00:00The oldest and richest university in America is in a legal and moral battle against the
00:07Trump administration after refusing the president's demands to make sweeping changes to its hiring
00:13and admission policies.
00:14The US government says the changes are to address anti-Semitism, but Harvard says it
00:19has already made many steps to address the issue and the request threatens its intellectual
00:24independence and is unconstitutional.
00:26Harvard has rejected the orders and a group of its law professors has filed a lawsuit
00:31leading to the Trump administration freezing billions of dollars in funding, threatening
00:35to remove the university's tax exemption status and ban it from enrolling students from overseas.
00:41Harvard law professor Andrew Crespo says the move from the government is overreach.
00:46Those bullets have so many things that are demands that have nothing to do with anti-Semitism.
00:51He wants to appoint a federal overseer for Harvard University to audit all of our courses, to
00:57audit all of our departments, to see if they meet his definition of ideological balance and
01:03ideological preferences.
01:04In other words, he wants to see what we're teaching and he wants to change what we're
01:07teaching.
01:08He wants to see what we're researching and he wants to make sure we're only asking the
01:11questions that he wants asked and giving the answers that he wants to be given.
01:15That is not about anti-Semitism.
01:17That's about authoritarianism.
01:19Harvard is not alone.
01:20Some 60 universities are being reviewed by the administration.
01:24Columbia University had its funding threatened and agreed to make several changes in line
01:28with the government's request, but Harvard is the first to publicly fight back and students
01:33seem to be supportive.
01:35I think I and everybody feel pretty alarmed right now, but we're like cautiously optimistic
01:40that through our collective activism and those around the country and the world, really,
01:44things will hopefully look up soon.
01:46I mean, it's insulting.
01:48I mean, I can't say that the people who are taking the money away have ever saved a life
01:52in their lives.
01:53It's scary times, but I'm proud of what the administration is doing and I think we should
01:56continue to do it and fight even harder.
01:59Harvard staff and students say they're hopeful other institutions will now follow and file their
02:04own lawsuits to fight back.
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