Harvard Is Fighting Back. So Can We.
The Trump administration wants a battle with civil society.
The Trump administration, it seems, isnāt happy ājustā to cut Harvard University off from federal grants for declining a functional federal takeover at the private institution. Per CNN, theyāre preparing to try to revoke the universityās tax-exempt status, too:
The Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, according to two sources familiar with the matter, which would be an extraordinary step of retaliation as the Trump administration seeks to turn up pressure on the university that has defied its demands to change its hiring and other practices.
Happy Thursday.
Veritas et Victoria
by William Kristol
On Friday, the Trump administration moved to cut off federal funding for programs at Harvard University.
On Monday, Harvard fought back, rejecting the administrationās demands to intrude in unprecedented ways in the operations of the university, and going to court to stop the administrationās efforts.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump suggested, āPerhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting āSickness?āā
On Wednesday, CNN reported that the Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind Harvardās tax-exempt status, per Trumpās instruction.
Also on Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security sent Harvard a letter threatening to block foreign students who might wish to attend Harvard from obtaining student visas, unless Harvard submits information on all of its international studentsā disciplinary records and possible participation in political protests.
So the Trump administrationās attack against Harvard continues and intensifies. Its assault on private institutions that remain beyond their control, on the institutions of civil society that retain their independence, continues and intensifies.
And, of course, this is not the end, or even the beginning of the end, of the Trump administrationās attack on the private sector, on civil society, on a free society. Iāve heard from reliable sources that the administration is planning to launch next week a first wave of attacks on think tanks and philanthropies it dislikes by moving to revoke their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
In recent years, leading political figures have eloquently sounded the alarm in response to far more limited encroachments on our freedoms. Theyāve said this:
āIf the IRS can go after you because of what you think or what you believe or what you do, we no longer live in a free society. Thatās what this is all about.ā
āIf we are going to respect rule of law, the apparatus of the federal government cannot and should not be used as a partisan tool to bludgeon your enemies.ā
āWhatās become fully apparent is a culture throughout the federal government . . . that basically use the government as an instrument of political activity, to target your political opponents, to make life difficult for people saying things you donāt like . . . I believe that all that comes from the top . . . These are things you typically see in the third world.ā
These remarks were made, respectively, by then-Sens. JD Vance, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. Needless to say, they come from the Before Timesāfrom what now seems a very distant past, the lost world of the Republican party before Trump. They come from a world where Republicans believed in, or at least professed to believe in, limited government and the rule of law. They come from a time when some Republicans really did cherish the fact that we lived under a free government in a free society.
That Republican party isnāt returning anytime soon. The Trump administration controls the executive branch and, for now, the Republican party in Congress. And we donāt have time for nostalgia for bygone times.
What these quotations can do, though, is remind us of the urgency of creating and strengthening the broadest possible coalition in defense of freedom.
It will be a coalition in defense of freedom. But to succeed it canāt only play defense. Itās of course very important to defend the guardrails that still exist. But itās just as urgent to go on the counter-offensive against freedomās enemies.
So: Containment, yes. But containment in the service of rollback. Resistance, yes. But resistance that opens a path to a broad political offensive against the authoritarians, that opens a path to victory over the enemies of a free society.
Harvardās official motto is the Latin word veritas, or truth. Itās a good motto. But perhaps just as relevant today is one of Harvardās unofficial mottos. Itās a mock-Latin aphorism, āIllegitimi non carborundum.ā It means āDonāt let the bastards grind you down.ā
Good advice for these times.
AROUND THE BULWARK
The Presidentās Propagandistsā¦ Trumpās top officials lied through their teeth about his trade war. WILL SALETAN asks: Why? Because thatās what he hired them to do.
Elon Muskās Sick Breeding Planā¦ On Bulwark+ Takes, JVL and ANDREW EGGER break down in detail the insane WSJ article on Muskās plans to create a ālegionā of children, with 14 publicly known children so far and counting.
How Far Will Trump Go in Attacking the Press? The feared media cave-in hasnāt materialized yet, CATHY YOUNG observes, but stay tunedā¦
Trumpās Economic Calamity Is a Political Opportunityā¦ Americansā displeasure is already showing up in polls, writes MATT JOHNSON.
Weāre hitting the roadā¦ again! Save these dates folks, and join us on May 28 in Chicago, Illinois, and May 29 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Quick Hits
CONTEMPT PROCEEDINGS BEGIN: After weeks of increasingly open defiance of courts by the White House, weāve finally arrived at the inevitable next phase: A federal judge is moving to hold the administration in contempt.
Judge James Boasberg, the D.C. judge whose emergency order the Trump administration ignored when it shipped several planes of Venezuelans to an El Salvador prison in March, announced yesterday that the governmentās actions that day and since had demonstrated a āwillful disregardā for his order. āThe Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily,ā Boasberg wrote. āIndeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory.ā
The order came one day after Judge Paula Xinis, who is overseeing the legal wrangling around deported migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, set a two-week timetable for establishing whether the administration was deliberately spurning her orders by failing to take steps to facilitate his return.
COMPLICATING THE PICTURE: As Abrego Garcia has become a central figure in the controversy over zero-process deportations to El Salvadorās CECOT prison, press reports and his lawyers have characterized him as an upstanding family manāgainfully employed, married to a U.S. citizen, with U.S. citizen children, including two autistic sons. But documents reported by Fox News yesterday seriously complicate that picture, showing that Abrego Garciaās wifeāwho has been vigorously defending him in public and calling for his releaseāmade multiple allegations of domestic violence against him while petitioning a court for a protective order in 2021. āI am afraid to be close to him,ā she wrote. āI have multiple photos/videos of how violent he can be and all the bruises he has left me.ā
While the fact remains that he was never charged with a crime, these filings obviously complicate the portrait of Abrego Garcia, the man.1 Judging by their online crowing over the revelation, Republicans plainly think it goes a long way to defang the political case against his summary deportation to an El Salvador gulag.
But it should have zero effect on the moral and legal case at the center of which Abrego Garcia finds himself. The administration wants to be able to yeet people at will to foreign concentration camps, then hold them there until it can find a reason to convince people they deserve to be exiled, imprisoned, and possibly tortured and murdered. Thereās no limiting principle to that line. Either Kilmar Abrego Garcia gets the due process the law demands, or none of us can be assured we would get it.
SHINING THE SPOTLIGHT: Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen was able to meet with Salvadoran Vice President Felix Ulloa Wednesday, but he was denied the opportunity to meet with or speak with Abrego Garcia. Politico reports:
In a press conference on Wednesday, Van Hollen said that he asked Ulloa for a meeting with Abrego Garcia. Ulloa said he would have needed to āmake earlier provisionsā to visit, according to the senator, and also added he would be unable to arrange a phone call.
āI asked the vice presidentāif Abrego Garcia has not committed a crime, and if courts found that he was illegally taken, and the government of El Salvador has found no evidence he was part of MS-13āthen why is El Salvador continuing to hold him?ā Van Hollen said.
Cheap Shots
With all the talk about universities losing government funding, it almost sounds like they are public or government universities. Most are not, including Harvard. They are not being subsidized. They have received grants to do something for all of us. In many or most cases, that something is medical research. I think it might be a good idea for Harvard and others to detail exactly which grants are being threatened.
Itās time to rise, peeps.
āChoose confrontation wisely, but when it is your time don't be afraid to stand up, speak up, and speak out against injustice.ā - John Lewis
https://albellenchia.substack.com/p/all-rise?r=7wk5d