War on Universities, Lawyers & Expertise

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EyeballKid said:
Not sure whether this is better served on this thread or in the daily current events thread—but apparently the Trump admin is backing off their demands from Harvard.

Claiming that the letter from last Friday laying out the administration’s demands was sent in error, without proper authorization.

It’s nice that Harvard has finally exposed this bullshit Trumpian posturing for what it is, but Columbia and other universities should’ve stood up to this over the last couple months.

Fucking Keystone Kops administration, I swear.

www.nytimes.com

Trump Officials Blame Mistake for Setting Off Confrontation With Harvard

An official on the administration’s antisemitism task force told the university that a letter of demands had been sent without authorization.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
Click to expand...
But are they restoring funding? Telling the IRS and Dept of Education to stand down? It sorta sounds like they want to restore the deal they had been negotiating and pretend they didn’t demand much more, but are not willing to restore funding or tell the IRS to cool it on pulling their tax exemption.

It seems like the Abrego Garcia case in a way — we fucked up but having done so we will fight to the death to continue the thing we did wrong in the first place.

From the NYT link:

“… After Harvard publicly repudiated the demands, the Trump administration raised the pressure, freezing billions in federal funding to the school and warning that its tax-exempt status was in jeopardy.

A senior White House official said the administration stood by the letter, calling the university’s decision to publicly rebuff the administration overblown and blaming Harvard for not continuing discussions.

“It was malpractice on the side of Harvard’s lawyers not to pick up the phone and call the members of the antisemitism task force who they had been talking to for weeks,” said May Mailman, the White House senior policy strategist. “Instead, Harvard went on a victimhood campaign.”

Still, Ms. Mailman said, there is a potential pathway to resume discussions if the university, among other measures, follows through on what Mr. Trump wants and apologizes to its students for fostering a campus where there was antisemitism.

… And despite claiming that the letter should not have been sent, the Trump administration did not withdraw it….”

——
Unreal to admit your mistake and issue demands for reversing it — sort of. The Trump team is just frustrated they finally hit a wall on the easy victories over firms and universities too weak-kneed to oppose them (and convinced giving Trump vague and unenforceable promises I the oath of least resistance). Now they want a re-do to reset to where things stood before they got greedy so they can get a quick memorandum of understanding and declare victory.

It is a pretty good indication that they worry about anything derailing the perceived inevitability of their blitzkrieg on the educated class to preserve the efficacy of their bullying.
 
nycfan said:
Unreal to admit your mistake and issue demands for reversing it — sort of. The Trump team is just frustrated they finally hit a wall on the easy victories over firms and universities too weak-kneed to oppose them (and convinced giving Trump vague and unenforceable promises I the oath of least resistance). Now they want a re-do to reset to where things stood before they got greedy so they can get a quick memorandum of understanding and declare victory.

It is a pretty good indication that they worry about anything derailing the perceived inevitability of their blitzkrieg on the educated class to preserve the efficacy of their bullying.
Click to expand...
It's especially unreal given that Harvard will be filing suit. Nothing says arbitrary and capricious quite like, "it was a mistake but we're standing by it."
 
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