Finally, a line in the sand.

“But Harvard is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”

With this single sentence, Harvard University offers resistance to the Trump administration’s expanding war on higher education. Nationally, we have witnessed as universities cave to demands that expand the authority of the administration over who colleges can and should admit, the right of students to protest, the supports that are available to students, the concepts that students are exposed to and the research that is conducted to appease the administration’s political agenda.

Harvard’s response is a critical act of defiance. It sets a precedent for the rest of higher education. Because if the most elite institution in the country can be targeted for political theater, every college and university is on notice.

Let’s be clear:

• The demands issued to Harvard are not about protecting civil rights or enforcing the law. They are part of a broader strategy to weaponize the law while ignoring it.
• The demands represent the hypocrisy on which this administration peddles. Harvard’s letter states that, “an investment is not an entitlement. It depends on Harvard upholding federal civil rights laws.” Meanwhile, this administration tramples the Constitution to coerce colleges into compliance under the threat of federal dollars.
• These demands say that students be disciplined for exercising their constitutional right to free speech; meanwhile, Trump issued over 1,500 pardons to persons who were convicted of storming the capital on January 6th.
• This administration calls for “Merit-Based Admissions reforms” and the submission of “all admissions data to the federal government” and that all “statistical information be made public” after gutting the research arm of the Department of Education and canceling data collections and scrubbing federal website of data.
• They insist that Harvard establish “procedures by which any Harvard affiliate can report noncompliance,” while shuttering seven of the twelve Office of Civil Rights (OCR) offices and laying off 240 of the staff charged with investigating and enforcing the civil rights of students, strikes at the insincerity in the demand.
• These demands say, “The University shall make organizational changes to ensure full transparency and cooperation with all federal regulators,” at the same time this administration denies reporters access and the administration is being sued for a lack of transparency.

The contradictions aren’t just appalling, they’re strategic. The goal is to intimidate, divide, and control colleges and universities through a mix of public shaming and administrative bullying.

But Harvard’s response is a critical act of defiance. It sets a precedent for the rest of higher education. Because if the most elite institution in the country can be targeted for political theater, every college and university is on notice.

This moment isn’t just about Harvard. It’s about whether our nation’s colleges and universities will uphold their mission to advance truth, foster inquiry, and serve students or comply to an administration that leverages taxpayer resources and the reach of the federal government to advance its own agenda.

It’s time to stop bowing to the demands of the administration that are cloaked in the language of civil rights. This isn’t enforcement. It’s exploitation. And higher education should refuse to be complicit.