0:00

On this week's on the media,

0:02

the leadership crisis at Harvard and

0:04

the backlash to decades of diversity

0:06

efforts didn't begin or end with

0:09

the resignation of its first black

0:11

president last year. Diversity wasn't much

0:13

of an important political term in

0:15

the 1970s. Integration was a much

0:18

bigger term. Nobody was buying stock

0:20

in diversity. I refer in my

0:22

opinion to the Harvard admissions program.

0:25

as one example of how race

0:27

properly in my opinion may be

0:29

taken into account. Tonight, President Trump's

0:32

crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests ramping

0:34

up immigration agents taking a

0:36

second student involved in the

0:38

Columbia University demonstrations into constant.

0:40

We will continue to look

0:42

for people that we would never have

0:45

allowed into this country on student visas

0:47

had we known they were going to

0:49

do what they've done, but now that

0:51

they've done it. We're going to get

0:54

rid of them. We have to honestly

0:56

and aggressively attack the universities in this

0:58

country. It's all coming up after

1:00

this. On the media is

1:03

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not available in all states. From

1:25

WNYC in New York, this is on

1:27

the media, I'm Michael Lowinger. And I'm

1:30

Brooke Gladstone. After months of

1:32

witnessing the demolition of federal

1:34

agencies that safeguard our health and

1:37

our security, of seeing violent lawbreakers

1:39

and corrupt pals and tycoons set

1:41

free. of watching the firing of

1:44

civil servants who process our benefits

1:46

and researchers that gather data so

1:49

that we can better understand the

1:51

true state of the nation after

1:53

months of action against public institutions

1:56

and even private ones who may

1:58

see that nation different. Finally, after

2:01

months of the chainsaw, this

2:03

week there finally was a

2:05

protracted call from the loyal

2:07

opposition to make good trouble.

2:09

Don't become like him. Be

2:11

an American that says, I

2:13

look to the future and

2:15

I'm excited. Corey Booker, Senator

2:17

from New Jersey, speaking for

2:19

a record-breaking 25 hours from

2:21

the Senate floor. We are

2:23

a nation that is great,

2:25

not because the people that

2:28

are trying to whitewash our

2:30

history. To remove great people,

2:32

Native Americans, black people, and

2:34

women from our military websites,

2:36

I don't want a disinification

2:38

of our history. I don't

2:40

want to whitewash history. I

2:42

don't want to homogenize history.

2:44

Tell me the wretched truth

2:46

about America, because that speaks

2:48

to our greatness. Booker's marathon

2:50

speech topped 350 million likes

2:52

on his TikTok live. It's

2:55

been called a desperately needed

2:57

reset for the Democratic Party.

2:59

It definitely was a teachable

3:01

moment. Teachable also? The momentous

3:03

election this week of a

3:05

Democratic judge in Wisconsin and

3:07

a recent fleet of new

3:09

polls that show most Americans

3:11

are heartily sick of Elon

3:13

Musk. and suspect that the

3:15

mass firings and tariffs may

3:17

make America a harder place

3:19

for the non-rich to thrive,

3:22

and that Donald Trump's obsession

3:24

with silencing his ideological foes

3:26

may have distracted him from

3:28

what matters most. Among those

3:30

foes, America's great institutions of

3:32

higher learning. Tonight, President Trump's

3:34

crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests ramping

3:36

up. Immigration agents taking a

3:38

second student involved in the

3:40

Columbia University demonstrations into custody.

3:42

Earlier this week, the National

3:44

Institutes of Health said it's

3:46

terminating more than $250 million

3:49

in funding to Columbia in

3:51

the face of persistent harassment

3:53

of Jewish students. Another Ivy

3:55

League shakup as Columbia University's

3:57

interim president. Katrina Armstrong steps

3:59

down from her role. This

4:01

comes on the heels of

4:03

Columbia caving to President Trump's

4:05

demands after he pulled $400

4:07

million in federal funds. The

4:09

federal government also suspending several

4:11

research grants at Princeton. All

4:13

right, the crackdown against campus

4:16

anti-Semitism continues now putting Harvard

4:18

University under the microscope, the

4:20

Trump administration saying it plans

4:22

to carry out a review

4:24

of federal grants and contracts

4:26

awarded there to the tune

4:28

of nearly $9 billion. Last

4:30

winter, we produced a three-part

4:32

series with the Boston Globe

4:34

called The Harvard Plan, about

4:36

the crisis in American higher

4:38

education. We aired it in

4:40

December to coincide with the

4:43

one-year anniversary of that infamous

4:45

congressional hearing, the one that

4:47

pitted the presidents of Harvard,

4:49

UPenn, and MIT against Republican

4:51

lawmakers. The hearing was purportedly

4:53

about anti-Semitism on campus, and

4:55

it was the aggressive questioning

4:57

by Representative Elise Stephanic that

4:59

made the whole thing go

5:01

viral. So based upon your

5:03

testimony, you understand that this

5:05

call for Intifada is to...

5:07

commit genocide against the Jewish

5:10

people in Israel and globally,

5:12

correct? I will say again

5:14

that type of hateful speech

5:16

is personally abhorrent to me.

5:18

Do you believe that type

5:20

of hateful speech is contrary

5:22

to Harvard's code of conduct

5:24

or is it allowed at

5:26

Harvard? It is at odds

5:28

with the values of Harvard.

5:30

Can you not say here

5:32

that it is against the

5:34

code of conduct at Harvard?

5:37

resigned at the beginning of

5:39

January 2024, after weeks of

5:41

attacks on her record, including

5:43

accusations of plagiarism. The series

5:45

was about the short and

5:47

troubled tenure of Claudine Gay,

5:49

but as reporter Ilia Meritz

5:51

discovered, anti-Semitism was just a

5:53

pretext to go after gay.

5:55

The real target? Diversity Programs.

5:57

Does Harvard value Veritas or

5:59

truth or does Harvard value

6:02

DEA and having the right

6:04

race and gender symbolism at

6:06

the top of its university

6:08

hierarchy? In light of the

6:10

administration's current actions, we thought

6:12

it was a good time

6:14

to revisit episode three, in

6:16

which we excavate the origins

6:18

of diversity, equity and inclusion

6:20

in higher education. Illia

6:23

was well placed to tell the story

6:25

because he happened to be a visiting

6:27

fellow at Harvard and watched the whole

6:30

thing unfold from a ringside seat.

