Topic: WE'RE STUFFED!!!

[Firestarter]

All the universities will need to join together in this resistance. One of the problems is that federal funding tends to be general, while private donations (of which they have a lot) tends to be program targeted.

Looks like it is happening!

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/apr/15/obama-yale-harvard-trump-cuts


Obama and Yale faculty back Harvard as Trump cuts $2bn in federal grants
Harvard faces a funding freeze as elite universities warn of growing threats to free inquiry and civil rights




Obama and Yale faculty back Harvard as Trump cuts $2bn in federal grants
Harvard faces a funding freeze as elite universities warn of growing threats to free inquiry and civil rights

US politics live – latest updates
Edward Helmore
Tue 15 Apr 2025 11.11 EDT
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Barack Obama, Yale and other academic institutions have come out in support of Harvard after the Trump administration elected to cut $2bn of its federal grants after the Ivy League school in Massachusetts rejected what it said was an attempt at “government regulation” of the university.

“Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect,” said a statement from Obama, the US president from 2009 to 2017. “Let’s hope other institutions follow suit.”

The standoff between some of the US’s most prestigious universities and the federal government deepened overnight on Monday after Harvard rejected elevated demands by Donald Trump’s administration, which the president has called an effort to curb antisemitism on campus. Many educators, however, see the demands as a thinly veiled effort to more broadly curb academic freedoms.

“No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, said.

The Trump administration, through the multi-federal agency joint task force to combat anti-semitism, responded by freezing $2.2bn in multi-year grants and $60m in multi-year contract value to Harvard.

On Tuesday, Trump himself published a post on his Truth Social platform saying “perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity”.

The intervention by Obama came after 876 faculty members at Yale University, Harvard’s fellow Ivy League institution, published a letter to their leadership expressing support for standing up to the Trump administration.

“We stand together at a crossroads,” the letter read. “American universities are facing extraordinary attacks that threaten the bedrock principles of a democratic society, including rights of free expression, association, and academic freedom. We write as one faculty, to ask you to stand with us now.”

Columbia University in New York, the site of pro-Palestinian protests in 2024, has agreed to partly comply with a series of demands from the Trump administration about how it will handle such demonstrations, academic departments and antisemitism after it received warnings it would lose federal funding, but also defended academic freedoms.


Princeton in New Jersey has said it has not received a specific list of demands from the government. The university’s president, Christopher Eisgruber, said in an email to the community earlier in April that while the rationale for the administration’s threat to withhold funding was not yet clear, the university “will comply with the law”.

“We are committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and we will cooperate with the government in combating antisemitism,” Eisgruber added. “Princeton will also vigorously defend academic freedom and the due process rights of this university.”

“The Trump administration is using the threat of funding cuts as a tactic to force universities to yield to government control over research, teaching, and speech on private campuses. It is flagrantly unlawful,” said a statement from Rachel Goodman, counsel of the American Association of University Professors.

Columbia agreed to a ban on face masks for the purposes of concealing one’s identity, to bar protests inside academic buildings and to review how regional Middle East studies programs are administered. It also acquiesced to expanding “intellectual diversity”, including by appointing new faculty members to its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies department.

The stated goal of the Trump administration’s antisemitism taskforce is to “root out antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses”. But many believe that is a cover for a range of conservative goals, including eliminating racial quotas in admissions – and resetting what the administration sees as a far-left bias in academia.

“We are going to choke off the money to schools that aid the Marxist assault on our American heritage and on western civilization itself,” Trump said in 2023. “The days of subsidizing communist indoctrination in our colleges will soon be over.”

In March, the taskforce leader, Leo Terrell, a former Fox News commentator, said: “We’re going to bankrupt these universities” if they do not “play ball”.

The administration, in total, has frozen or canceled more than $11bn in funding from at least seven universities as part of its effort to end what it calls “ideological capture”. At least 300 students, recent graduates and postdoctoral students have had their visas and legal immigration statuses revoked as part of the crackdown.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology president, Sally Kornbluth, said on Monday that nine MIT students had seen their visas revoked over the previous week – revocations that she said would have a chilling effect on “top talent” worldwide and would “damage American competitiveness and scientific leadership for years to come”.

But Trump’s education secretary, Linda McMahon, told the Wall Street Journal that it was within the federal government’s power to ask universities to make changes to campus policies.


