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I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: 14 minutes.

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Harvard University openly opposes Trump's demands, risking billions in federal funding. Plus, does Tangle ever ban commenters?

Correction.

In Monday’s “Numbers” section, we included a bullet stating that 238 noncitizens and alleged gang members had been transferred to a megaprison in El Salvador on March 15. Unfortunately, we omitted a key piece of information: Those deportation flights included 238 alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang, but also 23 Salvadorans accused of membership in MS-13, bringing the total to 261.

This is our 133rd correction in Tangle's 297-week history and our first correction since March 10. We track corrections and place them at the top of the newsletter in an effort to maximize transparency with readers.

Trump’s first 100 days, live.

At the end of the month, we’re planning on livestreaming a Q&A with Tangle readers on President Trump’s first 100 days in office. But first, we want to hear from you. When should we go live, what platform should we stream on, and what questions should we answer?

If you have two minutes, please respond to this survey and let us know. It’ll help us make our livestream as relevant and engaging as possible. Thank you!

Quick hits.

1. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said she will require the Trump administration to produce records and sworn answers about the government’s efforts to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador. (The order)
2. Former President Joe Biden delivered his first public address since leaving office at a conference for disability advocates in Chicago. Biden criticized the Trump administration’s actions on Social Security and touted his efforts as president to sustain the program. (The speech)
3. Dan Caldwell, a top adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was reportedly escorted from the Pentagon on Tuesday and placed on administrative leave after being identified during an investigation into leaks at the Department of Defense. (The report)
4. Two U.S. service members stationed near the southern U.S. border were killed and another seriously injured in a vehicle accident in New Mexico. (The deaths)
5. Three students were shot and another was injured in a shooting at a Dallas high school. A 17-year-old suspect turned himself in to the police. (The shooting)

Today's topic.

Harvard’s funding freeze. On Monday, the Trump administration announced that it will freeze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University after the school refused to comply with a list of requirements it said were unlawful. In a joint letter dated April 11, the General Services Administration, Department of Education (ED) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) demanded that Harvard adopt its suggested reforms in order to maintain its funding. Among the required changes, the administration ordered Harvard to discontinue DEI programs, regulate specific academic departments, screen international students, and submit to government audits. Harvard rejected the government’s terms, calling its demands an invasion of “university freedoms.” Hours later, the Trump administration announced its decision to freeze Harvard’s federal funding.

Back up: On February 3, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a “Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism” consisting of representatives from the DOJ, HHS, and ED to “root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses.” In March, the Department of Education sent letters to 60 universities warning of potential penalties from pending investigations into alleged antisemitic discrimination and harassment.

Then on March 31, the task force announced it would be reviewing over $255 million in contracts and $8.7 billion in multiyear commitments to Harvard “to ensure the university is in compliance with federal regulations, including its civil rights responsibilities.” Harvard President Alan Garber responded by posting a public letter stating his belief that the university’s existing reforms were sufficient. The Trump administration then issued its joint letter on April 11, setting off the confrontation that led to the funding freeze.

Harvard’s response marks the first time a university has confronted the Trump administration’s requests to change its policies under threat of losing funding, prompting Columbia, MIT, Princeton, and Stanford to announce action of their own. Harvard signed on two notable conservative attorneys for its legal representation: William Burck, who represented members of the first Trump administration during the Mueller investigation, and Robert Hur, who led the government’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.

On Tuesday, President Trump suggested that the school should lose its tax-exempt status. “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?,’” Trump posted to Truth Social.

Today, we’ll get into what the right and left are saying about Harvard’s standoff with the Trump administration, then Associate Editor Audrey Moorehead, a current undergraduate at Harvard University, will give her take.

What the right is saying.

• The right mostly supports the funding freeze, arguing Harvard is not entitled to taxpayer money.
• Some say Harvard’s response validates the Trump administration’s scrutiny of the school.
• Others say the administration is pursuing a legally dubious path.

The New York Post editorial board said “Harvard may be free to target Jews — but not on the taxpayers’ dime.”

“Harvard University is thumbing its nose at Team Trump and refusing to take steps to stamp out Jew-hatred and discrimination on its campus. Fine. Then, let it say good-bye to federal bucks — possibly as much as $9 billion a year’s worth — and start spending its own money instead,” the board wrote. “Title VI of the Civil Rights Act effectively bans federal funds for schools that discriminate. In fact, Harvard is a hotbed of leftism, with overwhelmingly left-leaning faculty and staff and a DEI culture that regards Jews, Israel, America and the West as oppressors. That does neither students nor the nation much good.”