6:32

The brutal takedown of Harvard's

6:34

first and only black president seemed

6:36

to register very little on the

6:39

Harvard campus. This surprised me. It

6:41

happened during winter break, sure, people

6:43

were away. When they came back,

6:45

I expected to see posters for

6:47

assemblies and talks about what it

6:49

all meant. I waited and nothing

6:52

happened. I started to feel like

6:54

a house guest in one of

6:56

those families where they don't discuss

6:59

uncomfortable things. One day, I

7:01

imagine, Claudine Gay's portrait will hang

7:03

on a wall some place at

7:05

Harvard. People will walk by, maybe

7:07

stop and wonder who she was

7:09

and why she was in the

7:11

job for not even one full year.

7:13

I've been puzzling over a few

7:15

questions since I watched her flame

7:18

out. What did it all mean?

7:20

I've come up with two answers

7:22

to that question, and I'm going

7:24

to give you both of these

7:26

answers in this story. The second

7:28

answer, which we'll get to a

7:30

little later this hour, is all

7:32

about the present political moment, polarization,

7:34

social media, and the Trump advance

7:36

campaign's promise to attack universities. Now

7:38

that they are in office, I

7:40

can say it's a promise Trump

7:43

and Vance are keeping. The first

7:45

answer has to do with

7:47

the long and surprising history.

7:49

of a very potent, very

7:51

American concept, one that was

7:53

developed at Harvard and spread

7:55

to the world. Diversity. So

7:58

let's start there. When

8:00

Claudine Gay was announced as

8:02

Harvard's next president, there was

8:04

grumbling because she hadn't published

8:06

many articles or a book.

8:08

This observation goes hand in

8:10

hand with a belief I

8:12

also heard as I reported

8:14

this story, that gay was

8:17

a diversity higher. People who

8:19

know Claudine Gay professionally as

8:21

a colleague describe her with

8:23

words like thoughtful, intelligent, and

8:25

good listener. She was low

8:27

key, low drama. And you

8:29

could argue that those qualities

8:31

made her not the best

8:33

pick for this moment in

8:35

time. Still... A black woman

8:37

was made president of Harvard

8:40

University. Randall Kennedy is a

8:42

professor at Harvard Law School.

8:44

He's written many books on

8:46

race and the law. Now,

8:48

I'm sorry that her tenure

8:50

was so short and that

8:52

it was cut off in

8:54

such a terrible way, but

8:56

I don't think it should

8:58

be forgotten that... A black

9:00

woman was president of the

9:03

most famous university in the

9:05

United States. Part of making

9:07

that happen was, you know,

9:09

diversity consciousness. Kennedy heard the

9:11

whispers and insinuations that she

9:13

was chosen for her race,

9:15

and he thinks this is

9:17

true to a point, but

9:19

also, so what? There are

9:21

going to be some people

9:23

who were going to, you know,

9:26

sort of look at that and

9:28

snicker. and make that part of

9:31

a deficiency story. Well, she must

9:33

be deficient. And, you know, I

9:35

think that's ridiculous. I look at

9:38

the social forces that made her

9:40

presidency possible as on balance a

9:42

good thing. We're going to go

9:45

deep now on Harvard and diversity,

9:47

because the conversation didn't begin with

9:50

Claudine Gay. It stretches back decades,

9:52

actually a whole century. To walk

9:54

us through this history, our guides

9:57

are Randall Kennedy, who you just

9:59

met, and his colleague, another Harvard

10:01

Law professor, Noah Feldman. I'm a

10:04

Felix Frankford, a professor of law

10:06

at the law school. Feldman pointed

10:09

me to the very beginning of

10:11

the diversity conversation. It goes back

10:13

to a time before there were

10:16

many black or brown people at

10:18

Harvard. The discussion then was about

10:21

Jews, and it wasn't pretty. At

10:25

the start of the 20th century

10:27

Jews were arriving in America in

10:29

large numbers from Eastern Europe. By

10:31

the 1920s, their sons were taking

10:33

the Harvard entrance exam and getting

10:35

in. And people at Harvard did

10:37

not like it. There's no very

10:39

exact count, but people's estimates at

10:42

the time put the number of

10:44

Jews up at 20% of the

10:46

population. This led to concern and

10:48

backlash from among other people, A.

10:50

Lawrence Lowell, who was the president

10:52

of Harvard at the time. President

10:54

Lowell fretted. that the character of

10:56

Harvard was changing and wrote that

10:58

there was an urgent need to

11:01

prevent a dangerous increase in their

11:03

proportion of Jews. What to do

11:05

about it became a high priority,

11:07

but Lowell's initial proposals to simply

11:09

cap the number of Jews admitted

11:11

didn't fly with the faculty. It

11:13

was too much of a blunt

11:15

instrument. And so he, with the

11:18

assistance of advisors, came up with

11:20

an alternative strategy. And this was

11:22

a strategy they called the diversity

11:24

strategy, and what it set out

11:26

to do. was to make Harvard

11:28

a national university, drawing on people

11:30

from all over the country. Diversity

11:32

not to bring people in, but

11:34

to keep them out. This is

11:37

the moment when Harvard moved to

11:39

an admission system that looks more

11:41

like what we know today, with

11:43

interviews for applicants, an emphasis on

11:45

character, and an effort to recruit

11:47

from all over the nation, tools

11:49

that enabled the school to have

11:51

more of a say in its

11:53

own student body. The point of

11:56

this plan, the diversity plan, was

11:58

to say by making it a

12:00

national school, we'll draw in people

12:02

from Nebraska and Iowa, still man

12:04

of course at the time, and

12:06

the idea was that The university

12:08

would then be more diverse nationally,

12:10

and by magic, it would also

12:12

have very many fewer Jews, because

12:15

it wouldn't have urban ethnic Jews.

12:17

And it worked. Jews continued to

12:19

get into Harvard, but in smaller

12:21

numbers, and hang on to Harvard's

12:23

concept of diversity as a key

12:25

principle and admissions, because a few

12:27

decades later, it comes into play

12:29

again in a big Supreme Court

12:31

case. First case on today's calendar

12:34

is number 76-811. Regence of the

12:36

University of California against Bakke. In

12:38

the late 1970s, a white plaintiff

12:40

named Alan Bakke claimed he'd been

12:42

denied admission to the University of

12:44

California Davis Medical School because of

12:46

his race. Many colleges and universities

12:48

had begun considering an applicant's background

12:50

in response to the civil rights

12:53

movement. They felt it was time

12:55

to give opportunity to more minority

12:57

students. Mr. Cox, you may proceed

12:59

whenever you are ready. This was

13:01

sometimes called affirmative action. but it

13:03

wasn't clear whether it was constitutional.