“If you’re taking federal funds, then we want to make sure that you’re abiding by federal law,” McMahon said, though she rejected that the administration was attempting to curb academic freedom and the right to peacefully protest or disagree.

A White House spokesperson, Kush Desai, told the outlet that the taskforce “is motivated by one thing and one thing only: tackling antisemitism”.

Desai said: “Antisemitic protesters inflicting violence and taking over entire college campus buildings is not only a crude display of bigotry against Jewish Americans, but entirely disruptive to the intellectual inquiry and research that federal funding of colleges is meant to support.”

 This article was amended on 15 April 2025. An earlier version stated that Princeton University had complied with demands from the Trump administration; however, the school says it has not yet received a specific list of demands.

[Firestarter]

Real good video by Lawrence O'Donnel on this.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPFo2nS19D0

[Firestarter]

This is big. See how this goes.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/judge-finds-probable-cause-hold-trump-administration-contempt-deportat-rcna201569

Judge finds cause to hold Trump administration in criminal contempt over deportation flights
The Trump administration used a rarely used wartime law to deport people the administration claimed were members of a Venezuelan gang.




April 16, 2025, 9:30 AM PDT / Updated April 16, 2025, 9:49 AM PDT
By Chloe Atkins and Rebecca Shabad
WASHINGTON — A federal judge said in an order Wednesday that he has found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt over the deportation flights that it sent to El Salvador.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg found "the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.”

 “The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory,” the judge wrote.

Boasberg ordered any planes that were in the air to be turned around during an emergency hearing on Saturday, March 15, shortly after the White House made public that President Donald Trump had signed an executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act — a rarely used wartime power — in order to deport alleged members of a Venezuelan gang.

Lawyers for the plaintiff in the case said their five clients were not members of the Tren de Aragua gang, and were being sent to a prison in El Salvador without any due process.

He added that, “If Defendants opt to purge their contempt, they shall file by April 23, 2025, a declaration explaining the steps they have taken and will take to do so."

The White House did not immediately comment on the ruling.

[Michael]

'This month, Indiana University’s Bloomington faculty council followed in the footsteps of Rutgers University in passing a resolution to establish a pact with all 18 universities under the Big 10 academic alliance to defend academic freedoms.

The resolution comes as a result of “recent and escalating politically motivated actions by governmental bodies [which] pose a significant threat to the foundational principles of American higher education including the autonomy of university governance, the integrity of scientific research, and the protection of free speech”.

The 18 universities part of the Big 10 academic alliance include the University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, University of Oregon, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, University of California Los Angeles, University of Southern California, University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The resolution says the “preservation of one institution’s integrity is the concern of all and an infringement against one member university of the Big Ten shall be considered an infringement against all”.'

[Firestarter]

'This month, Indiana University’s Bloomington faculty council followed in the footsteps of Rutgers University in passing a resolution to establish a pact with all 18 universities under the Big 10 academic alliance to defend academic freedoms.

The resolution comes as a result of “recent and escalating politically motivated actions by governmental bodies [which] pose a significant threat to the foundational principles of American higher education including the autonomy of university governance, the integrity of scientific research, and the protection of free speech”.

The 18 universities part of the Big 10 academic alliance include the University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, University of Oregon, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, University of California Los Angeles, University of Southern California, University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The resolution says the “preservation of one institution’s integrity is the concern of all and an infringement against one member university of the Big Ten shall be considered an infringement against all”.'

Yes this is huge! The power of Unity.

[Firestarter]

Stand strong Harvard.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1egdy24v7po

Trump administration threatens Harvard with foreign student ban
1 hour ago

Kelly Ng



The US government has threatened to ban Harvard University from enrolling foreign students - after the institution said it would not bow to demands from President Donald Trump's administration and was hit with a funding freeze.

The White House has demanded the oldest university in the US make changes to hiring, admissions and teaching practices - to help fight antisemitism on campus.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has asked for records on what she called the "illegal and violent" activities of its foreign student visa-holders.

Harvard earlier said it had taken many steps to address antisemitism, and that demands were an effort to regulate the university's "intellectual conditions".

"The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights," Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a message on Monday to the Harvard community.

The new request from Noem said the institution would lose the "privilege of enrolling foreign students" if it did not comply with the demand for records.

Harvard said it was aware of the new request from Noem, which was made in a letter, the Reuters news agency reported.