“Harvard may have a legal right to operate as a leftist bastion hostile to Jews, America and the West. But US taxpayers don’t have to pay for it. The Trumpies should shut Harvard’s federal spigot ASAP. Let the school tap its $50 billion endowment — and see its reserves shrink, along with donations from alums who now see what [their] giving actually supports. The sooner these bigots run out of money, the better off everyone else will be.”

In The Daily Caller, Natalie Sandoval wrote “Harvard goes down with the DEI ship.”

Harvard University President Alan Garber “retreats behind the sturdy bulwark of ‘academic freedom.’ This defense is shoddily-formed. One doubts, for instance, whether Harvard would hire a professor who openly professes the superiority of the white race over all others. Or admit a student who submits an engaging, syntactically unimpeachable essay about repealing the 19th Amendment,” Sandoval said. “As the federal government reminds Garber, ‘an investment is not an entitlement.’ Private universities are free to teach what they’d like — but if they expect their activity to be funded by the American people, they must justify the value proposition.”

“Prestige is a resource painstakingly accumulated and all too easily spent. Harvard, by virtue of its merit-optional admissions and education process, defeats herself. The university has accrued an enormous debt based on the good name of past alumni — a debt which more recent graduates cannot repay,” Sandoval wrote. “Without the faith of the American people, or their dollars, what does the future look like for schools like Harvard? Harvard is sitting on an endowment the size of a small country. It is a market player and should be treated as such. And the university seems to be giving Trump the perfect chance to do so.”

In City Journal, Heather Mac Donald questioned “the White House’s clumsy attack on Harvard.”

“Many critics of the politicized academy will greet the Anti-Semitism Task Force’s April 11 demand letter to Harvard with a cheer, and understandably so, since it attacks longstanding distortions of the academic mission. But just because something is warranted does not mean that it is lawful under current legal standards. It is likely that a court—where this dispute will inevitably land—will agree with Harvard’s analysis of the letter,” Mac Donald said. “The Trump administration would be within its rights to withdraw funding or to sue Harvard for any ongoing hiring and admissions practices that privilege certain races over others, or females over males. Such preferential treatment violates federal protections under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

“But other aspects of the administration’s demand letter arguably encroach on academic freedom—however overrated and hypocritically invoked that concept has become. The administration calls for oversight of faculty hiring to ensure ‘viewpoint diversity,’ though the legal basis for such authority is unclear. Its demand for a ‘critical mass’ of intellectually diverse faculty is either a wry joke or unintentionally ironic,” Mac Donald wrote. “The Trump administration could have proceeded with greater subtlety, rather than effectively hanging out a flashing red ‘sue me’ sign… Instead it has managed to elevate Harvard University into the incongruous role of a noble David standing up to the government’s Goliath.”

What the left is saying.

• The left criticizes the administration’s actions and urges Harvard to fight back.
• Some praise Harvard’s resistance but note it has only cleared one low hurdle.
• Others say Harvard should leverage its endowment to avoid capitulation.

In The Boston Globe, Harvard Law School professors Nikolas Bowie and Benjamin Eidelson called the standoff “Harvard’s moment of truth.”

“The administration is moving toward candor about its real position: not that it is faithfully enforcing any anti-discrimination law enacted by Congress, but that it has absolute authority to block appropriated funds flowing to institutions that it deems — in its sole discretion — unworthy,” Bowie and Eidelson said. “The First Amendment prohibits the government from denying funds or other benefits to punish a recipient’s constitutionally protected speech. Title VI’s regime of funding conditions respects that rule through its insistence on announced standards, procedural safeguards, and tailored remedies. But a regime in which the president alone may use the entire federal budget as a cudgel to suppress whatever speech he dislikes… is flatly incompatible with the First Amendment.”

“Harvard has suffered real legal setbacks in recent years, including a major loss on affirmative action, and some stakeholders may be leery of another public fight. There is also no telling what other laws this administration might disregard in order to retaliate against Harvard for asserting its rights,” Bowie and Eidelson wrote. “But a 400-year-old institution should be making decisions with a time horizon of centuries, not news cycles. Making a principled stand now — with the law squarely on its side — is the single best thing Harvard could do to earn its continued place as a symbol of genuine excellence, free inquiry, and commitment to the public good.”

