Panel: What's at stake in the battle between Harvard, Trump administration?
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Hello and welcome to World Today. I'm Zhao Ying. Harvard University has sued the Trump administration to halt the freezing of federal grants worth billions of dollars. Harvard President Alan Gawber warned that the $2 billion funding freeze would not only impact the university's employees and students, but also hamper critical disease research and harm the wider American public.

The U.S. government has accused Harvard of failing to combat anti-Semitism on campus. It has also threatened to revoke the university's tax-exempt status and its ability to enroll international students after Harvard rejected demands for tight government controls over its academic programs.

But this isn't just about Harvard. The funding freeze is part of a broader campaign targeting elite universities nationwide. A new government task force on anti-Semitism has identified at least 60 universities for review. In a 51-page lawsuit, Harvard accused the administration of violating its First Amendment rights to academic freedom.

Does the lawsuit signal a major escalation in the growing conflict between higher education and the Trump administration, and what could be the possible outcomes?

For more, we are joined by Wang Haolan, Research Assistant at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis, Edward Lehman, Legal Affairs Commentator and Managing Director of Lehman, Li and Xu Law Firm, Joseph Siracusa, Professor of Global Futures at Curtin University in Australia. Gentlemen, welcome.

Great to be here. Good afternoon. Mr. Wang, let me start with you. Can you walk us through what sparked this conflict between Harvard and the Trump administration and what this lawsuit is really about? Sure. Yes. Yes. Glad to be on again. Thank you.

So I think the crux of the conflict between the Harvard University and Trump administration really stemmed from sort of an ongoing warfare between the Trump administration, or broadly speaking, the American right or conservative the Republican Party has with higher education.

And Harvard is not the first institutions, elite institution to be targeted by the new Trump administration. Of course, Columbia was the first one and University of Pennsylvania and all the other Ivy Leagues basically has been targeted as well. But unlike Harvard,

However, many of the other institutions have compromised. So basically this round is sort of a long-term conflict between conservative in America and the higher education, especially the Ivy League or the elite institutions, basically accusing that the school having sort of extreme left-wing bias and

many of the conservative voices are being suppressed in the faculty lounges and in the student halls. So there's sort of long-term reasons for that, and that's an ongoing conflict and sort of probably the main motivation behind the Trump administration's effort to rein in the university. And there's sort of a short-term spark as well. Basically, it was the Israel-Palestine conflict that was renewed after October 7th, 2023, and

And there were massive protests on each college campus. And I think last year, especially during graduation seasons, many of the commencement got canceled. And Harvard obviously was one of the more active scene of protests and a counter protest, as is one of the most premier institutions in the country and in the world.

And there are a host of, I think, Harvard students, Jewish Harvard students that felt that they were just being discriminated or being neglected by the administration over sort of its perceived side to the Palestinian cause. And of course, Harvard dispute that, but that sort of has been becoming a

continuing talking point, a political talking point in the American political circle. And that sort of was seized by the Trump administration. And this time they seek to use their leverage, which is federal funding and other leverage, basically Harvard's ability to host international students as well as the IRS sort of tax treatments

in terms of non-profit, non-taxable status. So all these sort of levers are being used by the Trump administration are trying to coerce or in their words, modify Harvard's behavior. So Dr. Lehman, the Trump administration obviously claims this action is aimed at combating anti-Semitism on campus.

But in Harvard's case, do you see this as a valid concern or more of a pretext for advancing its broader ideological goals, as Mr. Wang just now mentioned? You know, I think that what we see here is, again, this 51-page complaint that's actually proactively been brought by Harvard University. I mean, they...

the Trump administration has made noises, but there hasn't been any, to the best of my knowledge, there have not been any cuts that have been made. So they're proactively doing this. The lawyers, just so you understand the back context for Harvard University, actually, I mean, our conservatives who have represented Mr. Trump in the past, so Harvard University has reached out to,

to lawyers for Mr. Trump and for the Trump administration previously that are acting on their behalf to bring this case. It's to me as a lawyer that signals that they're, they're up for an open for discussion as to how to,

react with regards to this. So Harvard is going proactive as opposed to reactive. We've seen Harvard go reactive before. For example, Chinese American students and Asian American students had filed a lawsuit that said that Chinese Americans and Asian Americans were discriminated against for admitting at the admissions level, whereby they only limited the amount of

Asian Americans that could enter Harvard University at 17.5%, even if some of the other Chinese Americans or Asian Americans could actually meet the criteria. So they had limited it. So then they were reactive there.

They actually lost that case and said that, no, it should be based on merit and not based on race and gender. So now we're talking about here with anti-Semitism, there's been noises made about that. And they're very public in the media that the Trump administration is saying that at Harvard University is saying, no, we're not anti-Semitic and therefore, you know, don't.

