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By ABIGAIL ANTHONY for The National Review
I arrived at Princeton University in September 2019. I had looked at Princeton online and thought, “one day . . .” Suddenly, I was experiencing day one. My eager arrival on campus was emotionally amplified by bright smiles, copious pamphlets, and dormitory supervisors dancing in tiger suits. Orientation innocently began with introductions of names and hometowns — then descended into divisive lectures and panels. The intention of these programs was not to assimilate us into our new (and intimidating) surroundings, but rather to coerce students into accepting and affirming a resident orthodoxy.
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.
William C. Mao and Veronica H. Paulus
Harvard Crimson
Excerpt: Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 has told faculty that a deal with the Trump administration is not imminent and denied that the University is considering a $500 million settlement, according to three faculty members familiar with the matter.
The University is seriously considering resolving its dispute with the White House through the courts rather than a negotiated settlement, Garber said, according to the three faculty members.
By Jameel Jaffer, Alex Abdo, Katy Glenn Bass, Nadine Farid Johnson & Larry Siems
Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University
Excerpt: After months of negotiation, Columbia University announced on July 23 that it had reached an agreement with the Trump administration to resolve investigations into alleged violations of federal anti-discrimination laws.
We recognize that Columbia might have made some of these commitments on its own accord, without unconstitutional coercion from the Trump administration. But even if we assume, against the evidence, that Columbia would have adopted all of these commitments on its own, the settlement is a significant surrender of autonomy because the university has ceded the right to revise these commitments during the agreement’s three-year term.
