"Harvard University has signaled a willingness to meet the Trump administration’s demand to spend as much as $500 million to end its dispute with the White House..."

"... as talks between the two sides intensify, four people familiar with the negotiations said.... The sum sought by the government, which recently accused Harvard of civil rights violations, is more than twice as much as the $200 million fine that Columbia University said it would pay when it settled antisemitism claims with the White House last week. Neither Harvard nor the government has publicly detailed potential terms for a settlement and what allegations the money would be intended to resolve.... ... Harvard is also skeptical of Columbia’s agreement to allow an outside monitor to oversee its sweeping arrangement with the government. Harvard officials have signaled that such a requirement for their own settlement could be a redline as a potential infringement on the university’s academic freedom...."

From "Harvard Is Said to Be Open to Spending Up to $500 Million to Resolve Trump Dispute/The sum sought by the government is more than twice as much as the $200 million fine that Columbia University said it would pay when it settled its clash with the White House last week" (NYT).

"The Justice Department... signaled that it was reviewing claims of discrimination against white men at The Harvard Law Review..."

"... and accused the renowned publication of destroying evidence in an open investigation. The administration demanded that Harvard 'cease and desist' from interfering. In a series of letters that have not been previously reported, the government also disclosed that it had a 'cooperating witness' inside the student-run journal. That witness now works in the White House under Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s domestic policy agenda, Trump officials confirmed.... Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, praised Mr. Wasserman as a whistle-blower and encouraged more students to speak out. 'Harvard is violating federal law with its discrimination, and a student was brave enough to call them out on this,' Mr. Fields said....."

From "A Stephen Miller Staffer and Tough Talk: Inside Trump’s Latest Attack on Harvard/The Justice Department opened an investigation into the student-run Harvard Law Review. The startling accusations show how the Trump administration is wielding power in pursuit of its political agenda" (NYT)(free-access link).

The Times article links to this Free Beacon article, "Exclusive: Internal Documents Reveal Pervasive Pattern of Racial Discrimination at Harvard Law Review." Excerpt:

"In my 22 years as a Harvard professor, I have not been afraid to bite the hand that feeds me."

Writes Steven Pinker, in "Harvard Derangement Syndrome" (NYT)(free-access link).

My 2014 essay “The Trouble With Harvard” called for a transparent, meritocratic admissions policy to replace the current “eye-of-newt-wing-of-bat mysticism” which “conceals unknown mischief.” My 2023 “five-point plan to save Harvard from itself” urged the university to commit itself to free speech, institutional neutrality, nonviolence, viewpoint diversity and disempowering D.E.I. Last fall, on the anniversary of Oct. 7, 2023, I explained “how I wish Harvard taught students to talk about Israel,” calling on the university to teach our students to grapple with moral and historical complexity. Two years ago I co-founded the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, which has since regularly challenged university policies and pressed for changes.

So I’m hardly an apologist for my employer when I say that the invective now being aimed at Harvard has become unhinged.

"Professor Carpenter was at home in Blackheath, south east London, plowing his way through Harvard Law School’s digital images as research for a book..."

"... when he opened a file named HLS MS 172 — the catalog name for Harvard Law School Manuscript 172. 'I get down to 172 and it’s a single parchment sheet of Magna Carta,' he said. 'And I think "Oh my god, this looks to me for all the world — because I read it — like an original."' Professor Carpenter emailed Professor Vincent, who was, at the time, at work in a library in Brussels. 'David sent it with a message saying, "What do you think that is?"' said Professor Vincent. 'I wrote back within seconds, saying, "You and I both know what that is!"'"

From "Harvard Law Paid $27 for a Copy of Magna Carta. Surprise! It’s an Original. Two British academics discovered that a 'copy' of the medieval text, held in Harvard Law School’s library for 80 years, is one of seven originals dating from 1300" (NYT).

Does the article mention Trump? Of course: "Nicholas Vincent, a professor of medieval history at the University of East Anglia, in eastern England... noted that the document, which bound the nation's rulers to acting within the law, had resurfaced at a time when Harvard has come under extraordinary pressure from the Trump administration."