You know, don't cut our funding, but it's not almost about that either because when you go to a university, I don't think most people understand this, but you give up the first 10 articles of the Bill of Rights when you attend a university. Generally speaking, you don't have right to counsel. You don't have a whole bunch of other rights there.

search and seizure is kicked to the side. So there's a bunch of things when you get involved in the educational context, it's called loco parentis where the university is taking on a lot of these roles. And so it's very difficult for them, I think, to defend themselves, like we saw in the Chinese American case against Harvard University. So they're actually proactively coming out and saying,

Hey, we're going to clean this up. But I think with the Trump administration, their problem isn't so much about anti-Semitism. It's more about DEI. And so DEI gives a broader context in which there's segregation that's set out where they have separate but equal graduation, separate but equal housing institutions, separate but equal education.

hiring instructions. And so that becomes problematic from a federal government perspective. I'm just speaking only legally here. No opinion, just calling balls and strikes as we see in baseball. Okay. So Professor Syracuse, just now Edward mentioned this DEI program. I mean, how does this

fit into the Trump administration's broader political agenda that maybe this is less about anti-Semitism and more about like, reserting the federal control over institutions that seem as hostile to conservative values.

Yeah, I'm not buying this anti-Semitism story, as a matter of fact. Look, for the other panelists, I'm an 80-year-old scholar who grew up in the United States, Denver, Chicago, studied in Europe. So I've seen this movie before, when the governments go after the universities.

Now, these elite universities have been in Donald Trump's sights since he got elected in 2016. There is a committee in justice, the Justice Department, run by Leo Terrell, which is going after these people. And Terrell, who's a...

A lawyer and a former personnel at Fox News has made it very clear his intention is to bankrupt these universities, that is to rescind their tax exempt status and stop using U.S. money, U.S. taxpayers dollars, to fund wokeism, DEI, and all these other things that they think they're doing. And of course, the bonus here, there are two bonuses.

Trump gets to hurt these universities in major cities that didn't vote for Trump. I mean, all the great universities are, of course, in these democratic cities that are no longer right. So you get the political benefit of feeling good about it. The second thing, of course, is that...

68% of the American people, according to a recent Gallup poll, think higher education is moving in the wrong direction. They think that higher education is poisoning young minds. It's no longer producing the kinds of scientists and engineers and humanities people it's supposed to be doing. And it's producing all these people who are, as one CEO from Griffith Hedge Fund said something about, it encourages among students microaggression and obsession with DEA.

which goes nowhere. So the Trump administration gets to pay its debt to the elite universities, and they're in a revenge mood. They get to play to the American people who think higher education is going in the wrong direction. And it also sends a story to the sanctuary cities, almost all these cities that house these great universities, and we've all been there, seen them, and worked with them,

They're all sanctuary cities. They're all people who aren't real happy about their citizens being swept off the street and sent to some god-awful prison and

I don't know, in Ecuador or wherever they're doing with them. So, you know, this is a political thing. It's not so much worried about anti-Semitism is the thing that's getting people in the door. But they have a much larger agenda and it's all about politics. I've seen this in the 50s and the 60s. So this is not news to me. It's just I'm just very interested to see how hard that Harvard pushes back.

Okay. So Mr. Wang, as you said, this isn't just about Harvard. Many other elite universities have faced similar threats. So what exactly do you think is driving the Trump administration's actions? And is this hostility toward universities something that resonates with the president's base?

Yes, I think basically, as I agree with all the two other panelists said, this is more about politics than anything else. And the reason that Trump administration chose to go after elite institutions is basically to think it's good politics. It plays well to the narratives, especially, I think, as Professor was pointing out, that at least in the Pew polls,

Many of the Americans are thinking the higher education system is going in the wrong direction. And there are probably a lot of reasons behind this sort of reasoning, probably not just all ideological reasons. There are, I think, obvious and false American education systems with regards to the domestically generated education.

STEM students are probably not meeting the targets of being a 21st century economy and all this sort of stuff. But I think mostly because the ideological compensation or compositions of all the universities and sort of the towns in the universities, we can all see that basically going to any other states that the college towns are usually the most liberal or democratic leaning.

which is probably sort of true as the broader global trend that as people get more educated, they become more sort of liberal, political left-leaning, and in America's case, more democratic-leaning. And

Basically, the sort of the legalization of the American left has obviously been a challenge to the Democratic right, but also a benefit to Republicans as the populist message of the Trumpism basically plays well against this narrative of being the populist, the forgotten men and women in America versus the entitled students in those elite states.

