I’m not the most likely defender of Cornell University. For the last 20 years, first as a student activist, and then during a decade as mayor of Ithaca, New York, I have been one of Cornell’s biggest critics.

As a former local official, I firmly believe that universities should pay property taxes. When I was mayor, I often took Cornell’s leadership to the woodshed about the university’s responsibility to support the infrastructure and city services the institution and its students rely on — something the university does partly through negotiated agreements.

What President Trump is doing with his attack on Cornell and other universities is not about tax policy or budgets. It’s not about antisemitism. It is just fascist bullying.

The Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to punish and take virtually complete control of institutions like Columbia and Harvard are dictatorial in a way that should be utterly shocking in this country. The people who used to warn us about “big government” are now trying to dictate hiring, police classroom teaching and force the expulsion of students for expressing ideas that counter official ideology.

The sad fact that such moves are no longer surprising is a brutal commentary on how aggressively authoritarian the first three months of the Project 2025 presidency have been.

Some good news is that more than 200 colleges and universities, including

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