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James Piereson
City Journal
Excerpt: The Trump administration is trying to fix what ails American universities by freezing billions of dollars in pledged research grants due to be paid to Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, and other prominent institutions, on the grounds that the schools have not done enough to counter anti-Semitism on their campuses or have evolved into left-wing hothouses with little diversity of opinion.
The Trump administration has tried to influence institutions by freezing payment of federal funds, but there is a more effective way to do this—one less likely to cause mayhem in scientific programs and medical schools and less prone to being overturned by the courts: Trump should use the leverage of prospective grants to induce institutions to abide by federal law and begin reforming their internal operations.
Katherine Mangan
Chronicle of Higher Education
Excerpt: Four years ago, the University of Virginia Board of Visitors endorsed a call to double the number of underrepresented faculty by 2030 and to develop a plan for building a student population that better reflected the state’s racial and socioeconomic diversity. The university’s president, James E. Ryan, said the move signaled that “becoming a more diverse, equitable place is both the right and the smart thing to do.”
On Tuesday, the board voted unanimously to rescind any such numerical goals as part of a sweeping effort to wipe out evidence of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. The Trump administration had warned university officials, only the day before, that it had received complaints that the university wasn’t acting fast enough to carry through on its promise to “dismantle DEI apparatuses.”
Nicholas H. Wolfinger
Unsafe Science
Excerpt: “A new McCarthyism has descended on higher education”
If I had a dollar every time I read that phrase, I could afford to endow a chair in McCarthy studies. Centrists and conservatives used it a lot during the Great Awokening of the 2010s. Progressives got their turn after the October 7 Hamas attack. And, of course, the second Trump presidency and its assault on higher education has been manna for the McCarthyism-pronouncers. None of these folks are wrong, except perhaps for their reliance on a tired trope.
Tal Fortgang
Civitas Institute, The University of Texas at Austin
Excerpt: The Trump administration and the leadership of Harvard University are both posturing as principled heroes taking a stand against an unscrupulous enemy. The federal government has appointed a task force to combat anti-Semitism, the most apparent manifestation of corruption at progressive-captured institutions, most notably elite universities. Harvard, for its part, has roared back.
Each is right, in a way – and each is wrong. Accordingly, each party has a leg to stand on in this showdown, but each seems to use that leg only to misstep.