In The New York Times, M. Gessen wrote about “Harvard’s strength and how far we’ve fallen so quickly.”

“The world’s most famous university has done the right thing, and this is major news. It shouldn’t be. But less than three months into the second Trump administration, we are surprised by simple dignity. Capitulation would have garnered smaller headlines,” Gessen said. “The Trump administration pulls funds first and negotiates second, dispensing with the rest of the process. Its first target was Columbia University. When that school acceded to the administration’s demands, it didn’t get its funding back. Instead, the administration is reportedly considering demanding that Columbia agree to direct government oversight — effectively, a takeover of the university.

“Harvard chose a different response from Columbia’s… No other response should have been possible by the logic of the law — or the logic of academic freedom or the logic of democracy. And yet, the Harvard lawyers’ letter sent waves of excitement through academic circles. This is a measure of how low, and how fast, our expectations have fallen,” Gessen wrote. “Still, one hopes that other universities that find themselves in the administration’s cross-hairs — and there are many of them now — follow Harvard’s example and make self-respect, and respect for the law, unsurprising again.”

In Vox, Kevin Carey said “universities have a weapon in the fight against Trump. Why aren’t they using it?”

“For the past month, President Donald Trump has been stalking the richest universities in the world like a horror movie serial killer picking off a group of frightened teenagers one by one. Why aren’t they using their multibillion-dollar endowments to fight back?,” Carey asked. “When the possibility of drawing from endowments comes up, university administrators will tell you it’s complicated; endowments can’t be immediately repurposed to make up for canceled federal grants. But the real reason is that endowments have become the single biggest signifier of excellence in higher education leadership, and college leaders can’t imagine making them smaller.”

“The Ivies have the financial wherewithal, in both endowments and sterling credit scores that enable borrowing, to fight Trump’s illegal demands — if they so choose. If they don’t, the consequences for American higher education will be severe… The Trump strategy of intimidation is to use violent punishment to make a few high-profile examples and intimidate everyone else into complying in advance,” Carey wrote. Top schools have to choose “whether to use the fortunes they inherited to stand up on behalf of millions of students, faculty, and workers nationwide, and defend the values of intellectual freedom that have produced the greatest higher education system in the world.”

My take.

Reminder: "My take" is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

Dear readers,

A few years ago, Tangle opened up an internship position on our editorial team. One of the most compelling applications came from Audrey Moorehead, who at the time was wrapping up her freshman year at Harvard. Audrey is a bit of an enigma: a pro-life woman from rural Tennessee attending college at an Ivy League school that, to many on the right, has become a caricature of the progressive left. I was intrigued. In our interview, Audrey came across as obviously brilliant and kind. So I asked her to join the team — a decision I did not regret.

After about a year editing Tangle she moved onto other jobs and studies, as college students do. On her way out the door she penned a phenomenal essay about her experience going from Tennessee to Harvard that became a reader favorite; I wished her well, sad to see her go but anxious to see what she’d do next (Supreme Court justice? Senator? Isn’t that what happens to Harvard people?). A few months ago, Audrey and I reconnected, and I was delighted to learn Tangle had had a big impact on her — and as she was barrelling toward graduation she wanted to come back and work for us. So I rehired her as a part-time editor while she’s finishing up school, and she’s been helping with the day-to-day at Tangle ever since.

When we decided to cover the standoff between Harvard and the Trump administration, it occurred to me that we had an actual Harvard student on our editorial team, and it would be a lot more interesting for our readers to hear from her. Selfishly, I wanted to hear her perspective, too. So, today’s “My take” comes from Audrey.

— Isaac

• Harvard losing billions in funding is a huge story, but I don’t think that’s as impactful as the university taking a stand against Trump.
• Recent protests did include antisemitic sentiments and the school has long had its issues with free expression.
• The school has taken internal steps to address its problems, and opposing government overreach is equally laudable.

Trump pulling Harvard’s funding isn’t the most surprising part of the story to me, or to most people on campus. Harvard has been talking about potentially losing funding since as far back as last summer, after the year-long pro-Palestine campus protests came to a head with an encampment that occupied the center of Harvard Yard for nearly three weeks. While our campus protests weren’t as flashy as Columbia’s, they drew the attention and ire of conservatives (and some liberals) for their decidedly antisemitic flavor, including chants like “From the river to the sea” and Instagram posts with flagrantly offensive imagery.