Ivy schools. And that goes well to the MAGA base, I think even just threats to bankrupt all these institutions just make a lot of these Trump voters happy. And of course, we probably still want to attend those universities in the end. So it's sort of a conflicting measure. But

in the end, in the short term at least, it gives Trump administration something to do in domestic sense other than legislations and basically plays part into the sort of the Project 2025 plans which the Trump administration is basically pursuing are fundamentally reshaping the American society, which

We see that with the American institutions, educational institutions here, but also with other stuff, law firms and banks and companies are getting those sort of DOJ threats. And this is probably just part of the plan and plays well with the base, at least for now, I think.

Okay. And Professor Syracuse, actually some Jewish students and scholars have said that the administration's actions politicize anti-Semitism and it can actually harm the Jewish academic community. Do they have a point? Well, yeah. I mean, as soon as you start messing around with this issue, look, many, many fine Jewish students and

friends of mine in the United States criticized a very supportive America for Israeli policy in Gaza and places like that. This idea that everybody who complains about Israeli foreign policy is anti-Semitic is a nonsense anyway. But, you know, that's the kind of brush that's painted. And the pro-Hamas supporters in these American campuses, they've always been there. When I was a student in the 60s, there were groups on campus that were supporting North Vietnam during the

of the Vietnam War. I mean, my God, even Jane Fonda was having pictures taken of herself in Hanoi. We've always had that freedom to protest things and to be on either side. But it does confuse the issue because a lot of the kids involved in the

or victims of anti-Semitism. And these are kids who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, maybe. It tends to look like it's a political thing, but it probably is a lot less than that. But to magnify the anti-Semitism thing, to get your foot in the door, then to bankrupt the place or to go after the policies. And that letter that...

the Trump people sent. They say now they didn't really mean to send it. Yeah. But that letter that they sent talks about controlling who they hire, who they fire, their administration policies, what is taught in classrooms. This is more than...

about anti-Semitism. This is sort of controlling the place. And frankly, I just regard it as bullying, you know? You try to push your way through an Ivy League door and say, look, I'm here to tell you what to say and what to do. I mean, that's just not on.

Well, Dr. Lehman, Harvard's lawsuit argues that the funding freeze violates its first amendment rights by attempting to control academic decision making. From a lawyer's perspective, how strong is this legal argument?

You know, it's an ancillary argument. It's not the core argument. Again, I mean, as one of the commentators said, I mean, we've seen this movie and we know how it turns out. So what we saw in the 50s and in the 60s was the exact same thing, where in Alabama, there were George Wallace was standing and refusing Black Americans to be able to enter University of Alabama.

We know how that all turned out under Brown versus Board of Education, where they were suggesting there would be equal rights or separate rights for each person. That's what's being suggested by DEI. That's what the legal argument says if you read the 51 pages that were submitted by Harvard University. Let's not get this mixed up. This is an actual action brought by Harvard University, which they're entitled to bring. It does allege First Amendment rights. However, First Amendment rights are

always abridged and are being abridged at Harvard University by the clubs, by the organizations that refuse to have pro-Zionist

lectures or addressees to be able to address audiences. And I think that there's 12 institutions or 12 clubs that don't allow pro-Zionists. So, I mean, again, we've seen this movie. I know how it's going to turn out. It's just a question of time. Mr. Kennedy and LBJ dealt with it with racists in black race, you know, people who are anti or pro-white, I guess. But what they're suggesting, again, is black studies or cultural studies. What they're suggesting is having a

an argument that people have to be admitted rather than on merit, but rather based upon race or identity or something else. This is very confusing. And so I think that we're trying to make the law equal for all people. And the issue with regards to anti-Semitism is, from what I've seen, there's not been freedom of movement for anti-Semitism.

people who identify, I mean, who are wearing yarmulkes, who are looking like religious Jews that are being able to pass. Now, again, we saw that in the 50s and 60s, and we saw how that wound up. And so I can tell you, as we sit here today,

when this all comes to pass, there will be an agreement. I mean, certainly, like I told you, the lawyers that represent Harvard University represented Mr. Trump. And so the message is, for those of us who practice law, is that they're trying to get a settlement. I think that

Our university's on the wrong end of this, and they have to find a way to back out of it to keep their constituents happy. Mr. Trump has his opinion about whether that's correct or incorrect. We've already seen how that holds out under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and we've seen how it played out with different protests on campus. Again, you're not entitled necessarily to freedom of speech on campus.

on campuses. I mean, like I said, the first 10 Bill of Rights are thrown out when you're talking about it. Let's go back to the original question is whether the funding

is going to be permitted or not permitted. The idea here is that these are grants. That means they're gifts under law. It's a gift. A gift can be given or can be taken away. It depends upon the federal government making that gift or not making that gift. And so to be able to sue to say that I'm entitled to a gift is a little bit over the top. But I mean,

good for them and it's a proactive strategy and we'll see how it all turns out. Okay, so I mean if that is a gift, is it fair for that gift to come with certain ideological conditions like is it reasonable for taxpayers or the government acting on their behalf to expect universities to reflect certain values or what they call national interests or is that a slippery slope?

