Attention to the Unseen

Yascha Mounk writes: The best way to understand Donald Trump’s administration, Ivan Krastev told me a month ago, is as a “revolutionary government in the form of an imperial court.” And the most important thing about revolutionary governments is that they quickly develop an unstoppable dynamic of their own, one in which the logic of events pushes its originators to ever more radical actions which they themselves might not have anticipated taking a few months or weeks ago. “You’re not…

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A lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal, in response to the Trump regime’s attempt to destroy Harvard University by excluding foreign students, says: Non-citizens accounted for more than half of doctoral degrees in AI-related fields in 2022. Many have gone to work at U.S. companies like Nvidia or started their own. The National Foundation for American Policy finds that “immigrants have founded or cofounded nearly two-thirds (65% or 28 of 43) of the top AI companies in the United…

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In April, the New York Times reported: Xiaofeng Wan, a former admissions officer at Amherst College, now works as a private consultant to international students who want to come to the United States. This week, as he held meetings in China with prospective students, he sensed a deep uncertainty among their parents. “They really don’t know whether they should send their children to a country where they don’t welcome Chinese students or they see China as a hostile competitor,” Dr….

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The New York Times reports: The Trump administration on Thursday halted Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, taking aim at a crucial funding source for the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college in a major escalation in the administration’s efforts to pressure the elite school to fall in line with the president’s agenda. The administration notified Harvard about the decision after a back-and-forth in recent days over the legality of a sprawling records request as part of the Department of…

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The New York Times reports: The Trump administration’s swift initial rollout of orders seeking more control over universities left schools thunderstruck. Fearing retribution from a president known to retaliate against his enemies, most leaders in higher education responded in February with silence. But after weeks of witnessing the administration freeze billions in federal funding, demand changes to policies and begin investigations, a broad coalition of university leaders publicly opposing those moves is taking root. The most visible evidence yet was…

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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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