The fight between the Trump administration and elite higher education institutions has hit a fever pitch, escalating once again after Harvard University filed a lawsuit in response to the federal government freezing over $2 billion in federal research funding. The freeze came after Harvard issued a blanket refusal to a list of conditions issued by the Trump administration on April 11 that set stipulations for the university to continue receiving federal research funds. The conditions sent to Harvard come amid a larger effort by the Trump administration to review federal grants and loans to ensure compliance with a slate of recent executive orders, including one issued on Jan. 21 regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion practices and programs. The leading agent for the government in this effort — beyond President Donald Trump himself, of course — is the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, which was formed as a response to campuses’ utter failure to defend Jewish students and faculty in the wake of Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens in October 2023. And it is under this auspice, that of addressing Harvard and other institutions’ inability or unwillingness to uphold their commitments to civil rights in the face of antisemitism, that the Trump administration is targeting these schools’ finances. While there are other institutions in the administration’s crosshairs, notably Columbia, it is Harvard that has become the primary target. Indeed, it has been reported that...