Well, no, it's fairly clear and it's laid out in the country's functions since 1789 as a country under this constitution. And it's set out. So if you're acting in an unconstitutional way where you're suggesting separate but equal, separate graduation, separate dormitory, separate hiring practices for different races of people and not making them merit based.

That is entirely lawful. And that's what DEI is just segregation with a different name. Now, one can give a gift or not give a gift. If you ask about the federal government per se, it obviously has to be constitutional. If someone is acting outside of the constitution, then they are obligated not to give that gift. I mean, that's what the Trump administration is saying. Everyone can get lost in all kinds of arguments or whatever. I'm just talking about the law.

And what is a gift or a donation from the government to support a specific purpose? And it's not about ideological. It's not about anti-Semitism. It's about saying that the institution itself, like in Alabama in the 1960s, where they prohibited blacks from entering the University of Alabama, they're saying you may not have DEI or ESG because that is inherently anti-Semitism.

racist and segregationist. That is exactly what it is. You know, do they have certain public policy objectives? Certainly. The public policy objectives are to follow the Constitution and to give people the benefit of a free and fair place to be educated. So, Mr. Wang, what's your thought on what Dr. Lehman said? I think I partly agree with Mr. Lehman about that basically there are always strings attached to fundings.

And it's not inconceivable for governments, basically being the funder, as much as in case in many social institutions we've all been to or serve in, that the donors and funders technically have strings attached to it. So if you really don't want any interference for a public university, you could choose the path of some private institutions, I think some Christian school in America, that do not receive federal funding and basically...

entirely free on their own. So there is that sort of sense to it. But I think it's also correct to think about the dangerous past before is basically the Trump administration is trying to coerce Harvard and other institutions into changing its behavior, which they don't think it's proper and constitutional, which is in case that the anti-Semitism activities.

We can all have our own opinion or the legality of DEIs, which I think Mr. Liebman pointed out that this court may well find the DEI measures being racist, but that's sort of not the case at the moment, which is I don't think it's going to be the biggest argument that Harvard is going to have. I think basically the Harvard legal argument probably centered around the APA, the Administrative Procedure Act.

It's basically the administration didn't give the Harvard administration, the Harvard University, any chance to mediate the so-called violations or wrongdoing.

wrongful acts and that sort of may be placed in their procedural arguments and perhaps win on the due process. But if the Trump administration could demand this, but in the future, which will assume that there will be another Democratic or even more other progressive, maybe not Democratic demonstration or president down the line,

They would in turn demand the university to probably do a U-turn and maybe the next conservative president would do that same 180 turns again. So it creates probably more chaos in Harvard, the continuity of higher educations.

But it could be just something that always been sort of changed in the American society. I think a lot of the political norms has been changed or evolved in American society in the recent days. And this could probably be one of them. I guess we probably just see it as sort of a new political reality and

Historians always talk about the historical perspective, all those groundbreaking, because the ground we used to, or at least the university being entirely free or on their own is a very new thing, probably in the last 50 or 70 years. I think all the other planners were talking about the 50 and 60 was another era of government interfering in basically private educations. And this may be a new round and probably will set the tone for the next decade

50-year-ish. So it depends on your perspective, I think, basically. But it's a change and the Trump administration is beginning and we'll probably see the consequences down the line. We've been talking to Wang Haolan, research assistant at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.

Edward Lehman, legal affairs commentator and managing director of Lehman, Lee & Shih Law Firm. Joseph Siracusa, professor of global futures at Curtin University in Australia. Let's take a short break. Coming back, we'll continue our discussion.

Welcome back. You're listening to World Today. I'm Zhang Ying, joined by Wang Haolan, Research Assistant at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis, Edward Lehman, Legal Affairs Commentator and Managing Director of Lehman, Li and Xu Law Firm, Joseph Siracusa, Professor of Global Futures at Curtin University in Australia. Well, Professor Siracusa, what's your thought on how

Harvard's legal arguments? Like how strong are they? Well, I mean, Harvard's going to try to make the argument. What the hell does the First Amendment have to do with funding? And what kind of work they're doing in science and research and saving lives. You know, they

They're going to try to say that there's no connection here. You want to knock the front door down because someone's not behaving properly, and the next thing you know, you want to pull their funding for science and research, and then you want to pull their tax exemption, their tax exempt status. And so they're going to say there's no connection here, and there isn't any connection there.

But you can do a lot of damage. And I want to say that both my colleagues are correct talking about how things might change with the next administration. And Ed mentioned the pendulum. Now, that's all true. And as a historian, I know this is true. But in the short term, which Adolf von Bismarck used to say was about six months, this is creating chaos. Trump's tariff policy is chaotic.