13:05

Mr. Chief Justice, may it please

13:07

the court? The Bakke case involved

13:09

a challenge to affirmative action in

13:12

which the challengers claimed that affirmative

13:14

action violated the equal rights of

13:16

white students who had the same

13:18

scores as black students who were

13:20

being admitted on the basis of

13:22

there being an addition to diversity.

13:24

Among the nine justices, there was

13:26

a clear divide. For justices said

13:28

essentially, Affirmative action should be unconstitutional

13:31

as a violation of equal protection.

13:33

Four justices said affirmative action should

13:35

be perfectly constitutional because we have

13:37

a history of racial exclusion to

13:39

discrimination in the United States and

13:41

admitting students to remediate that history

13:43

of discrimination is totally legitimate and

13:45

doesn't violate equal protection. That left

13:47

one swing justice, Lewis Powell, a

13:50

white Virginian and Harvard Law grad

13:52

class of 32. Powell was not

13:54

ready to go with the four

13:56

justices who supported affirmative action on

13:58

the grounds of history, but he

14:00

was also unwilling. to close the

14:02

door on the notion that the

14:04

applicant's personal background could play some

14:06

kind of role. He found a

14:09

middle way in arguments made by

14:11

Harvard, specifically by a slow-talking Patricia

14:13

Harvard Law professor who was a

14:15

bit of a legend. Certainly the

14:17

objective of improving education through

14:19

greater diversity. His name

14:21

was Archibald Cox. Here he is

14:24

arguing for Harvard at the Supreme

14:26

Court. There is no racially blind

14:28

method of selection. which will enroll

14:30

today more than a trickle of

14:33

minority students in the nation's colleges

14:35

and professions. Randall Kennedy got

14:37

to know Cox when Kennedy joined Harvard

14:40

Law School in 1984, fresh from

14:42

clerking for Justice Thurgood Marshall. There

14:44

hadn't been many black people on

14:46

the faculty, and Cox took an

14:48

interest in his young colleague.

14:50

You can tell just from the

14:52

tenor of my voice, I remember

14:54

him with tremendous fondness and respect

14:56

and admiration. If he was being portrayed

14:59

in a movie, the directions would

15:01

say, you want a person who looks like

15:03

a Boston Brahman. Cox was

15:05

partial to bow ties and

15:07

semi-rimeless readers, but what he

15:09

was famous for was being

15:11

fired by President Nixon. Just

15:14

a few years earlier, Cox

15:16

was a special prosecutor investigating

15:18

Watergate. He had refused to

15:20

drop a subpoena for recordings

15:22

Nixon secretly made of his

15:24

own conversations in the White

15:26

House, and he was canned.

15:29

That gave Cox a particular

15:31

kind of gravitas as he

15:33

went before the Supreme Court

15:35

and sketched Harvard's idealistic vision

15:37

for higher education as a vehicle

15:40

for social advancement open to

15:42

all. So that they other

15:44

younger boys and girls may see

15:46

yes it is possible for a

15:48

black to go to University of

15:50

Minnesota or to go to Harvard

15:52

or Yale. I know Johnny down

15:54

the street. And I know

15:56

Sam is father. He became

15:59

a liar. John's father became

16:01

a doctor. This is essential

16:03

if we are ever going

16:05

to give true equality in

16:08

a factual sense to people.

16:10

And what Archibar Cox says

16:12

was, the community that we

16:14

want to facilitate is a

16:17

community in which individuals come

16:19

here, they're selected to come

16:21

here, and a lot of

16:23

the learning comes from, you

16:26

know, people learning from one

16:28

another. For people to learn

16:30

from one another, won't that

16:32

happen best if there is

16:35

some degree of curated difference?

16:37

It's not about repairing past

16:39

wrongs, but about who's in

16:42

the classroom. At that time,

16:44

there was something novel about

16:46

this idea. Diversity wasn't much

16:48

of an important political, cultural

16:51

term. In the 1970s, there

16:53

were other terms. Integration was

16:55

a much bigger term. Diversity,

16:57

you know, nobody was buying

17:00

stock in diversity. But then,

17:02

in the 70s, the 80s,

17:04

the 90s, into the 2000s,

17:06

diversity becomes more and more

17:09

and more influential as an

17:11

idea. Thanks in large part.

17:13

to the US Supreme Court.

17:15

Mr. Justice Powell will announce

17:18

the judgment of the court.

17:20

There is no opinion of

17:22

the court supported by a

17:24

majority. Justice Powell's one-man opinion

17:27

carried the day. And in

17:29

that opinion, Powell said diversity

17:31

is the rationale that justifies

17:33

affirmative action, not remediating past

17:36

discrimination, but having a diverse

17:38

class. Again, Noah Feldman. One

17:40

justice, Justice Lewis Powell, wrote

17:43

a narrow opinion only for

17:45

himself that became the law

17:47

because it was the narrowest

17:49

opinion upholding affirmative action. A

17:52

majority of one. Although the

17:54

University of California was the

17:56

school whose policies were being

17:58

challenged, it was Harvard and

18:01

law professor Archibald Cox who

18:03

supplied the blueprint for race-conscious

18:05

admissions to Justice Powell. Here's

18:07

Powell at the Supreme Court.

18:10

I refer in my opinion

18:12

to the Harvard admissions program.

18:14

At one example of how

18:16

race, properly in my opinion,

18:19

may be taken into account.

18:21

Sometimes also called the Harvard

18:23

plan. I will quote briefly

18:25

from the description of the

18:28

Harvard program. a copy of

18:30

which is in the appendix

18:32

to my opinion. And here

18:35

I quote in substance, the

18:37

committee, the admissions committee, has

18:39

not set target quotas for

18:41

the number of blacks or

18:44

musicians, football players, physicists. So

18:46

in that moment in 1978,

18:48

Harvard's diversity admission policy became

18:50

the law of the land.

18:55

The difference it made is

18:57

still much debated, but either

18:59

way, universities adopted this approach.

19:01

Student bodies did become more

19:03

diverse. In 1991, Barack Obama

19:06

graduated from Harvard Law. In

19:08

time, corporate America embraced diversity.

19:10

You can see diversity on

19:12

TV and in movies and

19:14

panel discussions. It's so everywhere

19:16

you notice when it's missing.

19:18

Again, Randall Kennedy. The diversity

19:20

rationale says, you know, actually...

19:22

The people that we are

19:24

selecting are bringing something very

19:26

special and very good to

19:28

the table. I think this

19:31

may be the very first

19:33

time in the history of

19:35

the United States in which

19:37

a policy, a racial policy,

19:39

actually valorized people of color.

19:41

Diversity doesn't dwell on history.