Does "We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status" = "he is stripping Harvard University of its tax-exempt status"?

I'm reading the NY Post:

"President Trump said Friday he is stripping Harvard University of its tax-exempt status.

“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” he said in a Truth Social post.

I think the post is losing something in the paraphrase. Trump's post speaks of doing something in the future. The NY Post portrays him as in the process of doing it now.

In any event, this is a big deal. Also a big deal in the news this morning: "Trump orders end to federal funding for NPR and PBS" (NPR). 

President Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's board of directors to "cease federal funding for NPR and PBS," the nation's primary public broadcasters. Trump contends that news coverage by NPR and PBS contains a left-wing bias. The federal funding for NPR and PBS is appropriated by Congress....

"Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter," the executive order says. "What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to tax-paying citizens."

"Larry David had one of the stupidest op-eds in today's New York Times in which he compares Bill Maher having dinner with Donald Trump with having dinner with Adolf Hitler."

"Um, you know, Larry David, that's a form of Holocaust denial. Comparing Trump to Hitler is a form of Holocaust denial because Trump didn't have gas chambers, he didn't have shooting squads, he didn't take babies, and throw them into ovens, and if you're making a comparison what you're saying is Hitler didn't have any of those things either. So shame — shame — on you Larry David. You know, we used to be friends, boy. No more. And the one thing: about Larry David he stopped being funny, I don't laugh at his jokes anymore because I know they're not jokes. That's who he really is, so they're not jokes...."

Said Alan Dershowitz, trashing Larry David's trashing of Bill Maher's dining with Trump.

Here's David's NYT op-ed "My Dinner With Adolf" — free-access link — which begins:

Imagine my surprise when in the spring of 1939 a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner at the Old Chancellery with the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler. I had been a vocal critic of his on the radio from the beginning, pretty much predicting everything he was going to do on the road to dictatorship. No one I knew encouraged me to go. “He’s Hitler. He’s a monster.” But eventually I concluded that hate gets us nowhere. I knew I couldn’t change his views, but we need to talk to the other side....

Read the whole thing. I gave you the free link. Now, I do think what Larry wrote there is funny. It just violates a rule of taste: You shouldn't compare anything to the Holocaust. 

We can talk about why that rule fell out of fashion. But whether Larry David is violating a strict and important rule or just going with the flow of the current taste within his hyper-elite stratum of society is a separate question from whether it's funny.

"Would [Harvard] recognize the Ku Klux Klan? For me, the National Lawyers Guild and the Ku Klux Klan are indistinguishable in terms of ideology...."

"If [Harvard] wouldn't recognize Klansmen or if it wouldn't recognize a group of sexists who called for the end of equality for women, then it shouldn't recognize the pro-Hamas National Lawyers Guild.... If this were the 1950s and there was a university say the University of Mississippi — Old Miss — that was forcibly integrated and it was allowing... some of the Klansmen who were students to harass black students, and the federal government came in and said 'Unless you stop Klansmen from harassing black students we're going to cut off federal funding,' people would be applauding that.'..."

Said Alan Dershowitz, in his latest "Dershow":

"Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting 'Sickness?'"

"Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!"

Said Donald Trump (on Truth Social).

That message follows the news: "The Trump administration says it will freeze $2 billion in funding after Harvard refuses its demands" (NYT).

The demands — in the words of the NYT — are "that the university reduce the power of students and faculty members over the university’s affairs; report foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities; and bring in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is 'viewpoint diverse,' among other steps."

"Lola DeAscentiis, a sophomore, zeroed in on the song 'But Daddy I Love Him,' comparing it to the Sylvia Plath poem 'Daddy.'"

"She plans to explore the link in her final paper. 'I hesitate to say that the song was anywhere near the genius of Sylvia Plath — no offense to Taylor Swift — but I can definitely see some similarities in the themes, like sadness, depression and mental health,' Ms. DeAscentiis, 20, said.... 'The way that Taylor overlays her relationship with the significant other that she’s talking about in the song with the relationship that she has with her father — I think that was very Plath,' she added."

