SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
There's been another dramatic escalation in the Trump administration's battle with the nation's institutions of higher education. The Department of Homeland Security has moved to bar international students from attending Harvard - the nation's oldest university. Harvard quickly sued. A federal judge yesterday agreed to temporarily block that restriction from the DHS. Laura Meckler is a national education reporter at The Washington Post. She joins us now. Thanks so much for being with us.
LAURA MECKLER: Thanks so much for having me.
SIMON: Please, remind us what led to this face-off.
MECKLER: I mean, it's really been an extraordinary set of events. I mean, I think we can go back to the Trump campaign where President Trump campaigned on going after higher education. He said that universities were hotbeds of antisemitism, woke policies, indoctrination, DEI. He called college leaders Marxists, you know, and he promised to go after them, and now he's doing just that, has really unleashed an unprecedented attack on, you know, dozens of investigations of many universities by pulling grants, pulling contracts. But really, the attack on Harvard has stood out, partly because Harvard has fought back, and there has been just this escalating set of punishments that the administration has unleashed. You know, first, you know, pulling what seems to be every lever that they have - funding, threatening future funding, threatening their tax-exempt status and then, this week, saying that foreign students would no longer be eligible to attend.
SIMON: There are plenty of universities that have a large percentage of foreign students. Why have Harvard and Columbia - among other elite institutions - received what I'll call the special attention of the Trump administration?
MECKLER: Well, you know, it's hard to know exactly why these particular universities have had so much attention. You know, there have been real issues of antisemitism at both of these schools, so it's not like there's nothing there. But I do think that - and especially Colombia, last year, was really a hotbed of protest activities. It was the epicenter of the pro-Palestinian protest movement. So I think that's partly why Colombia came into these sites. And Harvard, you know, holds a special place in this country, you know, for good or for ill. For many people, they would view this as, you know, an aspirational, you know, wonderful crown jewel of American education and - but yet, for conservatives, a lot of them view that as just what's wrong with this country.
SIMON: And how are the universities responding?
MECKLER: You know, there's been just such a mix of responses from universities. Some have just sort of accepted the punishment and then said, you know, a small - often when relatively smaller amounts of money had been pulled and said that they will just adjust and have had layoffs. Some of them have tried to work things out. With Colombia, for instance, has had conversations with the Trump administration - extensive conversations - aimed at restoring the funding that had been pulled - you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of grants - and Harvard has fought. They have gone to court.
SIMON: Laura, has there been an effect at other colleges across the country as they look at these events?
MECKLER: Yeah. I mean, colleges are terrified. You know, they are - many of them are facing their own investigations. Dozens of universities have pending investigations. And let's keep in mind, this administration's only a few months old. There's plenty of time for the - similar types of actions to happen elsewhere, and people are scared. They're scared that their values are at risk. You know, the policies of diversity and inclusion that universities have embraced are now being told that they're illegal. There - you know, there's a very big climate of fear right now.
SIMON: And what are some of the consequences of this ongoing battle between the administration and universities that we could see short-term and long-term?
MECKLER: Well, I mean, you know, for a place like Harvard, if they - you know, even if they got their money restored, that - they've been told they're not going to get any future grants, and they rely on that money to do research in medicine, engineering, science, space - all sorts of subjects. So the question is both consequences for the universities - can they continue to be the sorts of places that they've been? - and also consequences, potentially, for our country going forward - are we going to benefit from the knowledge that has been produced by these universities? And, you know, the consequences are just going to continue to unspool as we move through this.
SIMON: Laura Meckler of The Washington Post. Thanks so much for being with us.
MECKLER: Thanks so much for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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