A Divinity School Program Became a Political Liability. In One Semester, Harvard Took It Apart.

August 04, 2025 1 min read

Sebastian B. Connolly and Julia A. Karabolli
Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: Tucked away at the end of a corridor on the second floor of Harvard’s Divinity Hall, the offices of the Religion and Public Life program are usually quiet — a quietness that belies its position at the center of highly public controversy that, in just a few short years, has threatened to consume it entirely.

The program has been targeted in a lawsuit accusing Harvard of permitting antisemitism on campus and an early list of demands that the Trump administration considered imposing on Harvard. But RPL’s own faculty say that it is the critics of the program that are practicing intolerance as they seek to police pro-Palestine speech.

Click here for link to full article


Leave a comment


Also in National Free Speech News & Commentary

‘We Lost Our Mission’: Three University Leaders on the Future of Higher Ed

November 18, 2025 1 min read

Ariel Kaminer, Sian Beilock, Jennifer L. Mnookin and Michael S. Roth
New York Times

Excerpt: It’s an eventful moment in American higher education: The Trump administration is cracking down, artificial intelligence is ramping up, varsity athletes are getting paid and a college education is losing its status as the presumptive choice of ambitious high school seniors. 

 To tell us what’s happening now and what might be coming around the corner, three university leaders — Sian Beilock, the president of Dartmouth; Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan; and Jennifer Mnookin, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison — spoke with Ariel Kaminer, an editor at Times Opinion.

Read More
McMahon Breaks Up More of the Education Department

November 18, 2025 1 min read

Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: The Education Department is planning to move TRIO and numerous other higher education programs to the Labor Department as part of a broader effort to dismantle the agency and “streamline its bureaucracy.”

Instead of moving whole offices, the department detailed a plan Tuesday to transfer certain programs and responsibilities to other agencies. All in all, the department signed six agreements with four agencies, relocating a wide swath of programs.

Read More
Judge indefinitely bars Trump from fining UC over alleged discrimination

November 15, 2025 1 min read

Associated Press/NPR

Excerpt: The Trump administration cannot fine the University of California or summarily cut the school system's federal funding over claims it allows antisemitism or other forms of discrimination, a federal judge ruled late Friday in a sharply worded decision.

Read More