I'm reading the NYT article "Harvard’s Taylor Swift Scholars Have Thoughts on 'Tortured Poets'/The students taking Harvard University’s class on the singer are studying up. Their final papers are due at the end of the month."

In the Harvard undergrad course called "Taylor Swift and Her World" student compare Taylor  Swift song lyrics to the work of poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

"In Sudden Reversal, Harvard To Require Standardized Testing for Next Admissions Cycle."

The Harvard Crimson reports.

The decision comes in the face of Harvard’s previous commitments to remain test-optional through the admitted Class of 2030, a policy that was first instituted during the pandemic....

"... Harvard interim president Alan M. Garber... said the cartoon depicted a hand labeled with a Star of David with a dollar sign in the middle holding nooses that were tied around the necks of an Arab man and a Black man."

"Screenshots of the cartoon appeared to show that the men were boxer and antiwar activist Muhammad Ali and former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. [The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and the African American Resistance Organization] have since taken down the image and apologized...."

From "Harvard condemns ‘flagrantly antisemitic’ cartoon posted by student groups" (WaPo).

Did the case of Claudine Gay give new energy to the conservative campaign against left-wing academia?

I'm reading "How a Proxy Fight Over Campus Politics Brought Down Harvard’s President/Amid plagiarism allegations and a backlash to campus antisemitism, Claudine Gay became an avatar for broader criticisms of academia" by Nicholas Confessore, in The New York Times.

Dr. Gay’s defenders... warn[ed] that her resignation would encourage conservative interference in universities and imperil academic freedom. (Though some experts have rated Harvard itself poorly on campus free speech during Dr. Gay’s tenure in leadership.)...

What a delicious parenthetical!

That link on "poorly" goes to the FIRE website, where you have to do a search to see where Harvard ranks. I did the search (and you can too). We're told the "speech climate" is "abysmal."

But of course, this article, outside of its parentheses, portrays conservative critics of academia as the threat to freedom.

Claudine Gay resigns.

The NYT reports.

The latest accusations were circulated through an unsigned complaint published Monday in The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative online journal that has led a campaign against Dr. Gay over the past few weeks. The new complaint added additional accusations of plagiarism to about 40 that had already been circulated in the same way, apparently by the same accuser....

"Harvard University faculty are calling for members of its governing board to step down as a way to reset the university as it struggles..."

"... with historic reputational damage and demands for the resignation of its embattled president, Claudine Gay.... Faculty who fretted for years that the school is ceding ground on free speech to appease advocates of diversity, equity and inclusion feel newly empowered to raise their concerns...."

From "As Pressure on Harvard President Increases, University Board Feels the Squeeze/Critics of Harvard Corporation call for resignations, fault the board’s insularity for recent missteps" (Wall Street Journal).

"It has always been inconvenient that Harvard’s first Black president has only published 11 academic articles in her career and..."

"... not one book (other than one with three co-editors). Some of her predecessors, like Lawrence Bacow, Drew Gilpin Faust and Lawrence Summers, have had vastly more voluminous academic records. The discrepancy gives the appearance that Dr. Gay was not chosen because of her academic or scholarly qualifications, which Harvard is thought to prize, but rather because of her race...."

Writes John McWhorter, in "Why Claudine Gay Should Go" (NYT).

"Claudine Gay will stay on as president of Harvard University, the school’s governing board announced on Tuesday, despite an uproar..."

"... over her evasive answers at a congressional hearing about campus antisemitism.... 'As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University,' said a statement signed by all of the board members other than Dr. Gay. 'Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing.' The statement goes on, however, to acknowledge that Dr. Gay had made mistakes, including in her initial reaction to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.... About 700 members of Harvard’s faculty, and hundreds more alumni, came to her defense in several open letters. One of the letters, from Black faculty members, called the attacks on the president 'specious and politically motivated.' The letter, which was drafted and signed by some of Harvard’s most prominent professors, said that Dr. Gay 'should be given the chance to fulfill her term to demonstrate her vision for Harvard.'"

