Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump tried to revoke Harvard University's ability to enroll international students—a move that was soon blocked by a federal judge. So, instead, on May 26, Trump floated the idea of taking US$3 billion of grant money, earmarked for Harvard's scientific and engineering research deemed of national importance, and rerouting it to trade schools.

Nevermind the logistics—the Republican president has waged an all-out war on Ivy League education, and Jews are, once again, caught in the middle. The head of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, has said the White House is "holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus."

But if you ask American Jewish academics, they'll tell you the "fighting antisemitism" argument is a smokescreen to advance a different political agenda. "I don't think the Trump administration's response to it is anything other than a fig leaf for its attempt to crack down on the university writ large," says David Schraub, an associate professor at the Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, on this week's episode of The Jewish Angle. "We see that because when antisemitism, for whatever reason, isn't available to them as a talking point on the given campus, they just switch to something else. The consistent point is the crackdown, and the justification comes and goes."

Listen to this week's episode for more on how Jews are finding themselves used as pawns in a wider political struggle on modern American campuses.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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