The Free Press
It’s Wednesday, April 16. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Coming up: Rupa Subramanya with the latest from the Canadian election. Olivia Reingold on Zohran Mamdani’s code switching. David Zweig on the long shadow of Covid. And much more.
But first: Trump’s epic showdown with Harvard.
With Columbia left bloodied and crying “uncle,” Donald Trump has set his sights on another Ivy League School: Harvard.
On Friday, the Trump administration wrote to Harvard to say the school had “failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment.” The administration issued a series of demands, including the “discontinuation of DEI,” that the school report to federal authorities foreign students who commit conduct violations, and bring in outside parties to “audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity.” The threat was clear enough: Comply or lose your funding.
Harvard said no.
“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Harvard president Alan M. Garber wrote, and then promptly lawyered up.
The administration retaliated by pulling $2.2 billion in federal funding.
Donald Trump threatened to up the ante on Tuesday: “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?’ ” he wrote on Truth Social. “Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!”
In the clash between the American president and America’s most famous—and wealthiest—university, neither side shows any sign of backing down. And even those who have been critical of Harvard’s political monoculture and rising antisemitism, including President Emeritus Larry Summers, called the attack “unlawful.”
So: Who is right? Who is wrong? Should Harvard, which has a $53 billion endowment, also enjoy the benefits of government largesse? Or is Trump’s move a dangerous breach of academic freedom?
Today, we bring you two perspectives on this fight—and the broader battle over higher education.
The first is from Free Press columnist Charles Lane. He says that Harvard made the right call. “There was no way, consistent with academic freedom, for Harvard to accept the administration’s demands,” writes Chuck. And yet, Harvard had it coming.
Or, as Chuck puts it: “Any sympathy for Harvard has to be tempered by the knowledge that the school—and others like it—brought much of their current predicament on themselves.” The question now: Is Harvard ready for a long, hard fight against Trump?
Read Charles Lane: “Harvard Had It Coming. That Doesn’t Mean Trump Is Right.”
Christopher Rufo: Civil Rights Are Now a Winning Issue for the Right
Our second piece today is from someone who has himself been a key protagonist in the fight over ideology and education in recent years: Christopher Rufo. Amid the sturm und drang over Harvard funding, Chris explains that contrary to the claims of Harvard’s defenders, civil-rights law has always been weaponized. The only thing that’s changed is that the right is now doing it.
“Whatever happens in the coming months, the terms of this debate have now changed,” writes Chris. “The president has ensured that the civil-rights regime will no longer be a one-way lever to discriminate against ‘oppressor’ groups and to embed left-wing ideologies in elite institutions.”
Read Christopher Rufo: “The Right Is Winning the Battle over Higher Education.”
O Canada!
Canada used to be our polite and quiet upstairs neighbor. But ever since President Trump floated the joke—or is it?—of Canada becoming the 51st state, we rightly understand it as a menace to our way of life, a threat we must contain or subdue, a subarctic communist prison, a frozen Cuba that longs for liberation.
Don’t believe us? Well, just consider the state of the race for the prime ministership, which was supposed to be an easy victory for Pierre Poilievre, the leader of Canada’s Conservative Party. Canadians had tired of the ruling Liberals after a decade of Justin Trudeau’s well-coiffed tyranny, and turned their cold and lonely eyes to Poilievre, the Mitt Romney of suburban Ottawa.
Two months ago, Poilievre looked unstoppable. His party held a commanding 20-point lead over the Liberals in nearly every poll and seemed to be cruising toward a sweeping majority, while the Liberal Party was destined for a historic collapse.
Then came a twist no one saw coming: Donald Trump was suddenly on the ballot. Between the tariffs and the trolling, the American president has triggered a wave of national pride, anxiety, and a desire for a leader who will tell the president to back off.
In two weeks, Canadians head to the polls and the Liberals are all but guaranteed a victory.
It’s an astonishing turnaround. Today, in the first in a new series of dispatches from the 51st state, Rupa Subramanya on how Poilievre lost his lead; the trucker-convoy organizers who face up to 10 years in prison; antisemitism run amok at McGill University; and more.
There is no better guide than Rupa, whose stories—from the crackdowns on free speech to the alarming normalization of euthanasia to the rise of race-based sentencing in the justice system—share the same DNA: They speak to the steady growth of the state’s role in daily life, and the slow erosion of our individual liberties in the West.
Today she offers an epic rundown of stories from our neighbor to the north.
Read it here: “Welcome to This Week in Canada, from The Free Press.”
The Kids Still Paying the Price for Covid Policies
During the pandemic, most of the media turned its back on its core obligation to question authorities and instead became their mouthpiece. David Zweig was one of a small band of journalists who kept demanding proof about our Covid policies, and whose reporting challenged the rationale for lockdowns. We were proud to publish some of David Zweig’s breakthrough findings during the pandemic, and we are delighted to present this adapted excerpt from his new book, An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions. As prominent voices continue to defend terrible decisions made by our officials during the pandemic, Zweig’s book is the corrective we need.
Read David Zweig: “How Covid Lies Destroyed Kids’ Lives.”
The Many Accents of Zohran Mamdani
Yesterday we ran Olivia Reingold’s profile of Zohran Mamdani, the self-described socialist candidate for mayor of New York who Democratic strategists say stands a chance of winning. Today, we return to the Mamdani beat for a look at the progressive politician’s uncanny talent for accents. Behold, Zohran Mamdani’s code switching:
The U.S. declined to endorse a G7 statement condemning Russia’s deadliest attack on Ukraine this year. At least 35 Ukrainians were killed during the attack, which came as many were attending Palm Sunday church services. The Trump administration refused to sign on to the condemnation put forward by allies, because it was “working to preserve the space to negotiate peace.”
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy sent to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran, walked back previous statements on the administration’s red lines for a deal, clarifying that Iran must entirely halt its nuclear enrichment program. Just a day earlier, Witkoff said Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium at a minimal level. Read Eli Lake’s analysis: “Trump’s Iran Nuclear Deal Looks a Lot Like Obama’s.”
China instructed its airlines not to take deliveries of any new Boeing aircraft in the latest escalation in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Meanwhile, Chinese officials warned that American “peasants” would bear the brunt of Trump’s tariffs, saying “Let those peasants in the United States wail in front of the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.” Read Patrick McGee in The Free Press: “China and America Agree: Apple Is Too Big to Fail.”
After the Supreme Court ruled that the White House must make an effort to free the wrongly deported Maryland man, who the administration says is a member of MS-13, from his Salvadoran prison, a federal judge ruled that “there will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding” as she scheduled depositions of senior Trump officials. Her comments came a day after Trump’s Oval Office appearance with the president of El Salvador, during which he said that there was nothing he could do to return the man.
Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian novelist and Nobel laureate, died on Sunday at age 89. A freethinker and classical liberal, he had little luck in Peruvian politics, losing his 1990 presidential bid to the populist Alberto Fujimori (later convicted of corruption). He instead cemented his legacy in letters. Read Tunku Varadarajan’s tribute to a man who “stood for freedom against the populist tide” in The Wall Street Journal.
The majority of Coachella attendees used a deferred payment plan to purchase tickets to the music festival, where the cheapest option for a three-day pass costs $650. The use of payment plan services, provided by firms such as Afterpay and Klarna, has skyrocketed at Coachella. Back in 2009, only 18 percent of attendees used them. Now, it’s 60 percent.
Anyway you can add a feature so that we can speed up the sound when we are listening to the articles
Is it a bit misleading to call him a "Maryland man" when he is fact an El-Salvadorian man? Or is that also wrong information? Genuinely confused