t invite anti-Semitism, it has a serious case of amnesia — and a heavy lift before it. Perhaps they’ve forgotten how former President Claudine Gay and her colleagues from Penn and MIT were taken to the woodshed by Congresswoman Elise Stefanik last year.
Moreover, history has already shown us the “rational connection” between Jew-hatred and advanced “scientific” and “technological” research. Had Hitler not chased off the most brilliant Jewish minds in Europe, the Manhattan Project likely would’ve turned out very differently. Given the rise of anti-Semitism globally, however, we can imagine Harvard’s reply: Where else are they gonna go?
All this isn’t to stiff-arm the First Amendment claims that Harvard is making. Compelled speech and compelled behavior are abhorrent, and they’re typically the tools of the Left. As Trump ally and campus firebrand Charlie Kirk put it earlier this month: “Racism and antisemitism are both evil and must be opposed. But a government organized around jailing, impoverishing, or silencing people based on ‘racism’ is what our enemies wanted. We should not repeat their mistakes just because some keffiyeh-wearing communists are protesting on campuses.”
Still, there’s an unmistakable smugness to the message that Harvard President Alan Garber sent to the campus community. “The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values,” he writes, “is ours to define and undertake as a community.”
That may ultimately be true. But whether Harvard can continue to panhandle for government grants is another question entirely. Anyone who thinks otherwise has forgotten the Obama administration’s infamous “Dear Colleague” campaign.
In any case, reform-minded Donald Trump has made clear that there’s a new sheriff in town. And Harvard is in for a fight.
