The Trump administration’s sudden cuts to federal research grants to Harvard, Columbia and other universities have rightly raised alarm. But restoring the pre-Trump status quo, as Harvard and many academics demand, will not safeguard intellectual freedom.

Why not? Because the administration’s actions are only a vile escalation of the infringement on intellectual freedom inherent in any system of federal funding. Both are destructive, and both must go.

Start with the Trump administration. Under the pretext of combatting the real problem of antisemitism on campus — this from a president who dines with antisemites — the administration is demanding intellectual control over Harvard’s faculty and student body.

Harvard must submit to an audit of “its student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity.” Specific departments including the Divinity and Medical schools will get special scrutiny to see if they “reflect ideological capture.” Diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI programs must also end. Harvard must not admit any international student whom the government considers “hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.” (Presumably foreign supporters of Jan. 6— that day of love — are exempt.)

Harvard is right to balk at all this. It is right to

© The Hill