19:43

It's inclusive. And so... everyone,

19:45

the whole community is going

19:47

to be uplifted through diversity,

19:49

at least in theory, everybody,

19:51

you know, gets a role

19:53

in the show. But in

19:55

higher education specifically, affirmative action

19:58

has always had its critics.

20:00

In 2022, the Supreme Court

20:02

heard a major challenge to

20:04

considering race in college admissions.

20:06

The plaintiff said that like

20:08

Jews decades earlier, Asian Americans

20:10

had become too successful for

20:12

some people's comfort. Race-based affirmative

20:14

action was used to keep

20:16

their numbers down. The defendants

20:18

were the University of North

20:20

Carolina, a public institution, and

20:23

Harvard. Noe Feldman says that

20:25

was no accident. You didn't

20:27

need Harvard, which is a

20:29

private university. They added Harvard

20:31

to that same case because

20:33

they wanted the oomph of

20:35

being able to say diversity

20:37

came from Harvard, diversity was

20:39

bad from the start. The

20:41

decision came down June 29th,

20:43

2023. The question in these

20:45

cases is whether Harvard and

20:48

UNC's programs are permissible under

20:50

the Equal Protection Clause of

20:52

the 14th Amendment. We conclude

20:54

that they are not. Two

20:56

days after that, Claudine Gay

20:58

formally assumed the job of

21:00

Harvard president. Incredible timing. To

21:02

my mind, not all a

21:04

coincidence that the Supreme Court

21:06

strikes down the diversity rationale,

21:08

and then almost immediately the

21:10

attacks on Claudine Gay start

21:12

to depict her as quote

21:15

unquote a diversity candidate with

21:17

the intent of undermining her.

21:19

For critics of diversity, depicting

21:21

a president... who was already

21:23

in a lot of trouble

21:25

as a diversity candidate was

21:27

a way of weakening diversity

21:29

as a cultural category that

21:31

can be used positively for

21:33

anybody else in the future.

21:35

Diversity is on the ropes

21:37

and race-based affirmative action is

21:40

legally dead. So what now?

21:42

For me, racial affirmative action,

21:44

I wrote a book defending

21:46

it, I've been defending it.

21:48

And then Kennedy said something...

21:50

that I did not expect.

21:52

Is it the last word?

21:54

No, I don't think it's

21:56

the last word. It may

21:58

very well be. that there

22:01

are superior alternatives.

22:03

It's even possible, it's

22:05

even possible, that the

22:08

Supreme Court of the

22:11

United States decision, which

22:13

I don't like, it's possible

22:15

that that decision will lead

22:18

to better policies

22:20

in the future.

22:23

Life is just

22:25

complicated like that.

22:28

Coming up, black

22:31

alumni of

22:33

Harvard get

22:36

together to

22:39

process everything

22:42

that just

22:45

happened. This

22:48

is on

22:50

the media.

22:52

But we do also like to

22:55

get into other kinds of stories.

22:57

Stories about policing, or politics, country

22:59

music, hockey, sex of bugs. Regardless

23:01

of whether we're looking at science

23:03

or not science, we bring a

23:05

rigorous curiosity to get you the

23:08

answers. And hopefully, make you see the

23:10

world anew. Radio Lab, adventures on the edge

23:12

of what we think we know. Wherever

23:14

you get your podcast. This is on

23:16

the media. I'm Michael Oettinger. And

23:18

I'm Brooke Gladstone. We're listening to

23:21

the Harvard Plan, a series we

23:23

aired last winter. The story started

23:25

as a deep dive into Claudine

23:28

Gay's very public auster from her

23:30

position as Harvard's first black president,

23:32

but it soon became clear. that

23:34

there were much bigger forces at

23:37

play in the controversies beleagering America's

23:39

institutions of higher learning. Here's reporter,

23:41

Ilian Meritz. How's everything going? Great

23:43

to see you. Last fall, I

23:46

got a glimpse of all that

23:48

45 years of race-conscious admissions has

23:50

accomplished. So this is called the

23:53

Harvard Black Alumni Weekend. Mount

23:55

Holyoke College President Daniel

23:57

Holly. It started, I think we had

23:59

the first. One, maybe 20 years ago

24:01

or so, you'd have to look.

24:03

Holly became a college leader on

24:05

the exact same day that Claudine

24:08

Gay did. We're sitting on a

24:10

bench outside the Harvard Science Center.

24:12

It's college weather, sweaters, autumn leaves,

24:14

and all around us, black Harvard

24:16

grads in their 40s, 50s, and

24:18

upwards, are hanging out in little

24:20

clusters as undergrads come and go

24:22

on foot and on scooter. And

24:24

so there are over a thousand

24:26

alums this weekend, black alums who

24:29

are here to celebrate together. We

24:31

spotted Alvin Bragg, the district attorney

24:33

of Manhattan, and an actress from

24:35

Riverdale. Oh, there's Soledad O'Brien right

24:37

there. I hadn't really prepared for

24:39

all the famouses, but yeah, of

24:41

course. Whether it's Justice Jackson or

24:43

President Obama or Eric Holder or

24:45

Loretta Lynch, every major leader. who's

24:48

black American in this country, the

24:50

road to that leadership runs through

24:52

the Ivy League schools and Howard.

24:54

So if you cut off access

24:56

to Harvard, you're cutting off access

24:58

to leadership in this country. In

25:00

the days just before the black

25:02

alumni weekend, colleges started releasing the

25:04

numbers on their first post affirmative

25:07

action classes. At some schools, black

25:09

admissions are down a lot. Other

25:11

places, there's no big change. At

25:13

Harvard College, the percentage of black

25:15

freshmen is down four percentage points.

25:17

At Harvard Law School, just recently,

25:19

we learned black admissions are down

25:21

by more than half. No one

25:23

I talked to at this gathering

25:25

seemed to have an answer for

25:28

what the post affirmative action world

25:30

should look like. Again, this was

25:32

September, when it seemed possible that

25:34

a black woman lawyer might become

25:36

the president of the United States.

25:38

Holly told me it was former

25:40

Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who brought

25:42

the most fire in her talk.

25:44

We will not back down from

25:47

the notion that we belong here,

25:49

and there's a sense that many

25:51

of us have sacrificed quite a

25:53

bit, personally, to contribute, build this

25:55

place up. And then we see

25:57

one more famous person. Oh, but

25:59

here's President Gay, right here. Behind

26:01

this. Chloe is making her way

26:03

across the plaza. People keep stopping

26:06

her, wanting to talk. She's wearing

26:08

crimson flats in a very colorful

26:10

dress. Holly and I sort of

26:12

hover nearby, waiting for an opening.