His war against undocumented immigrants is chaotic. The war against Harvard is absolutely unnecessary. The stock market and all these people are starting to pay attention to what's going on in the White House. Normally, they can ignore the soap opera that's been going on there since Bill Clinton's day, because the economy is in pretty good shape. But it creates chaos. And Trump isn't going to be around for another four years after this term. He's done.

And so the next guy is going to have to straighten this out. And so Americans are going to have to kind of clean up this mess. So what I worry about is the short-term damage. Now, Harvard's got $53 billion. 67% of its students are on financial aid. To go to Harvard just this semester, just the tuition bill, is $59,600. I mean, who can afford that anyway? And they got all this money across 14,000 accounts.

And I know people who have contributed to Harvard, and if they can't get a tax deduction, they're not going to contribute a penny, okay? They want a tax deduction. So, you know, the Trump people, who are really mean-spirited about this, the Miller guy and Terrell guy, they're going after them. I mean, they're going to create a lot of short-term damage. Yes, Harvard's made a lot of mistakes.

And there's a lot wrong with the woke policy. DEI has been a disaster for a lot of universities because people are pretending to be things they're not going to be. But at the end of the day, we still have the military, industrial, and academic complex. They do important things. The academics side of the house does important things for space and for education.

science and vaccines and the rest of it. We're never going to break this connection. And these people need a lot of money to do the research because the ordinary student will never be able to come up with that kind of tuition to pay for it. So this is a very complex thing. I'm just worried about the short-term damage.

Okay, so Dr. Lehman, how disruptive is the funding freeze for Harvard's operations? Because it has also argued that the government cannot identify any rational connection between anti-Semitism concerns and the medical, science, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives. How do you view this argument?

I mean, it's reasonable. I mean, Harvard possesses a substantial endowment, $53 billion, and significant and sustained federal funding freeze would undoubtedly be disruptive to its operations. I think everyone can agree to that. That's why they're proactively bringing the lawsuit. So federal grants are crucial for supporting a wide range of research activities that take place at Harvard University and their affiliated hospitals and research institutions that are there in Cambridge, Mass.

Legally, a grant can be considered a gift or a donation by the government to support a specific purpose. A way to circumvent this, if there is a problem with Harvard University, I mean, I'm not their legal counsel, but I mean, it would certainly be to give those grants.

research grants specifically to the researchers themselves as individuals that would be qualified or not. And that would be a workaround. So it's not the end of the world. There could be other ways to work around it where they're still able to do that. It wouldn't be an easy thing. The argument that the Trump administration makes is that about 40, 50 to 60% of those endowments, they take a haircut.

from the federal government. I'm talking about the institution itself, and I understand that, but those are so-called operational costs or legitimate. It's hard to say. Now, as we all know, and it is those of us who attended university and I did at Chicago, and I can just say that the tuition, the time that I went, which is quite a long time ago, and the tuition today is extremely different.

Those institutions like Hillsdale College, for example, that's one that does not accept any federal funding. And that's in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, if I'm not mistaken. They don't take any federal money. Their tuition is about $45,000 to $50,000. And I think, you know, obviously, Harvard's is something, I think it's like twice that. Is that what their other guest was saying? But yeah.

So you have to understand that this will take a huge whack at being able to have those research goals taken. I do think there are workarounds for it. I don't think it's the end of the world. I think it's like anything that lawyers can sit down and, of course, make this much worse. But hopefully they will try to make it much better and they'll come up with some kind of compromise because the work that they're doing is extremely important. The money coming from the federal government is

is extremely important, not all of it, but for medical things and from certain things. And what you've seen with regards to taking a look at the finances of the federal government, some of it is wasteful. It's just pure out, not wasteful. It doesn't matter what side you're sitting on if you take a look at it. And even you could probably remember Senator Powell, who would give the Golden Toilet Seat Award every single year. And this went back to the 1960s.

about government spending that was frivolous and we didn't have necessarily DEI or we didn't have Mr. Trump around to make edicts. We had other people, but certainly there's a workaround. This will be damaging to them. There is waste in federal governments. There is waste with regards to the research grants.

And if you're giving a gift, you should be able to kind of manage how that gift is going to be used and what percentage. So if you're a not-for-profit and you have 100% cost to do that, then it becomes difficult because none of it's going towards the actual research of it or 50% or 60%. It arguably is not useful. So that's for lawyers to decide.

Okay, so Dr. Wang, what's your thought on this? Like, how do you look at the impact of defunding research that has directly contributed to life saving treatments and innovations, especially in fields like public health and medicine? And more broadly, how might this affect the national landscape of scientific research in the US given the role of federal grants in universities?