As funding has been frozen or revoked at schools like Columbia, Princeton, Cornell and Northwestern, Harvard students have found ourselves circling back to the same topic — when, not if, a freeze would hit Harvard, and how bad it would be when it inevitably comes.

When I first worked as an intern for Tangle in 2022, I wrote about my experience coming from deep-red Tennessee to sapphire-blue Harvard. My perspective has evolved from that of my 18-year-old self, but so has Harvard’s environment. Harvard was under almost no federal scrutiny at all when I first matriculated; scandals have steadily increased since then, crescendoing today with the potential loss of $2.2 billion in funding and the threat of losing tax exempt status.

Losing $2.2 billion in research funding would, of course, be devastating for both the vital public health and scientific research that Harvard conducts as well as the livelihoods of its employees and graduate students. Even so, I don’t think that’s the most consequential part of the story — rather, it’s President Garber’s (mostly) unprecedented refusal to acquiesce to the Trump administration’s demands.

For the past four years, the political environment at Harvard has been roiling. Harvard’s student body and faculty have produced such a toxic speech landscape that a survey found two-thirds of last year’s graduates felt uncomfortable sharing controversial opinions in class — even though 72.4 percent of this same class self-identified as “somewhat or very liberal” in a survey conducted their freshman year. And the Class of 2024 isn’t out of the ordinary: In this year’s freshman survey, 60% of the class of 2028 reported favorable opinions about Kamala Harris, compared to just 4% having favorable opinions about Donald Trump.

This striking lack of political diversity on campus generates emphatic internal debate about how (if at all) to be more ideologically inclusive, which the university has ostensibly taken steps to do. Since 2021, campus administrators — aided by undergraduate input — have pursued an Intellectual Vitality Initiative with the goal of “improv[ing] the free exchange of ideas on campus.” The effectiveness of this initiative has been debated by students on both the left and the right.

In reality, most of the efforts toward expanding freedom of expression have come from the students, and recently, the tiny conservative minority on campus has been making itself more public. Though organizations like the Harvard Republican Club and Harvard Right to Life existed, none had much of a campus presence. But in my freshman year, the Harvard Salient — a conservative magazine that had been defunct for about a decade — returned with a splash, resuming its controversial practice of dropping physical copies at the door of every undergraduate on campus, three times a semester. In its four years, the Salient has faced vehement student opposition and even administrative blowback; even so, it has spearheaded the well documented revival of conservatism on campus.

Meanwhile, left-wing activism has arguably been at its most prominent since 2016, and that activism has been controversial at best or outright antisemitic at worst. When I first came to campus, most left-wing activism seemed exclusively online (probably because of lingering pandemic restrictions). Today, in addition to rising pro-Palestine activism in the wake of Israel’s response to October 7, the left seems almost energized by the conservative revival — emboldened by the presence of real political opposition on campus that refuses to be silenced.

Amidst all this, Harvard’s administration has, in my view, finally started taking meaningful steps toward ensuring intellectual vitality on campus by championing controversial speech. President Garber himself has emphasized the pursuit of academic freedom by encouraging a review of potentially stifling discrimination policies, despite the unpopularity of the move with the student body at large. College Dean Rakesh Khurana has similarly taken a stand, announcing the college-wide reinstallation of door boxes so that the Salient (and other campus publications) could continue its door-drop efforts in line with university policy.

Indeed, as Garber’s response to the Trump administration outlines, the university has taken special care to address the very real and palpable antisemitic activity that characterized much of the pro-Palestine movement on campus. In fact, Garber has, by all indications, been trying to anticipate and accommodate the Trump administration’s goals since he took over for Claudine Gay. In my view, Harvard University’s top brass — President Garber, Provost John F. Manning, and Dean Khurana — are aware of the university’s free speech problems and making active attempts to improve the situation.

The Trump administration’s letter, by contrast, requests a level of control and oversight of Harvard that is almost draconian. I say that despite understanding that its demands are not out of line with many conservatives’ goals for higher education. Not only that, but as the Harvard Salient’s Alexander Hughes argued, Americans have long accepted that universities shouldn’t operate with total autonomy while accepting federal dollars. If the administration were pressuring Harvard to adopt more progressive policies, I’m sure the university would acquiesce without controversy. Furthermore, the federal government is typically understood to have wide latitude in revoking funding. After all, money from the government doesn’t come without strings, and public schools deal with that fact all the time. With that in mind, the Trump administration making Harvard’s funding contingent upon a set of requirements is generally reasonable.

