Dem
47
GOP
53
Yes, we speak fluent Bostonian.
Yesterday, the Trump administration fired the latest major salvo in its war against Harvard University, with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announcing that she was revoking Harvard's Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification. If that stands, it would mean that about 7,000 current Harvard students would be forced to transfer to other schools, or to drop out of school, since they would not be able to get a visa to study at Harvard.
Noem also gave Harvard an "out," although it's extremely Big Brother-ish. It's a long list of demands that essentially boils down to Harvard turning over any documents/video/audio it has related to students, non-immigrant or not, who broke the law, violated university policy, or engaged in protest. Additional information related to immigrant students would also have to be submitted. The basic idea is that DHS would review all that material—which, by the way, might not actually be legal for the university to share—to decide which immigrant students need to be ejected from the U.S. permanently, and which non-immigrant students need... additional punishment? It is virtually inconceivable that Harvard would be willing to comply here.
Obviously, Noem and her boss think that this is a great show, and that the base will see that they are owning the libs, and the eggheads, and yadda, yadda, yadda. Maybe so, but the timing is not very smart. First, as we have pointed out many times, there is no election anytime soon. And by the time an election rolls around, this will be forgotten (and probably resolved in court).
That brings us to the second timing issue. If the White House really wanted to put the hurt on Harvard, they would have announced this in August, right before the commencement of the new school year. Announcing it now, during graduation week, literally gives the school maximum time to try to resolve the problem. Presumably, the legal filings asking for an injunction will be filed today, or maybe on Tuesday (since Monday is a federal holiday). And while we are hardly experts in this area of the law, we assume Harvard will win easily, since this decision is so clearly retaliatory, and not based on a deliberative, public-policy-focused process.
Further, even if Harvard does not win easily, and even if it looks like this will drag on into the next school year, has the White House never heard of exchange programs? UCLA, for example, offers classes that are taught in Washington, DC, but also in Greece, Italy, Spain, and the U.K., among others. The credits and the grade still go on your UCLA transcript, because the class is still offered under the auspices of UCLA, and taught by a UCLA professor—it's just in a different place. Harvard probably already has similar programs, and if they don't they can certainly set them up. They could, for example, work with a university in Europe to create a temporary satellite campus. Or, they could work with a university in Montreal, which is only 300 miles away from Harvard. Think the Canadians would be interested in helping frustrate the Trump administration?
Incidentally, the reason we know this is entirely punitive—beyond our common sense—is that Noem said so, telling Fox entertainer Gillian Turner that "this should be a warning to every other university to get your act together." And that actually brings us to one other thing we'll note, in the event it is of interest. UCLA professor of law Jonathan Zasloff wrote an interesting piece for Slate this week in which he argued that the targets of the Trump administration should file racketeering suits.
Zasloff knows, full well, that government employees (especially Trump) are basically immune to criminal prosecutions while in office. But there is also civil racketeering and, as Paula Jones and Bill Clinton taught us, government employees (even Trump) are not immune from civil suits, even while they are still in office. The RICO statute, which was first adopted by the federal government, but now has analogues in most states, applies to "any individual, partnership, corporation, association or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity," like, for example, the members of the Trump administration. And a civil (or criminal) RICO action requires them to have worked together on two or more predicate acts, acts that include extortion, bribery and its solicitation, and obstruction of justice.
Anyone who is interested in the details can read the linked article. And note that Zasloff concedes that any such suit, since it would be somewhat novel, could run into unexpected obstacles. On the other hand, it would represent pushback, would potentially open up discovery that the White House does not want, and would put the members of the Trump administration on notice that they are taking some personal risks in the crusades they are waging. Harvard has plenty of smart lawyers, and surely one of them reads Slate, so we'll see if the school decides to give it a shot. (Z)