I think I certainly agree with that. The short-term disruption is going to be significant. Whether Harvard gets funding back,

or not, the short-term planning is going to be chaotic because you can't, like many of the companies are fretting over the tariffs, basically, you can't basically make, it's impossible to make a long-term plan, basically, with this current on-again, off-again tariff. And just like the university can't really make a long-term plan with the on-again, off-again funding. And even Harvard can't get this funding back, the $2.2 billion science research funding. Yeah.

It's no guarantee they'll get that in the next calendar year with the new appropriation process coming up and the Republican-controlled Congress might as well stop all these research funding as they see them as wasteful. And of course, we all know that sort of in a scientific sense, they are very important.

And many of the scientific breakthroughs in terms of public health as well are coming from funding or research happening in university labs. And many of those technology has benefit humanity and also the American economy, national security, all those sort of stuff, which perspective you spend on.

It's probably money well spent in terms of all the $1.5, $1.7 trillion the American budget, annual budget amount is probably the most well spent amount. And there, of course, I agree with Mr. Lehman about the wasteful side. There are, of course, a lot of wasteful

nature of those fundings. We all know from friends and especially my age, a lot of friends who are PhD students, they talk about those funding problems. Sometimes they're being misused. And that's obviously something to sort of do work by the administrations and also the university as well. But

Stopping them will probably cause a lot of these pop scientists who runs lab to seek alternative routes. I doubt they probably get some from enterprises, private enterprises perhaps. But some of them might just chose to leave America entirely. I think we have heard a lot of, especially the scientists,

And also students who are concerned about funding, the future of funding in American higher educations, they might seek more stable sources. And in the long term, that's going to be harmful to the American scientific communities. And when a new age that we seek all those sort of competitions and economic opportunities,

competitive come from innovations and technological advancements and losing that avenger is going to be very hard to sort of for the american economy to sustain its supremacy down the line which is probably a long-term thing but in the short term losing all those people is going to be majorly destructive for american education in terms of uh the people who are attending university and also the people who are going to be instructing courses in universities

Okay, so Professor Syracuse, what are the possible outcomes of this lawsuit? I think both of our other guests have indicated that this will probably be settled before it goes too long. I mean, I think

Harvard will come to terms with the government in certain areas where they can get this out of the table. You know, about 95% of law cases are settled out in the corridor right up until the last minute. I think they'll get some of this settled. They're not going to go hardcore on this. And I understand the two lead lawyers for Harvard are those who already have connections with the Trump administration and have done deals before. So they might be doing this. And keep in mind that that letter that was sent to Harvard

wasn't supposed to be sent. And Harvard, it was sent on a Friday, which is the right day to send it if you want to cause distress. And Harvard, instead of asking the Trump people if they meant to send it and why should they, they ambushed the administration by suing them on Monday morning, which is, they're all playing the game. And at the end of the day,

A ruling might have to go through appellate court or even the Supreme Court. And on these various higher courts, you have people from Ivy League universities. And they don't want to look stupid at the end of the day. They're not going to go all gung-ho for politics. They're going to just try to stay within the reason or within the letter of the law. So

So this is going to be settled on a very narrow basis where it can. My only question is, and I don't know if our guests have any answers to this, is that once the Trump people do something with these universities, does the Trump administration still have a right to push the IRS to cause them their...

tax exempt status. In other words, can they still pursue this? I mean, it doesn't have to be one prime to continue going. They could just continue to remove these things. And of course, the Democrats are in a tough spot. They can't be seen to be coming to the aid of these elite universities because most of the American people see these elite universities as not a waste of time, but they see them as a little bit on the excessive

A little too much on the DEI side. So the Democrats are in this between a rock and a hard place. They want to fight Trump, but they don't want to fill the space of protecting or defending the universities. So the universities are going to have to defend themselves. And I can tell you this.

As a longtime scholar, universities do defend themselves. You know, they've survived locusts and dictators and everything else in the world. And universities have a way of fighting back. And I just was sorry to see the Trump people, particularly Steve Miller,

and Leo Thier will get permission to go after these universities, because there are two things in my lifetime that I wish governments would stay out of in the United States. One of them is interfering with the Olympics, and the other one is with universities. Both of them are very costly. They don't solve anything, and they leave a great deal of ill will or bitterness at the end of the day.

