As Columbia Folds, Harvard Shows What Institutional Courage Looks Like

The first few months of the Trump administration have seen a quick divergence between those who are quick to bend the knee to unconstitutional, authoritarian, censorial demands from Donald Trump, and those with the spine to actually stand up and say “fuck that.”

While it’s important to call out and shame those who cave, it’s equally crucial to highlight institutions willing to take a principled stand. What’s unfolding now at Harvard isn’t just about one university’s funding or academic policies — it’s a critical test case for whether America’s institutions can withstand direct governmental attempts to control speech and thought. The precedent being set will determine whether universities remain independent centers of learning and research, or become extensions of whatever administration holds power. This week, Harvard University has demonstrated what institutional courage looks like in the face of escalating threats from the Trump administration.

Donald Trump’s assault on free speech and the independence of private entities continues apace. The administration has been on something of an authoritarian tour across the country, spanning multiple verticals, in which the main goal appears to simply be to exert as much power as possible, breaking both norms and institutional safeguards with wild abandon.

Trump and his cadre of minions have been playing language games all along in this endeavor, attempting to redefine free speech as only applicable to speech Trump likes, exposing journalists and their sources to danger, punishing university students for exercising their speech rights, and coercing law firms into “good behavior” by withholding security clearances if the firms have or do take any actions the administration doesn’t like.

It’s hard to overstate just how wildly dangerous this all is, nor how infuriating it is to watch so many of these victims bend the knee rather than fight what is undeniably a battle worth waging. What’s at stake is nothing less than the independence of American institutions. The administration is currently using federal education and research grants like the sword of Damocles, insisting that schools fall in line or risk losing government money that powers all kinds of valuable, important research. But as Columbia University recently learned, there is never a “last ask” from a strongman and the sword never rises beyond an inch from the neck. Giving in only propels the next demand. And then the next. And the next.

The Trump administration recently made all kinds of demands of Harvard, a bizarre mix of demands to end diversity in some places, but mandate it in others, while making other demands that would essentially amount to the school caving to Trump. The demands represent an unprecedented level of government interference in a private institution. No more DEI initiatives for admissions or hiring. A requirement that data over such things be shared out freely with the federal government. Punishment for any students or groups deemed by the government to be “antisemitic.” And a overhaul of international admissions such that candidates are to be screened out if they have any “anti-American” viewpoints.

Parched waterways, dead fish and trees ready to give up: historic big dry grips South Australia

Usually hardy trees and shrubs are dying, waterways have turned to dust and ecologists fear local freshwater fish extinctions could be coming as historic dry conditions grip parts of South Australia.

Large swathes of the state – including the Adelaide Plains, the Fleurieu, Yorke and Eyre peninsulas and upper south-east – have seen the lowest rainfall on record in the 14 months since February 2024, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

“The one thing we need more than anything else is rain,” the state premier, Peter Malinauskas, said last week.

Off the back of the state’s driest summer since 2018-19, this year weather stations across Adelaide, Mount Barker and Mount Lofty have recorded just 20% of their usual rain.

Adelaide typically gets 64mm from January to March, but this year only 14mm fell. Mount Barker, 33km to the city’s south-east, saw only 15mm compared to its average 83mm.

Angus Hines, a senior meteorologist at the BoM, says even though several weather patterns over recent months dragged moisture over the continent from the north-east, “by the time that airflow reaches South Australia, it’s more or less bone dry”.

Adelaide’s desalination plant has at times been running at capacity, pumping out 300 million litres of drinking water a day to keep the city’s residents off water restrictions.