International students make up more than 27% of Harvard's enrolment this year. Even before Noem's statement, billions of dollars hung in the balance for the university, after the freeze of some $2.2 bn (£1.7bn) in federal funding.

Trump has also threatened to also remove Harvard's valuable tax exemption, the loss of which could cost Harvard millions of dollars each year. US media reports suggest the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has started drawing up plans to enact this.

Harvard has said there is "no legal basis" to remove its tax exemption, and that "such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission".

Trump launched a renewed attack on the university on Wednesday, saying it could "no longer be considered even a decent place of learning".

The administration's attacks on Harvard are not isolated. The government's antisemitism task force has identified at least 60 universities for review.

During his presidential campaign, Trump pitched a funding crackdown on universities, painting them as hostile to conservatives. He and Vice-President JD Vance have long railed against higher education institutions.

Polling by Gallup last year suggested that confidence in higher education had been falling over time among Americans of all political backgrounds, particularly Republicans - in part due to a belief that universities push a political agenda.

Since taking office, Trump has focused particularly on universities where pro-Palestinian protests have taken place. Some Jewish students have said they felt unsafe and faced harassment on campus.

In March, Columbia University agreed to several of the administration's demands, after $400m in federal funding was pulled over accusations the university failed to fight antisemitism.

These included replacing the official leading its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department and pledging to take on a review to "ensure unbiased admission processes".

Harvard too has made concessions - including by dismissing the leaders of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies, who had come under fire for failing to represent Israeli perspectives.

But it has drawn the line at the White House's recent list of demands.

[Firestarter]

This is a big one. This would be the first big DINK in the US Constitution:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/17/politics/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship/index.html

Supreme Court to hear arguments in May in challenge to Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship
By John Fritze, CNN
 5 minute read
Updated 2:49 PM EDT, Thu April 17, 2025

The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear oral arguments over President Donald Trump’s request to enforce a plan to end birthright citizenship against all but a handful of individuals, though it deferred a request from the administration that would have allowed it to implement its plan immediately.

The high court will hear arguments in the case on May 15.

Though Trump was raising what the administration described as a “modest” request to limit lower court orders against his plans, the court’s decision to hear arguments in the case was nevertheless remarkable and historic. A win for Trump would allow him to enforce a policy that a lower described as “blatantly unconstitutional” throughout most of the nation.

This paper certified that Wong Kim Ark was able to follow through with his plan to leave the United States and return. Three men signed this letter attesting to his identity. Included with the attestation is a signature of the witness, who is the notary Robert M. Edwards, and a photograph of Wong Kim Ark.


The court did not explain its reasoning and there were no noted dissents.

While presidents of both parties have complained about lower court temporary orders for years, Trump has been a particularly vocal critic since beginning his second term as he has been pummeled with a series of adverse rulings that have slowed his agenda.

“The Trump administration is trying to use a procedural issue to get the Supreme Court to put its birthright citizenship policy into effect across 99% of the country without actually having to decide if the policy is constitutional,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

The main issue the government has asked the justices to decide is whether it’s appropriate for district courts to issue nationwide injunctions, an issue the justices have already had multiple opportunities to take up in cases with far less fraught politics, Vladeck said.

“It would be a stunning development if the justices used these cases, specifically, to resolve that issue – since it would have the effect of allowing a policy that just about everyone thinks is unconstitutional to nevertheless go into effect on a near-universal basis.”

Trump made ending birthright citizenship part of his campaign for reelection, even though past presidents and courts for more than a century have read the 14th Amendment to guarantee citizenship to anyone “born or naturalized in the United States.”

He signed an executive order on his first day back in the White House that would have barred the government from issuing or accepting documents recognizing citizenship for people born in the US to foreign parents.

The move drew a series of swift lawsuits and lower courts issued sweeping injunctions requiring Trump to halt implementation of his birthright citizenship order. That is likely why Trump focused his appeal not on birthright citizenship, per se, but rather framed it as a “modest” request to limit the scope of the lower court orders.

While that was technically a modest legal request that, in another context, might have found bipartisan support, it is a potentially explosive one practically.

A landmark Supreme Court precedent from 1898, US v. Wong Kim Ark, affirmed the idea that people born in the United States are citizens, and the modern court hasn’t signaled a desire to revisit that holding.

