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In this episode, we delve into the controversial lawsuit between Harvard University and the Trump administration over billions of dollars in taxpayer funding. With Harvard’s substantial endowment rivaling the GDPs of small countries, we discuss the implications of such funding and explore whether these funds could better serve other needs. Our team breaks down the legal arguments, analyzing how academic freedom and financial ethics come into play in this high-stakes case. Moreover, our conversation extends to the critical legal procedures the Trump administration might need to address as this battle unfolds in Massachusetts, a jurisdiction with substantial implications for
SPEAKER 08 :
Harvard sues demanding they get their taxpayer dollars.
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Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 08 :
And now your host, Logan Sekula. Welcome to Sekula. We will be taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. We also have Harry Hutchinson and CeCe Heil joining us a little bit later in the broadcast. And it’s going to be packed because we’ve got a lot to go over, including right now, Harvard University. You may remember, Will, to the tune of what? $2.2 billion. Billion dollars! $2.2 billion they had their funding struck. And of course now, they’ve decided, we demand our funding. And we are going to be suing the Trump administration, and the Trump administration is fighting back, but also saying, hey, we may hold out another billion. Which again, let’s just get back to that reality. That there are up to nine… billion dollars of taxpayer funding going to Harvard University Harvard of course is saying hey I uh we deserve it it doesn’t matter if we’re violating what you’re saying this is essentially contractual you have to give us this funding we’re going to break all that down legally later on in the show but let’s just start with the obvious facts which is we are funding these elite universities that are training people in ways that a lot of the American people do not like to the tune of billions, to the tune of nearly 10 billion for just this one institute, which means a lot of the others that you’re familiar with are also getting similar treatment. Again, billions of dollars. And we know also that their endowment is, Will, what was it, 50? 53 billion dollars.
SPEAKER 11 :
And as you said, that is more than some countries’ GDP. That’s right. Yeah, when you talk about how large the endowment, this is the wealthiest country. university in the world but it has a an endowment that is larger than the gdp of dozens of countries estonia iceland botswana georgia jamaica armenia mongolia north macedonia moldova i mean you go on and on you realize that there are countries that their annual product of the entire nation is
SPEAKER 08 :
is smaller than the endowment of Harvard yes but yet Harvard is saying you can’t take away the funding you give us that’s unconstitutional and look with the Trump administration there’s always a lot of issues that come out with this because they want to act fast they want to get stuff done they want the American people to be happy with the things that they’re doing But sometimes we know that the government doesn’t necessarily work that way. We’re going to break that down because look, it’s not a guaranteed win here. I would say for the Trump administration, you may look at this and say, this is ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean they are going to be on the right side of the law that the government, especially the state governments aren’t going to side with their own interests here. So phone lines are open for you. I want to hear from you. How do you feel when you hear that there is 10 billion ish funding just going to one university? One university that we know has billions and billions and 50 plus billion dollar endowment don’t necessarily need that extra few billion. And again, like I said last time we discussed this, I think you have to break down what a billion is because a billion is it’s easy to go million billion. But you have to think about the reality of a billion, a billion dollars now times nine. is an unfathomable amount of money. Like you said, more money when you take the $50 billion than some nations have in general that they ever make that exists. I want to hear from you. How do you feel that your taxpayer dollars are going to that? We also have an update on our fight for life currently in the state of Washington, which we know we actually have a lot of supporters in the state of Washington. A lot of you call in. I’d love to hear from you too. Not just Washington, but if you want to call in. 1-800-684- I want to get your voice heard on the air today. Again, we’re going to keep this conversation going about Harvard. We’re also going to talk about some of the work of the ACLJ and specifically on our fight for life as this is the countdown to the end. of our life and liberty drive and you may be saying logan thank goodness you’ve been talking about this life and liberty drive for the last eight weeks well you know what you got a couple more weeks been six weeks two more weeks or so left in the life and liberty drive i need you to be a part of it right now all your donations are doubled that’s why we’re able to do this and there’s only eight days left to give to have your gift doubled right now give now aclj.org scan the qr code you see on your screen we’ll break down what those resources are going to coming up Welcome back to Secular. Phone lines are lighting up for you right now. 1-800-684-3110. Still two lines open if you want to get your voice heard on the air. If you’re watching on YouTube right now, look, we encourage more people to see this and to find out what we’re talking about. And that helps if you comment, and it really helps if you share, and of course, if you hit that thumbs up. So right now, that’s what I’m going to ask you to do. If you’re watching on YouTube… Hit the thumbs up. I see it right now. A hundred or so of you have done it so far, but nearly a thousand of you are watching live right this second. You do that. It gets into more people’s algorithms, get more people into the feed. So hopefully we can have more people joining us. Will, let’s restate some of what’s going on for those people who are just joining us right now. Harvard is going to court. That’s right. Harvard University is going to court against the Trump administration. Your own U.S. government right now say you have no right to take away our funding. to the tune of billions of dollars. We know at