Well, Mr. Wang, the Trump administration has also threatened Harvard's ability to enroll international students. I mean, how do you look at such kind of threat, especially as a Chinese scholar doing research in the U.S.? How would you read that kind of message? I think this is sort of just shows you that first thing it shows that the Trump administration really isn't caring about anti-Semitism, it's coercing Harvard University

to do its bidding on the DEI and all those ideological stuff. And this is sort of nuclear options, basically. And it's not only just about funding phrase. I think Harvard, which is a $53 billion endowment, could survive probably this four year, we'll just call it the four year of the Trump administration.

with the money and probably some social donations from people who want to donate to Harvard. I think as Mr. Lee was talking about, people generally like to flock to the most elite institution. In this case, Harvard, despite whatever ranking says, is obviously recognized probably as the most prestigious university in the country. And if you stop Harvard, one of the most prestigious country, again, the most prestigious university in America,

the ability to host international students. I'm not sure about the exact percentage of the international students in the Harvard undergraduate body and probably a lot more in the graduate level, but it's going to have a significant impact on all those Harvard graduates as well. I think it also impacts the ability of the Harvard graduates

international students who have OPTs and H1Bs down the line. And that's going to be problematic for the school. And it's just not, well, whenever you harm such esteemed institutions, despite whatever flaws Harvard may have or may have in the past or in the current, it's going to have a significant ability, America's ability to attract talents.

And, um, I think basically as the Washington is sort of fixated on competition with China and other countries, it probably doesn't want to lose all those talents to other countries. Uh,

I think we'll probably see a lot of the Chinese students who are making plans today, probably inside China and maybe those high school students in America or in Europe, not coming to the U.S. because they fear the political consequences or political risks basically associating with attending school in the United States.

And it's just not that just Harvard being sort of maybe revoked of the ability to host international students. The international students here already are sort of facing visa problems and visa revocations basically from no just cause. And that sort of creates an array of terror, which in turn will turn people away.

And other people, I think even people who are having a legal status in America, people around myself are fearing for their personal safety in the coming years, especially, I think, under this DOJ, under President Trump. And that's trying to probably be very persistent in the next couple of months.

We'll see the exact consequences. I think people are making plans already. And there are a lot of people who I think already made their plans or sort of focuses on American schools in China. They probably had to come to America because they can't really change their plans. But other people, probably younger, maybe they will probably just go to other places they consider more safe. The UK, the EU, and maybe Australia or Canada. So that might be sort of a paradigm shifting in sort of the international student landscape.

In China and around the world. Yeah. Well, Professor Syracuse, as Mr. Wong just now said, the Trump administration has revoked hundreds of international student visas and detained several others. And the Secretary of State Marco Rubio said they are targeting students involved in activities that run counter to U.S. national interests. But I mean, how do we define that? Who gets to decide what constitutes a threat to U.S. national interests?

Well, you see, this is very interesting. You know, just before I came on your show, I listened to one of my favorite passages of all time, and that was the famous singer-lawyer Paul Robeson arguing with the Congressional Committee, querying his communist background. He kept telling them that he had nothing to do with what they were saying, that they were breaking the law. He wasn't breaking the law.

And so we get this kind of nonsense going on. You know, we're going to control the number of people who come because you get somebody from Gaza or you get somebody from Ukraine or you get somebody from China somewhere who then argues against Secretary Rubio's policy or President Trump's policy. And they say, well, you know, he is going against or she's going against the foreign policy of the United States. That's just kind of stupid. Now, your audience may not know this, but in Australia,

A lot of the politicians are going after international students who, by the way, make up one third of Australia, who are the number three export in this country behind steel and coal. They're going after them because they say that the pressure of the

of the international students has destroyed the housing market for ordinary Australians. That is, they can't buy houses because these international students are looking for housing while they're here. So this thing's going on all over the world. They're trying to find some reason to...

bring to hold these students back. But look, soft power is the only thing the United States has worth sending to the world. And to put any blocks on it, I think is absolutely self-defeating. It's taken a long time for American universities to have the prestige to attract that kind of

those kinds of bright students around the world. And so I'd hate to see anything that stops that. You know, and people, as you may be, or my other guests might agree, are like water. They find their own level. They're going to go to places where they may not be so welcome. They may be surprised when they get there, but I hope they never give up trying.

Well, Dr. Lehman, from a legal perspective, should foreign students have the same protections as American citizens when it comes to free speech and due process? Or is there a different standard given their visa status?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I personally was always under the impression and the way that I interpret the law is that they should have foreign students and those people that are physically on American soil, so that every right to due process the same as a citizen, with not the ability to be able to vote, but with regards to all those that are extended under the Bill of Rights, it should be extended to them.

but when you break it down in the situation that's happening at Columbia University and some of these other places, when you're looking at those in particular, then that's a different question. So if you're a student, and even if you're in China, and just to try to throw out some numbers, so Anthony Blinken, not me, he threw out the numbers of American students who are studying at university. I was in China. I was shocked. It was about