The NYT reports.

"Part of the problem is a simple herd mentality — people screaming slogans whose meaning and implication they know nothing of, or not wishing to be disliked by taking an unpopular position."

Said David Wolpe, a prominent rabbi, who resigned from a Harvard's anti-Semitism committee, which was formed after the October 7 attack

Quoted in "Universities Face Congressional Inquiry and Angry Donors Over Handling of Antisemitism/Congress has opened an investigation into Harvard, M.I.T. and University of Pennsylvania, a $100 million gift was withdrawn, and demands have grown for the universities’ presidents to resign" (NYT).

"Rabbi Wolpe praised [Harvard University president Claudine] Gay as a 'kind and thoughtful person,' in a social media post, and said most students were not prosecuting an ideological agenda. But he said that antisemitism was so entrenched that he did not think he could make the kind of difference he had hoped for."

The implication is that Harvard does not function as a university at all. Students are not learning and understanding and working out ideas with other students — experiencing sophisticated and deep education. They are herded — "the problem is a simple herd mentality" — and they are somehow drained of the capacity to resist social pressure to manifest belief in shallow material — "slogans" — that they don't filter through their own brains but merely adopt as a strategy in the foolish, childish pursuit of being liked.

I'm just quoting and paraphrasing the rabbi, who is, presumably, observing the culture at Harvard first hand. Perhaps he is wrong. But Gay and all the others in authority at Harvard should be working continually to ensure that his description of Harvard is not what Harvard is or should ever become. 

In the realm of law school rankings and affirmative action: "There is no subterfuge here."

I'm reading "Law schools love to hate U.S. News rankings. But some can’t let go. Yale law’s decision to stop cooperating with the publication landed like a thunderclap. Records show what other schools thought about the 'revolution.'"

Let me drag this key passage out of the middle:

As schools weighed their decisions, some questioned the purity of the boycotters’ motives. One theory: Some schools, correctly anticipating that the Supreme Court would soon strike down race-based affirmative action, could be planning admissions changes that would hurt them in the rankings but preserve diversity. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board surmised as much, saying, “The Yale and Harvard announcements look like attempts to adapt in advance.”

When the University of Michigan’s law dean heard this theory from an alumnus, he dismissed it, saying in an email shortly after Yale’s announcement that his school’s decision to withdraw was “100% not connected to any Supreme Court ruling.”

“There is no subterfuge here,” wrote Mark West, dean at Michigan, which ranked 10th at the time.

"A famous 1967 declaration by the University of Chicago called for institutions to remain neutral on political and social matters, saying..."

"... a university “is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.' But students over the years have frequently and successfully pressed their administrations to take positions on matters like police brutality, global warming and war. Dr. Summers said in an interview that he could understand the case for university neutrality in political disputes, but that Harvard had forfeited that prerogative by speaking out on many other issues. 'When you fly the Ukrainian flag over Harvard yard, when you issue clear, vivid and strong statements in response to the George Floyd killing,' he said, 'you have decided not to pursue a policy of neutrality.'...

From "At Harvard, a Battle Over What Should Be Said About the Hamas Attacks/After a student group blamed Israel for the violence, Lawrence Summers, a former university president, condemned the leadership for not speaking up" (NYT).

A policy of neutrality can be principled, but it's not principled at all it's applied on and off and as a matter of convenience. Once the university speaks out some of the time, the question becomes whether this is one of those occasions when the university should take a side. Does the fact that some students spoke out create such an occasion?

"More than 30 Harvard University student organizations are holding Israel 'entirely responsible' for Hamas’ mass slaughter — sparking outraged condemnation..."

"... and calls by a congresswoman for the Ivy League school to denounce the 'abhorrent and heinous' support of 'evil and terrorism.' In a letter titled 'Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine,' 31 student organizations — including the Ivy League’s affiliate of Amnesty International — condemned Israel, even as its residents are kidnapped and more than 700 have been killed by the terrorist organization...."

The NY Post reports.