But some conservatives believe those long-held views are misguided. The 14th Amendment includes a phrase that citizenship applies only to people who are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. And, they have said, foreign national parents who are in the US illegally may not be viewed as meeting that requirement.

As it has in many pending cases, the Department of Justice claimed lower courts were vastly exceeding their authority by handing down “nationwide” injunctions that block the government from taking action against anyone – including people who did not sue to challenge the policy. Presidents of both political parties have complained about those orders in recent years. So, too, have some of the Supreme Court’s justices.

But opponents of Trump’s birthright citizenship policy argued that if there was any case that demanded nationwide action, it was this one. That, they argued, was partly because Trump’s efforts were so flagrantly unconstitutional. It also doesn’t make sense, they said, to have one set of citizenship rules for some people and another set for others.

Emergency orders don’t decide the merits of a case, but they often have significant practical implications in the short term. In 2021, the Supreme Court declined to block a Texas law that banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy – even though the law conflicted with the court’s landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. The court’s decision effectively allowed Texas to enforce that six-week ban. Months later, the court’s conservative majority overturned Roe.

Days after Trump signed the order, a federal judge in Washington was who nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, temporarily blocked the administration from enforcing it. In early February, the judge issued a preliminary injunction that indefinitely blocked its enforcement. Days later, a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. That suit was filed by four states – Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon – and was later consolidated with a suit filed by individual plaintiffs.

“I have been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear,” US District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle said in January before temporarily blocking Trump from enforcing the order.

At one point, Coughenour described Trump’s effort as “blatantly unconstitutional.”

On February 5, a federal judge in Maryland, appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden, handed down a separate preliminary injunction, barring Trump from enforcing the order nationwide in a case filed by two immigrant rights groups and five individuals. A three-judge panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to uphold that decision.

The two judges in the majority were appointed by Democratic presidents and the dissenter was named by President George H.W. Bush.

Days later, a federal judge in Massachusetts, issued a third injunction in a case filed by New Jersey and 17 other states. That judge was named to the bench by President Barack Obama.

Trump appealed all three cases to the Supreme Court on March 13.

This story has been updated with additional details.

[Firestarter]

And some good news today! The Ole Mike Lindell, "My Pillow Guy," who basically shot his own nuts off, and then cries on zoom how devastated he is, is getting his. He had it comin.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/im-ruins-teary-mike-lindell-tells-judge-smartmatic/story?id=120887538

'I'm in ruins,' teary Mike Lindell tells judge in Smartmatic sanctions hearing
The MyPillow CEO and Trump ally says he has no money after legal battles.

BySoo Rin Kim
April 16, 2025, 4:27 PM

Election denier and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell continues to refuse to pay more than $50,000 in sanctions he has been ordered to pay to voting software company Smartmatic over "frivolous" election claims -- alleging he's left with no money after numerous legal battles.

"I'm in ruins," a teary Lindell said through a Zoom screen during a motion hearing in the U.S. District Court in Washington on Wednesday, pleading to Judge Carl Nichols to allow him to wait until after the final judgement comes out to make any payment in the case, which he has already lost.

Last month, Smartmatic filed a motion to hold Lindell in contempt, alleging the MyPillow CEO has been dodging his court-ordered payment of $56,369 to Smartmatic for months.

Lindell, however, insisted that he does not have the means to pay the amount due to various financial difficulties he has suffered over the last few years due to what he again claimed was "lawfare" waged against him for trying to "secure the election."

"I borrowed everything I can. Nobody will lend me any money anymore," Lindell claimed. "I can't turn back time ... but I will tell you, I don't have any money."

Lindell claimed he was recently forced to lay off hundreds of MyPillow employees, lost multiple MyPillow warehouse units over the past two years and even owes millions of dollars to the IRS for what he described as a COVID-era employee retention credit.

He claimed he has "nothing" except for two houses, which he claimed are in the process of being liquidated, and a truck.

He even claimed he can no longer adhere to a previously proposed plan of making monthly installments of $5,000.

After listening through Lindell's plight, Nichols acknowledged that these claims are "non-verifiable representation" at the moment and gave Lindell until Friday to file under seal financial statements and other documents to prove his claims.

"I have nothing to hide," Lindell said as he agreed to do so and added he wants Smartmatic to see the financial situation he's in as well.

Smartmatic's attorney said his client would prefer to see the payment made in a lump sum as soon as possible but acknowledged he would respect the judge's ruling.