26:14

Holly wants a selfie. I just

26:16

want to introduce myself. In high,

26:18

I'm really open. In person, gay

26:20

is warm and relaxed. Here, this

26:22

weekend, she's been celebrated. the women

26:24

kibits. I noticed they're now holding

26:27

hands, swinging their arms. We would

26:29

love to have you come to

26:31

Mount Holier. Yeah, yeah, we would.

26:33

I know it's a bad at

26:35

all. I'm like, but whenever, and

26:37

it doesn't even have to be

26:39

a, but like whenever. Yes, we

26:41

started. I know. I know. Yes.

26:43

And you were at the, and

26:46

you were at the, um, we

26:48

were at the, new president. Yeah.

26:50

After Gay moved on, Daniel Holly

26:53

told me she had expected this

26:55

weekend to be something like a

26:57

reckoning or a family conversation. It

26:59

hasn't been that at all. I

27:01

think it's really been more about,

27:03

wow, you know, look what this

27:05

community has been able to do.

27:07

And look what the institution for

27:09

years believed was important for it

27:11

to do. And I think the

27:13

question is, does the institution still

27:16

believe that? to take the Supreme

27:18

Court's decision and the DEI backlash

27:20

and decisively lock racial diversity out

27:22

of the university's goals. And as

27:24

I reported this story last year,

27:26

I watched it gaining ground. I

27:28

want to introduce you now to

27:30

Sam Lesson, Harvard College Class of

27:32

05, California Venture Capitalist, friend of

27:34

Mark Zuckerberg's. You know, I'm a

27:37

stereotypical Silicon Valley guy. Lesson is

27:39

someone who used to defend Harvard

27:41

when his friends complained about trigger

27:43

warnings and political correctness. He had

27:45

an awakening after Hamas attacked Israel.

27:47

I'm the one who's wrong here

27:49

and that sucks. If you think

27:51

of hedge fund manager Bill Ackman

27:53

or culture warrior Chris... Rufo as

27:55

the clean-cut grads who fanned the

27:57

flames of outrage. Does Harvard value

28:00

veritas or truth or does Harvard

28:02

value DEI? True free speech has

28:04

been curtailed on many campuses and

28:06

conservative voices have been shouted down.

28:08

Lesson shares some of their views,

28:10

but his approach is different. There's

28:12

a lot of respect about Bill

28:14

Ackman, a lot of the good

28:16

I think he's done, but I

28:18

also think you know from a

28:20

purely political how do you fix

28:23

things perspective. There's a difference between...

28:25

the aggressive yell at things versus

28:27

give people paths forward, right? And

28:29

so I think that's like the

28:31

interesting balance to play in terms

28:33

of saying, no, I want substantive

28:35

change and revival, I don't want

28:37

to just be mad. He's been

28:39

circulating a 97-page slide deck about

28:41

how Harvard should change. There's a

28:44

weekly newsletter with 20,000 subscribers and

28:46

counting. Lesson is talking with donors

28:48

about how they can leverage their

28:50

dollars for accountability. We believe the

28:52

school needs to refocus on academic

28:54

excellence, improving governance, real free speech

28:56

and free inquiry. There's a bunch

28:58

of themes we have. Notice diversity

29:00

is not one of the core

29:02

values. Lesson thinks it's a mistake

29:04

to try to solve bigger social

29:07

problems through university admissions policies. He's

29:09

okay with what the Supreme Court

29:11

did. More than okay. I actually

29:13

believe this was the right decision,

29:15

right? Which is, how can we

29:17

as a society say that it

29:19

should matter? you know, what the

29:21

color of your skin is in

29:23

terms of who gets in the

29:25

college. That's crazy, right? By the

29:27

way, lesson's father and sister went

29:30

to Harvard too. I asked him

29:32

about that. He told me doing

29:34

away with legacy admissions is, quote,

29:36

a valid conversation. But he worries

29:38

that the kind of classroom environment

29:40

where students learn from each other

29:42

is more difficult to achieve today

29:44

with people growing up online. They

29:46

created a sense of identity and

29:48

purpose and meaning by being extreme.

29:51

They say, oh, now we want

29:53

you to go to college and

29:55

we want you to be in

29:57

a diverse community and work with.

29:59

all these people that you're not

30:01

going to agree with completely,

30:03

and they all come in like Adams is

30:05

bouncing off of each other. You're supposed to

30:07

learn to learn from people you don't agree

30:10

with. It's just like, it's oil and water,

30:12

right, is what's going on. You're a Facebook

30:14

guy. I mean, do you blame? No. So

30:16

social media? Like, I think the answer is

30:18

I think it's like such a

30:21

simplistic read, right? Like, you know,

30:23

people love scapegoats, right? Like, because

30:25

it's fine. Okay, so I put

30:27

him on the defense of a

30:29

little. He said, it's not social

30:32

media per se, but the underlying

30:34

technology and what it enables. Lesson

30:36

told me in his ideal world,

30:38

universities would be monasteries of truth,

30:40

less online, more focused on

30:42

IRL debate and discussion. They

30:45

defend the truth, they search out the truth,

30:47

they look for the best of the best

30:49

to do that, they train the best, etc.

30:51

And in that world, I think it would

30:53

be great for them to be set up

30:55

in such a way that they have incredible

30:57

independence from any politics,

30:59

right? Well sure, but especially after

31:02

what happened to Claudine Gay, that

31:04

is increasingly hard to do. Good

31:06

evening Milwaukee! Representative Elise Stephanic,

31:08

the tormentor of college presidents

31:11

at a hearing in December

31:13

2023. took a victory lap

31:15

in prime time at

31:17

the Republican National Convention.

31:19

Who saw that congressional

31:21

hearing with the college

31:23

presidents of so-called elite universities?

31:26

As if to declare, yeah,

31:28

college is political now, suck it

31:30

up. Oh wait, they are former presidents.

31:32

This year, Republicans campaigned against

31:34

universities. It is a big

31:37

change. They used to talk

31:39

about making college more accessible.

31:41

Now they're saying, College itself

31:43

is bad. The time has

31:45

come to reclaim our once-great

31:47

educational institutions from the radical

31:49

left. And this little nugget

31:52

from then-candidate Donald Trump made

31:54

Hillary Burns, the Globe's higher

31:56

education reporter, sit up straight.

31:58

Our secret weapon... and will

32:00

be the college accreditation system. Accreditation,

32:02

a secret weapon. No one knows

32:05

what accreditors do or what they

32:07

are, and they certainly have never

32:09

been the topic of a political

32:12

campaign. So I think it has

32:14

everyone on edge. Accreditor is this

32:16

totally obscure job. You really only

32:19

pay attention to the accreditor when

32:21

a college closes. That's where you

32:23

get the alert from, the accreditor.

