Emma Green

It would limit their academic freedom.

I think what's been interesting about the Trump higher ed assault is that they've keyed in on this fact that universities take the money.

They take hundreds of millions of dollars, not just for federal contracts, but also federal student aid.

And this is their business model.

And there's been this kind of assumption that universities

they wouldn't have to really be held to account for it.

Yes.

I think that any university president understands realistically that if they are an R1 institution that's getting significant federal funds for research, that they have to play ball because their business model and their research depends on it.

And I think that kind of speaks to the efficacy and the insight of the Trump higher ed agenda, which is...

you can make them come to the table.

You, as Mae Mailman told me, conservatives have a seat at the table now, and Harvard has to come sit.

I think the goal is culture change.

And what's interesting to me, this is something I wrote about in this piece but I've been reflecting on throughout my reporting, is this shifted relationship to federal power.

Conservatives learning to stop worrying and love federal power, the idea that they're in charge of the government.

They can do stuff, and they want to do stuff, and they want to use the levers that are available to them to make change.

There's a recognition among the people that I interviewed that the administration cannot come in and script to universities, this is what you will teach, and this is the degrees that you will offer, and just script it from top to bottom.

First of all, that would be not legally possible.

And

It also, I think in some ways, violates core instincts that conservatives have around academic freedom because a lot of these people have been on elite campuses and had the experience of being told that, you know, their views weren't acceptable and, you know, been pushed around intellectually.

A lot of them have a reflexive rejection of that.