However, some of the administration’s specific requests are totally unreasonable.Asking for audits into the entire Medical School and Divinity School as well as individual departments, or proposing ultraspecific reforms to discipline standards that include the amorphous “discipline” of all students involved in pro-Palestine campus organizations, are incredible examples of federal overreach.

I think President Garber is right to refuse the Trump administration’s demands. Harvard acquiescing here would have meant ceding a ridiculous amount of control and oversight to an administration that has proven it has a very specific idea of free speech that comes at a high cost, and punching back helps the university maintain the academic independence institutions like Harvard require.

Take the survey: What do you think of Harvard’s decision? Let us know!

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Your questions, answered.

Q: How disruptive does someone have to be to get banned from the comments section? I think it's reasonable to remove and warn people when they go too far (I likely have a few times in my more heated comments).

— Shelby from Des Moines, IA

Tangle: We’ve actually received a considerable amount of reader comments in the last week complaining about conduct in our comments section. Without singling the individual out, most of the comments were about one individual poster crossing the line in one specific article.

First, we have reached out to that individual asking them to be less aggressive with their comments. You can always contact us at staff@readtangle.com with any concerns you have, but we had already contacted them by the time we received most of the complaints.

Second, we do not technically have a code of conduct policy for our comments section — and it is our sincere hope that we will not need to implement one. Tangle’s ethos is centered on being a big tent news organization that fosters dialogue and free speech, and we believe in our community’s ability to police itself in almost all cases. However, if we feel a comment is too personal, or a commenter is consistently too vulgar or counterproductive, we will reach out to them to ask them to be more considerate with their language.

Third, and to answer your question directly, we will ban someone from commenting if we have to address them multiple times and they show no interest in changing. In our five-year history, we have never banned anyone from the comments section — and that is not a challenge.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

On Monday, artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker Nvidia announced plans to produce its AI supercomputers entirely in the United States through its manufacturing partnerships. The company estimates it will produce up to $500 billion of AI infrastructure in the U.S. over the next four years; it has already started manufacturing some chips at the Taiwan Semiconductor plant in Phoenix, Arizona, and has commissioned more than one million square feet of additional manufacturing space. The announcement follows President Trump’s now-paused 32% tariff on products from Taiwan, where Nvidia produces most of its chips. The company declined to comment on whether the move was tied to the impending tariffs, but CEO Jensen Huang said, “Adding American manufacturing helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain and boosts our resiliency.” CNBC has the story.

Numbers.

• $53.2 billion. Harvard University’s endowment in fiscal year 2024.
• $2.4 billion. The amount distributed by Harvard’s endowment in FY 2024, 37% of the university’s annual operating revenue.
• $686 million. The amount of federal funding to Harvard in FY 2024, approximately 11% of its annual operating revenue.
• $488 million. Of that federal funding, the amount that comes from the National Institutes of Health, the most of any agency.
• 70%. The percentage of the Harvard endowment’s annual distribution that is directed by donors to specific programs, departments, or purposes.
• 20%. The approximate percentage of the Harvard endowment’s annual distribution that is unrestricted.
• 14%. The percent decrease in philanthropic contributions to Harvard in FY 2024, a $151 million decline.
• $450 million. The amount of tax-exempt bonds issued by Harvard in March 2025 to “finance and refinance certain capital projects,” according to the school.

The extras.

• One year ago today we covered the start of Trump’s hush-money trial.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was El Salvador President Nayib Bukele saying he can’t return Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
• Nothing to do with politics: A non-fatal helicopter crash blamed on an “unsecured penguin.”
• Yesterday’s survey: 1,262 readers answered our survey asking respondents to rank U.S. priorities in a deal with Iran from one to five with “stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon” ranked as the top priority. “My biggest priorities are stopping Iran from developing nukes and funding its proxies. The other items are much less important to me” one respondent said. Many readers also complained about the usability of the poll, which we hear loud and clear.

Have a nice day.

A high school English teacher in Virginia has helped over 60 students pay for college with her self-styled “Lion Pride Run.” Since 2016, Kate Fletcher has raised more than $100,000 in scholarships through the event, which includes a new twist every year — In 2022, Fletcher ran nonstop for 24 hours around the school’s track. “This run gives a lot of scholarship funds to kids who really need it every year. So that is what inspires me even when I'm definitely hurting,” Fletcher said. Sunny Skyz has the story.

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