Attention to the Unseen

Politico reports: Leaders who once helmed the nation’s most prestigious universities are homing in on a message for their successors: resist, defend and litigate. That formula, they argue, is the only way to survive an administration eager to extract fundamental concessions from schools that go far beyond addressing stated concerns about antisemitism. In the three months since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has demanded that some of these private institutions end diversity programming, change admissions requirements, toughen…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Harvard University has drawn a line in the sand against the Trump administration and its sweeping demands for cultural change. Now it is counting on its peer institutions for backup. In Washington, Republicans say the nation’s wealthiest and oldest university has just made a serious error in judgment and is about to learn the cost of crossing Trump. The collision between the president and America’s most iconic university had barely begun when it immediately escalated….

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The Harvard Crimson reports: Harvard will not comply with the Trump administration’s demands to dismantle its diversity programming, limit student protests, and submit to far-reaching federal audits in exchange for its federal funding, University President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced in a message to affiliates Monday afternoon. “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can…

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The New York Times reports: Gone is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou’s transformative best-selling 1970 memoir chronicling her struggles with racism and trauma. Two copies of “Mein Kampf” by Adolf Hitler are still on the shelves. Gone is “Memorializing the Holocaust,” Janet Jacobs’s 2010 examination of how female victims of the Holocaust have been portrayed and remembered. “The Camp of the Saints” by Jean Raspail is still on the shelves. The 1973 novel, which envisions a…

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The New York Times reports: The Trump administration has turned campaign promises to target universities into devastating action, pulling hundreds of millions in federal funds from Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. On Monday, the Trump administration went after Harvard, the world’s wealthiest university, announcing that it would review about $9 billion in contracts and multiyear grants. It accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students and promoting “divisive ideologies over free inquiry.” Harvard had been bracing for…

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Politico reports: Colleges and universities across the country are capitulating to President Donald Trump with staggering speed, moving to slash progressive policies and crack down on student activism as they face compounding threats from an administration hellbent on reshaping higher education. Columbia University on Thursday appeared poised to submit to a list of Trump administration demands that threaten core tenets of the school’s mission in an attempt to release itself from a $400 million federal funding freeze. The University of…

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The New York Times reports: The Trump administration on Thursday demanded that Columbia University make dramatic changes in student discipline and admissions before it would discuss lifting the cancellation of $400 million in government grants and contracts. It said the ultimatum was necessary because of what it described as Columbia’s failure to protect Jewish students from harassment. The government called for the university to formalize its definition of antisemitism, to ban the wearing of masks “intended to conceal identity or…

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