32:26

Accreditors come under the oversight of

32:28

the Department of Education. Last month,

32:30

Trump signed an executive order aimed

32:32

at eliminating the department. Didn't mention

32:35

accreditors. They are like the quality

32:37

assurance. You can kind of think

32:39

of it as like they work

32:42

for the consumer and they do

32:44

visits to colleges. They call out

32:46

when colleges are, you know, doing

32:49

something not good. Like we've seen

32:51

colleges that have closed. Sometimes at

32:53

the end when they're financially crunched

32:55

they start doing things that lessen

32:58

the quality and that's where the

33:00

accreditor steps in and says, you

33:02

know, this isn't okay. When I

33:05

return to the White House, I

33:07

will fire the radical left accreditors

33:09

that have allowed our colleges to

33:12

become dominated by Marxists, maniacs, and

33:14

lunatics. We will then accept applications

33:16

for new accreditors who will impose

33:19

real standards on colleges once again

33:21

and once and for all. Trump,

33:23

who is the founder of the

33:25

now-defunct never-accredited Trump University, said he

33:28

would pressure schools to refocus curricula

33:30

on Western civilization, American tradition, and

33:32

of course, to get rid of

33:35

DEA. On the campaign trail, he

33:37

got specific about leverage, investigations, taxes

33:39

on endowments, cuts to research funding.

33:42

And now that he's in office,

33:44

he's reaching for those levers. Do

33:46

universities have like a plan to

33:48

deal with this? Are they ready

33:51

for this? Universities have been very

33:53

quiet since the election. That's something

33:55

I've been speaking with people about.

33:58

Universities have so many fires they

34:00

need to be watching right now.

34:02

Like not only it's... their finances

34:05

and their academic freedom, but also

34:07

their students and their professors and

34:09

their employees are being threatened with

34:12

many of Trump's immigration policies. Candidate

34:14

Trump said he'd deport foreign students

34:16

who joined pro- Palestine protests. Already

34:18

in the presidential transition, some universities

34:21

were planning for this. What I'm

34:23

hearing from higher education watchers and

34:25

lawyers who are working on this

34:28

is the universities are doing the

34:30

work behind the scenes like quietly

34:32

because they don't want a target

34:35

on their back. So much for

34:37

that. Last month, ICE agents took

34:39

custody of a recently minted Columbia

34:41

University master's in international affairs and

34:44

green card holder named Mahmoud Khalil.

34:46

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said,

34:48

by way of explanation, that he,

34:51

quote, will be revoking the visas

34:53

and or green cards of Hamas

34:55

supporters in America so they can

34:58

be deported. More students and faculty

35:00

members identified with the Palestinian cause

35:02

have been arrested since then. The

35:05

tools. The pressure points were always

35:07

there. But it's new that there

35:09

are politicians willing and empowered to

35:11

use them. Coming up, J.D. Vance's

35:14

plan to attack the universities looks

35:16

to Victor Orban's Hungary for inspiration.

35:18

This is on the media. This

35:44

week on the New Yorker Radio

35:46

Hour, how did the chipmaker Invidia

35:48

become the most valuable business on

35:51

the planet? We think of AI

35:53

as a software revolution, but AI

35:55

is also a hardware revolution. Invidia

35:57

was there at the beginning of

36:00

AI. They really kind of made

36:02

the... systems work for the first

36:04

time. Stephen Witt on the race

36:07

to dominate AI. That's the New

36:09

Yorker Radio Hour from WNYC Studios.

36:11

Listen, wherever you get your podcast.

36:14

This is on the media. I'm

36:16

Brooke Gladstone. And I'm Michael Lominger.

36:18

Earlier in this hour, we delved

36:20

back into the history of diversity

36:23

in American College admissions. Part one

36:25

of Ilia's answer as to what

36:27

exactly happened last year at Harvard.

36:30

Now we get to part two,

36:32

the politics of our current moment.

36:34

So much of what we want

36:36

to accomplish. Vice President J.D. Vance.

36:39

So much of what we want

36:41

to do in this movement in

36:43

this country, I think are fundamentally

36:46

dependent on going through a set

36:48

of very hostile institutions, specifically the

36:50

universities. Vance gave this speech in

36:53

2021 when he was running for

36:55

Senate from Ohio. Everything about it

36:57

is blunt, starting with the title.

36:59

The universities are the enemy. I

37:02

think if any of us want

37:04

to do the things that we

37:06

want to do for our country

37:09

and for the people who live

37:11

in it, we have to honestly

37:13

and aggressively attack the universities in

37:15

this country. Next, Vance explains the

37:18

concept of red-pelling, if you don't

37:20

know it. It comes from the

37:22

movie, The Matrix, which as I

37:25

understand it, is made by a

37:27

couple of people who do not

37:29

share the politics of the people

37:32

in this room. The writer directors

37:34

of the film are siblings and

37:36

trans women and critics of Donald

37:38

Trump. Still, there is an idea

37:41

in their movie that people on

37:43

the right love. The basic idea

37:45

is that once you see the

37:48

way that knowledge is transmitted, once

37:50

you see the way that public

37:52

policy works in this country, it's

37:54

very hard to unsee it. He

37:57

runs the audience through some examples

37:59

of campus liberals taking things too

38:01

far. This, of course, is the

38:04

key ingredient in all conversion narratives

38:06

about universities. A pogrom started on

38:08

social media. The guy was turned...

38:11

And it's effective because, you know,

38:13

enough of it is true or

38:15

feels right. A paper came out

38:17

suggesting that gender transition... surgeries and

38:20

hormonal therapies for adolescents was in

38:22

fact... When I was at Harvard

38:24

I had a class where the

38:27

students routinely reached for words like

38:29

colonialism or oppression. I found that

38:31

annoying. Vance, who invited a bunch

38:33

of students over to his house

38:36

in a joking way, has been

38:38

threatened by the diversity bureaucracy at

38:40

Leo Law School. Vance speaks with

38:43

the fluency of an insider. He

38:45

graduated Yale Law School in 2013.

38:47

I really want to end this

38:50

on an inspirational note. I'm including

38:52

the end of his speech because

38:54

it contains this weird historical quota.

38:56

Vance says he looked for a

38:59

quote from scripture or from history.

39:01

And the person whose quote I

39:03

ultimately had to land on was

39:06

the great prophet and statesman Richard

39:08

Milhouse Nixon. Vance releases a little

39:10

smile and his eyes sweep the

39:12

room as if to say, are

39:15

you ready for the mic drop?

