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Hey, everyone. Ellie here wishing you a happy Friday. Before we get to this week's piece, I want to talk to you about a separate piece. that I did that aired this week for CNN. You can find it on my social media feeds. It's available digitally. So here's the sort of short version of the story. About a year ago, I got an email from a guy named...
Ellie Honig. Now I get emails from Honigs all the time. Hey, I'm Fred Honig in Rochester, Minnesota. Could we be related? But this guy's name was Ellie Honig, exact same as mine. I connected with him and it turns out he was an infant survivor of the Holocaust. The Nazis overran the town where his mother was pregnant with him in France in 1942. They deported and murdered his father and other family members.
And only through the grace and courage of his French Christian neighbors did the original Elie Honig and his mother and his two sisters survive. They were... hidden from the Nazis for almost two years. It's a remarkable story of courage by the French Christian saviors.
and I think a reaffirmation of life in what the original Elie Honig has gone on to do. He's now 82 years old. He has a beautiful family, four children, five grandchildren. He was a longtime beloved physics professor at the University of Toronto. he's made the absolute most of the gift that was given to him. So check it out on CNN. You can just Google my name and whatever, or you can look at my social media feeds. I am sure you'll enjoy it. Okay.
On to this week's piece. As always, thanks for listening and send us any thoughts, questions, comments to letters at cafe.com. Of the 10 bullet-pointed demands in the Trump administration's imperious letter to Harvard University, this one rises to Vonnegutian height. And I quote, the university shall commission an external party to audit the student body, faculty, staff and leadership for viewpoint diversity.
such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse, end quote. That's real, by the way. The federal executive branch. in an administration that purports to be conservative, has demanded that a private university hire a firm to audit all of its students and teachers to make sure their thinking is acceptable to the government.
And the letter continues, if Harvard does not have the appropriate distribution of thought, they must fix it, expel some heretics, maybe bring in some others who think in a manner more pleasing to the government. Imagine for a moment if the Biden administration had made similar demands of BYU or the Citadel or Oral Roberts. Heck, pick any president in history and any college you like, the point holds.
The New York Times reported last week that the letter was authentic. It actually did come from the Trump administration, but was sent out mistakenly before it had been fully vetted and approved. In a sense, It's reassuring to know that this madcap missive had not been greenlit at the highest levels. Incompetence swamps intent, it turns out. Yet the White House dug in and defended itself by claiming that, quote, it was malpractice on the side of Harvard's lawyer.
not to pick up the phone and call the members of the anti-Semitism task force who they had been talking to for weeks, end quote. Makes total sense. It's actually Harvard's fault, you see, because the letter is so outrageous, they should have assumed it was sent in error. Again.
The letter lays out a series of demands beyond the comprehensive institutional audit for ideological purity. Harvard must change its admissions process, revamp its hiring practices, get rid of DEI programs, and overhaul its student disciplinary procedures. So basically everything.
If the university fails to comply, the government warns, it will lose billions of dollars in federal funding, much of which ordinarily goes to cutting-edge medical, scientific, and technological research. Now, I'll offer two stipulations up front. Harvard leans left, hard left even, as do most elite American universities.
Any university might decide on its own that it wants to tack more to the center or maybe even harder to the left. I'd love to see Harvard moderate some of its dogmatic liberal tendencies and broaden its acceptance of centrist and conservative thinking, the real kind of conservative thinking. But that's entirely up to the school and not the U.S. government.
Second, Harvard is ungodly rich. Once again, though, so what? Maybe that $53 billion endowment makes the school an unsympathetic victim, but that has nothing to do with its constitutional rights and academic freedom. I went to Harvard Law School as widely reputed. We never pass on a chance to mention that fact, even when couched as a journalistic disclosure. Harvard has now sued and they'll win. There's a hearing on Monday, by the way. One of the lead attorneys for Harvard is Robert Herr. Yes.
the same former Trump-nominated U.S. attorney and special counsel on the Joe Biden classified documents case, remember that, who evoked the screeching ire of Democrats who accused him of pro-Trump bias for his final report, which referenced Biden's age. and diminished memory. Now, Harvard argues in its complaint first that the government threatens to punish the school and its people based on the content of their collective speech and thought in violation of the First Amendment.
It'll be tough for the defendants to refute Harvard's core claim about policing private speech. when that's exactly what the Trump administration states and intends to do in its shakedown letter. And Harvard raises a technical, also strong, claim that the federal government cannot withdraw federal funding unless it first complies with certain procedural requirements. The Trump administration has done no such thing.
A White House spokesperson responded to the lawsuit, quote, the gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enriched their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end, end quote. Once again, it's that endowment. They're rich. Who cares what they say? Why should they have rights? Let's get them. While Harvard holds strong, Columbia has buckled.
The esteemed alma mater of Alexander Hamilton, Shirley Chisholm, and Barack Obama agreed in an effort to preserve its federal funding to overhaul aspects of its curriculum and governance policy to the liking of the Trump administration. As one former Columbia professor put it, Quote, this is a shameful day in the history of Columbia. The deal would endanger academic freedom, faculty governance, and the excellence of the American university system.
And on a practical level, who's to say the administration will play fair and accept whatever reforms Colombia adopts? That's the problem with any shakedown. You never appease your extortionist by paying him off. The slippery slope here is plain. The Trump administration already has targeted a roster of influential universities, and there's no reason to think they'll let up. What's the downside?
to the administration. They have no concern with public perception of the attempted university takeovers. Heck, it's good politics for Trump by some measures. And if the government loses the court cases, so what? They're right back to the status quo. Eventually, every major university will have to decide to go the Harvard route and fight or to bail out like Columbia.
Perhaps most insidiously, the Trump administration marches its demands onto campus largely under the banner of combating anti-Semitism. Now, I've studied and reported on antisemitism a bit. I've even experienced it a time or two myself. Just check out my public mentions on social media pretty much any time I'm on air. So I'll speak for myself here. No thanks. I'm deeply grateful to those who fight meaningfully against anti-Semitism, including especially non-Jews.
Plenty of conservatives, including members of this administration, have done just that. And Harvard has historically failed to adequately address the problems brewing in its very own yard. But let's be real. The Trump administration's demand letter to Harvard has little to do with the fight against anti-Semitism. It's a Trojan horse, an artifice designed to slip inside the gates and let the government run amok. How exactly...
does the administration protect Jews by micromanaging the ideological composition of the student body? How exactly does it help Jews to cut off funding for cancer research? Harvard is right to fight back, and the government is wrong, legally and beyond, for its attempted takeover of our university.
For the Trump administration to cloak its incursion in the righteousness of fighting anti-Semitism isn't just nonsensical. It trivializes the real struggle. Thanks for listening, everyone. Stay safe and stay informed.