200 Americans are studying in Chinese universities, about 375,000

Chinese are studying in the United States. I agree with the professor that it's actually a huge boon for not only elite universities, but universities and high schools at every single level to have international schools, especially for private institutions, that that is the lifeblood for them. But to go back to your specific question is, I believe that

foreign nationals should have every right to due process that are on the ground, on the soil of the American property as they would elsewhere. For example, why is Guantanamo

holding a lot of prisoners. That's not on American ground. Therefore, you don't have to extend the due process rights to them. Why are they sending people to El Salvador? It's an easy answer because it's not on American soil. And so that's not a difficult one. What Marco Rubio is using

What's called, and they just dusted it off and brought it out, it's the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which is granting broad powers to the executive, and he's under the executive branch as the Secretary of State, over immigration and historical use of such powers.

actually target specific groups. So it goes back to 1798. We had a problem with the French back then. And so there were agitators, so-called agitators, that were on the actual grounds of the United States. And they were saying, well, they were doing some kind of shenanigans or bad actions. And so that was what they had this act of,

to be able to allow those people to be kicked out. Now, do I think that it's going to be aimed towards international students? I think it would be cutting off their nose despite their face. If they did that, I think that educational institutions want and need these international students to be there. And they actually benefit from international students as would any place in the world benefit from the diversity and the educational perspective of different cultures. So

I hate to see that done. I also don't think that that's right. I think that it's right that aliens or those that are there unlawfully or whatever you want to call it, whatever the right terminology is, they should have every right to due process, same as everyone else. And when you don't get that, that's a problem. With regards to what Mr. Rubio is saying is that, hey,

I can't, you know, I can invite someone to my home when they start to behave badly, then I can ask them to leave. And he's saying, I'm the Secretary of State. And under the 1798 law, I can revoke your citizenship as not being a good, I'm sorry, your right to reside in the country for doing something that's not good. And they're saying at Columbia, this fella didn't know, you know, was representing California.

Whatever the Hamas or the Palestinian cause or whatever that might be. And that isn't in fitting with what Mr. Rubio thinks is right or Mr. Trump or whomever. But it isn't. Let's just put away those kind of things about Palestine. Just try to imagine it's kind of any top.

if it's to support whatever that might be, it has to be fair for all students that are attending that university. And you can't disrupt that education. So that's why they're asking students to leave, just so we're not mixing up that form. Well, Mr. Wang, do you think the Trump administration's practice is going to have a long-term impact on the global reputation of U.S. higher education? I think just like many of the Trump administration practices,

actions is going to have long-term serious negative consequences on the American soft powers. And Professor Knight defined soft powers in this sort of ways of ideologies and the brand. The American brand is definitely suffering across the globe, whether it comes to the higher education, which has been sort of the crown jewel of American soft power, basically. And it's significant,

source of revenue as well. Foreign international students has become sort of a lifeline for many universities to get through the Great Recession back in 2008 and becomes reliant ever since.

And that may change with this current disturbance created by the Trump administration. And much like the American economic dominance, which the value of the dollars and the stability of the financial sense is sort of being tested by the Trump administration through its tariff and economic policies. And this part of the American dominance is going to face significant challenges down the line. When people can't expect they can attend the American universities despite paying, you

the full tuitions, I think as Professor was talking about that many of the American students are actually on scholarships and at least student loans, which the international students do not have that privilege. And they were paying maybe $200,000 to $100,000 in terms of total tuition and their cost of attendance, which is basically a significant amount of contributions. And they can't expect them to first finish degrees in America safely.

and maybe a second study or work in America in the future because the immigration problem comes again with maybe the replication of the privilege to host international students and they would naturally turn away and sort of seek other places to study and

We can see that maybe America can rebound it and four years later, but sort of there's sort of a first sense first time we saw that it was the first much administration other countries preparing for our next Trump. And this time you got a Trump 2.0 and much more disruptive or destructive, depending on perspective.

And they will plan accordingly. And maybe people were thinking about maybe there'll be a Trump 2.5. Maybe Vice President Lenz or someone more extreme down the line. So it's hard for people to expect that things will go back to normal, especially the American people had rejected the return to normalcy under President Biden for the past four years.

and return Trump again to the White House. So anytime they probably get a next four years of normalcy, there could be another four years of Trumpism. So I don't think people were going to be looking forward to that. And they will accommodate the new reality.

Okay, thank you. We've been talking to Wang Haolan, Research Assistant at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis, Edward Lehman, Legal Affairs Commentator and Managing Director of Lehman Lee & Xu Law Firm, Joseph Siracusa, Professor of Global Futures at Curtin University in Australia.

Thank you all for being with us. And that's all the time we have for this edition of World Today. To listen to this episode again or to catch up on previous episodes, you can download our podcast by searching World Today. And you can also follow us on X, it's CDTN Radio. I'm Zhao Ying. Thank you so much for listening. See you next time.