39:17

There was a wisdom in what

39:19

Richard Nixon said approximately... 40, 50

39:22

years ago. He said, and I

39:24

quote, the professors are the enemy.

39:26

The end, the professors are the

39:29

enemy. I want to underline what

39:31

a choice this is. President Nixon

39:33

said those words, not in public,

39:35

not in his speech, but in

39:38

a secret recording made in the

39:40

Oval Office in 1972, right after

39:42

he won a landslide re-election. The

39:45

tape was only released to the

39:47

public in 2008. You'd have to

39:49

be a Nixon scholar or a

39:51

fan boy to really know about

39:54

it. Nixon resisted. When the special

39:56

counsel refused to drop his subpoena,

39:58

he was fired. I

40:01

tell you this, because the special

40:03

counsel was, of course, Archibald Cox.

40:05

The same Archibald Cox, who wore

40:07

bow ties and taught at Harvard

40:10

Law School. The same Archibald Cox,

40:12

who convinced the Supreme Court to

40:14

uphold race-based affirmative action on the

40:17

grounds of diversity. I

40:26

want to ask you about some of the

40:28

things you've said about American universities. I

40:30

know you've been very critical of them. CBS's

40:32

Margaret Brennan had JD Vance on Face the

40:34

Nation in August shortly after he became the

40:37

Republican candidate for vice president. By now, Vance

40:39

had a specific model in mind for the

40:41

change he wants to see. You gave an

40:43

interview in February, you said the closest

40:46

conservatives have ever gotten to successfully

40:48

dealing with the left-wing domination of

40:50

universities is Victor Orbon's approach in

40:52

Hungary. Hungary's strongman president Victor Orban

40:54

grabbed control of state universities, putting

40:57

friends from his political party in

40:59

charge of the foundations that run

41:01

them. Gender studies have been banned.

41:03

Hungary is now ranked lower for

41:06

academic freedom than Sudan, and just

41:08

ahead of Uzbekistan. far below where

41:10

it was when Orban intervened. Is

41:12

that what your advocating be done in

41:14

the United States? Well Margaret, what you're seeing

41:17

in the United States actually is that

41:19

universities are controlled by left-wing foundations. They're

41:21

not controlled by the American taxpayer and

41:23

yet the American taxpayer is sending hundreds

41:25

of billions of dollars to these universities

41:28

every single year. I don't want taxpayers

41:30

controlling education necessarily. Is that what

41:32

you're advocating for, federal government? Margaret,

41:34

what I'm advocating for is for taxpayers to

41:36

have a say. Does

41:40

J.D. Vance admire Hungary because it's

41:43

producing like better graduates

41:45

and like finer research and like

41:47

more medical breakthroughs? I went back

41:49

to Hillary Burns, the Globe's higher

41:51

education reporter. I have not heard

41:54

anything about that. I think we've

41:56

only heard that he admires the

41:58

government policing what's taught. and how

42:00

the universities run. There's no shortage

42:02

of authoritarian governments around the world.

42:05

At this moment, and there have

42:07

been many in the past, what

42:09

do we know about universities in

42:11

authoritarian systems? So I asked a

42:14

professor, I spoke with over the

42:16

summer, a cune professor, Benjamin Head,

42:18

about why is it that universities

42:20

are among the first targets for

42:23

authoritarian leaders? And his answer was

42:25

quite simple, he said, because professors

42:27

tend to tell them they're wrong.

42:29

Who likes that? I think that

42:31

it's safe to say authoritarian governments

42:34

target the people who are establishing

42:36

truths and who are studying and

42:38

researching controversial and difficult topics. That's

42:40

a playbook that we've seen throughout

42:43

history and I think that's really

42:45

concerning for anyone who cares about

42:47

the truth or is in the

42:49

truth business. Uncooperative colleges could lose

42:52

access to federally backed student loan

42:54

programs, to research grants, endowment taxes

42:56

could grow. When I spoke with

42:58

Mount Holyoke College President Daniel Holly

43:00

only a few months ago, all

43:03

that was still theoretical. We absolutely

43:05

are thinking about that. How would

43:07

we self-fund, for example, our entire

43:09

financial aid system? We're in a

43:11

conference room because it's a women's

43:14

college, almost all the oil portraits

43:16

on the walls are of women,

43:18

which makes a nice change. You

43:20

know, if there's no funding for

43:22

Pell grants, if there's complete privatization

43:24

of the loan system that we

43:27

have, how will we be able

43:29

to help parents and students? We're

43:31

lucky we're a small liberal arts

43:33

college. We believe that we actually

43:35

probably have the resources to self-fund

43:37

for four years or however the

43:40

defunding lasts, but many colleges and

43:42

universities don't have that choice. Holly

43:44

had read some of Vance's words

43:46

before, but she hadn't seen the

43:48

speech. So I played some of

43:50

it for her. It's breathtaking. It's

43:53

truly breathtaking. When we ask the

43:55

question of why universities, I think

43:57

you heard a lot of it

43:59

in that answer, which is they

44:01

get to control what the truth

44:03

is. The universities which control... the

44:05

knowledge in our society, which control

44:08

what we call truth and what

44:10

we call falsity, that provides research

44:12

that gives credibility to some of

44:14

the most ridiculous ideas that exist

44:16

in our country. So if the

44:18

truth is malleable, if the truth

44:21

is just something that we play

44:23

out on social media, but there

44:25

is no actual truth, I think

44:27

when you put universities in the

44:29

bullseye, you're essentially putting concepts like

44:31

knowledge. and truth, even values what

44:34

is right and what is wrong.

44:36

All of those things are being

44:38

called into question. It lines up

44:40

with something Holly recently noticed. When

44:42

people find out what she does

44:44

for work, they're sometimes skeptical or

44:47

even hostile. I've had people in

44:49

airports and on airplanes ask me,

44:51

like, so what do you teach?

44:53

And, you know, what are, what

44:55

are you doing in terms of

44:57

indoctrination of students? Because again, it's

45:00

become such a, we've become like

45:02

the tobacco industry, almost for some

45:04

people. They see us as a,

45:06

as a harm to the Republic,

45:08

as a harm to their values

45:10

and to their communities. And I

45:13

think she says it started in

45:15

2020 or 2021. That's when you

45:17

began to hear a lot of

45:19

this. And remember Ron De Santisantisantis,

45:21

of course, of course, of course,

45:23

of course, of course, of course,

45:25

of course, in Florida. when Florida

45:28

did its own strong-arm reboot of

45:30

education. At one public college, the

45:32

gender studies program was axed, and

45:34

more than a third of faculty

45:36

left the school. Today, the White

45:38

House is taking a page from

45:41

that playbook, and going further, singling

45:43

out universities, threatening their access to

45:45

federal funds. You know, please get

45:47

as concrete as you can, like,

45:49

with this institution, like, what are

45:51

you going to do if somebody

45:54

comes to you and says you

45:56

have to change the way that

45:58

you're teaching? the way that you're

46:00

teaching. Like, are there compromises that

46:02

you can make? No. There are

46:04

no compromises to be made. For

46:07

me, my job is to promote

46:09

the mission of my institution and

46:11

to make sure that the students

46:13

here get the best. possible. Do

46:15

you think most college presidents are

46:17

going to take the same position

46:20

as you? Absolutely not. I think

46:22

what we will see is that

46:24

we will see many institutions, we

46:26

see that already, who are scraping

46:28

their websites, they're being very neutral,

46:30

they're trying to stay under the

46:33

radar, and all of this again

46:35

is understandable as a college leader.

46:37

If I were leading a large

46:39

research one institution, I would absolutely

46:41

be positioning, I think my university

46:43

to probably keep as much federal

46:45

funding as possible. In the end

46:48

of the day, who's going to

46:50

defend the universities? from the federal

46:52

government, like from these entities. Normally

46:54

it would be people like me,

46:56

right? Again, Sam Lesson, Silicon Valley

46:58

guy and alumni activist, I followed

47:01

up with him after the election.

47:03

Who would say, let's pursue truth

47:05

at all costs, stay out of

47:07

these schools, etc. And I'm at

47:09

the point where I'm like, look,

47:11

I still believe that intellectually, but

47:14

practically speaking, you don't really have

47:16

a leg to stand on, right?

47:18

It's hard to defend the activities

47:20

that have been happening on campus.

47:22

in a speech J.D. Vance said,

47:24

we need to attack the universities.

47:27

He said, professors are the enemy.

47:29

Do you have any concern about

47:31

that kind of rhetoric? You know,

47:33

here's my thing on rhetoric, is

47:35

I think we live in this

47:37

very split world at this point,

47:40

where everyone's scared of everyone else,

47:42

right? Lesson contrasted, Kamala Harris is

47:44

careful, more scripted media strategy with

47:46

that of her opponents. People make

47:48

fun of Trump for spitballing live

47:50

for hours. It's actually a very

47:53

reasonable strategy. Before landing on what

47:55

he thinks advances words. Yeah, it's

47:57

a little, little intense. Is it

47:59

completely wrong? Like, are there some

48:01

crazy liberal professors who are using

48:03

the brands they're associated with as

48:05

a political platform and are not

48:08

pursuing truth? Yes, that is definitely

48:10

true, right? As a one-off, sure,

48:12

if you plucked it out and

48:14

said this is this one point

48:16

of platform, it's not great. But

48:18

I don't think it's completely unresolved.

48:21

reasonable in a spitballing sense and

48:23

I think people need to give

48:25

some grace right to this different

48:27

communication strategy. In Sam Lesson's world

48:29

JD Vance gets grace but universities

48:31

don't. They are under obligation to

48:34

police their students, their professors and

48:36

administrators to police themselves or risk

48:38

being on the wrong side of

48:40

the government. Current Harvard president Alan

48:42

Garber has told faculty he's worried.

48:44

The Republican talk about significant increases

48:47

in endowment taxes, quote, keeps me

48:49

up at night, the Harvard Crimson

48:51

reported him as saying. Before Trump's

48:53

inauguration, Harvard made some changes that

48:55

might help it with the incoming

48:57

administration. It did away with diversity

49:00

statements for applicants to join the

49:02

faculty of arts and sciences. It

49:04

adopted a policy on institutional voice.

49:06

Basically, that's new guidance that says

49:08

Harvard will only talk about stuff

49:10

pertaining to Harvard and higher education.

49:13

We need to watch carefully for

49:15

the next four years. Who will...

49:17

get in line, who will be

49:19

ready to participate and cooperate with

49:21

the notion that we must readjust

49:23

our academic programs and academic freedom,

49:26

what we teach in our classrooms,

49:28

to conform to what the current

49:30

federal government wants us to do.

49:32

That was late last year, when

49:34

it was all still hypothetical. We

49:36

now know what the Trump administration

49:38

wants from Harvard, per a letter

49:41

dated April 3rd. Harvard must, quote,

49:43

address bias, improve viewpoint diversity, and

49:45

end ideological capture in its academic

49:47

programs. It should commit to, quote,

49:49

full cooperation with the Department of

49:51

Homeland Security. That's the agency that's

49:54

been arresting students involved in pro-Palestinian

49:56

activism. The government is demanding, quote,

49:58

immediate cooperation, while it reviews billions

50:00

in grants and contracts. Harvard's response,

50:02

like his predecessor, Pauline Gay, when

50:04

she was faced with a hostile

50:07

Congress, Alan Garber, had conciliatory words.

50:09

He acknowledged an anti-Semitism problem and

50:11

treated the government's concerns as sincere.

50:13

If this funding is stopped, he

50:15

wrote, it will halt life-saving research.

50:17

A number of college leaders seem

50:20

to be doing the conciliatory thing.

50:22

But not all. Just down the

50:24

road from Harvard is Tufts University.

50:26

That's where Ru Mesa Ostirk. a

50:28

Turkish doctoral student in child development,

50:30

was arrested by DHS last month

50:33

and had her visa revoked. Tufts

50:35

president Sunil Kumar filed a letter

50:37

in federal court saying many students,

50:39

faculty, and staff are now, quote,

50:42

fearful of leaving their homes, even

50:44

to attend and teach classes on

50:46

campus. He demanded that Ostrick be

50:48

released and defended her free speech

50:51

rights and her scholarship. He didn't

50:53

stop there. Kumar made the case

50:55

for what universities do. their graduates

50:57

built companies, go into health care

51:00

and public service, improving American life.

51:02

The university is confident in this,

51:04

he wrote, because of the thousands

51:07

of its own alumni who, like

51:09

Ostirk, came to the United States

51:11

on a student visa, determined to

51:14

get a degree from an American

51:16

university. That's

51:25

it for this week's show. On

51:27

the media is produced by Molly

51:29

Rosen, Rebecca Clark Calendar, and Candice

51:31

Wong. Our technical director is Jennifer

51:34

Munson, with engineering help from

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our senior producer and our

51:40

executive producer is Katir Rogers.

51:42

On the media is a

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51:48

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51:57

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51:59

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