least $2 billion, and now the administration has said, hey, we may hold out for a third billion. And then we find out it’s upwards of $9 billion that’s currently going to Harvard. And I think that’s as egregious as this lawsuit is to find out. And I think this is why you had Doge and Elon Musk and those kind of people involved, because when we find out where government spending is going to this extreme. Now, I assume we all knew that there was probably some federal funding going to most universities. Most public and private universities receive some sort of public funding. I got no problem with that. It doesn’t necessarily bother me. But when you start hearing that B word, that billions and billions is where you go, okay, I think we probably can be using this a little bit better. Have you walked around your city? Have you seen the homeless crisis that’s happening all over the world and are all over the country? Maybe that could help out. Some of those billions could help that out. I think they probably could.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right, and I think there’s so many layers to this story because, once again, you talk about when you start to realize how much of our taxpayer dollars are going to so many places. And it’s not just like this is government aid to help this problem here or to help this nation here that many fight over, whether those things are beneficial or help the national interest. But when you’re talking about the most wealthy people University in the world, the largest endowment, the storied history of Harvard, the elite University of America. I mean, it is it is a brand in and of itself. And you’re thinking about this and you’re like, they’re getting that much in grants. that they are a private university and now they’re crying foul saying you can’t take away government money because that violates our first amendment rights that violates academic freedom this is illegal for you to do this and so they sue to make sure that the taxpayer dollars keep going to their university through these grants but you break this down About one, there is the issue of the protecting of Jewish students on campus, having it be a place where people can learn and be safe and not have anti-Semitism rampant and taking over Harvard Yard like we saw just last year. But you start to think about this and you’re like, man, I work. Very hard in my life. I work 40 hours a week. A lot of you work more than 40 hours a week. And you are diligent. You provide for your family. You pay your taxes. You’re a good, patriotic American. And where does this money go? Going to the most elite… Most wealthy university is receiving billions and billions of your dollars that you work hard for, where the average salary of a professor there is over $150,000. That this is where your taxpayer money is going. And they’re saying, you can’t take that from us. You can’t take this government funding away, and we’re going to sue you to make sure you don’t. And now we’re going to get into it, and we’re going to get into it with Professor Hutchison about where this can go, the many paths it could take. But Harvard’s actually being very clever here. They’re trying to get a coalition of other universities to kind of stand with them on this academic freedom platform. They’ve hired Robert Herr as one of the attorneys to defend them in this lawsuit. You’re like, where do I know that name? That name sounds familiar. That was the special counsel that kind of unraveled the facade that many people saw in President Biden, right? when his report came out and said, I can’t try him because he’s not fit to stand trial, essentially. So that name is very familiar within conservative circles because he was at the top of the news. Now he’s in private practice. He’s no longer the special counsel. And that’s who Harvard hires to defend them in this lawsuit. So they’re doing this very smart. Because they at the end of the day want to keep this taxpayer funding. But it shows so many different layers of how entrenched these private universities are to the government checkbook.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and they also have government regulations. There have been a lot of Christian schools and those that have gotten some of this funding and then being nervous about whether their funding will be kept or not based on an administration. So we’ve got to be careful there as well. A lot of great places. Let’s go ahead and take a phone call. Let’s go to Daniel who’s calling in Connecticut on line one. He’s watching on ACLJ.org. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 13 :
Hi, thank you. Would you provide a bit of a history lesson? I mean, obviously here we are today, but what was the genesis of all this? Where did the funding first begin? And can you give us a little background?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, I mean, how deep do you want to go?
SPEAKER 08 :
I think this is part of the things with the Department of Education they’re even talking about right now. When you start hearing about the pullback of that, sure, we can find the history of government funding for universities. I’m sure it’s been around for quite some time. But when you start talking about these giant dollar figures, it’s a little bit different.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and the American government pays for research. They fund a lot of research that they think would benefit the American public and the world. And so when you look at actually the… That’s an interesting, you know, that argument can be made. When you look at the defendants on the lawsuit, it’s not just United States of America or President Donald Trump. Actually, I don’t see President Donald Trump listed as one of the defendants. It’s actually Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the Department of Health and Human Services secretary, the DOJ and Pam Bondi, Department of Education and Linda McMahon, the United States General Services Administration and that administrator. the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, United States Department of Defense. Pete Hegseth is mentioned there as a defendant. Oh, shocker. Pile on right now, yeah. And NASA is actually. And so a lot of this funding, that’s why when you look at uh the 2.2 billion dollars it’s not like this was a singular grant these are canceling multiple agencies grants for research so whether it be space research or aeronautical research through nasa or or science and medicine research through the hhs that’s where when you’re a big research university you can apply for grants and get this funding from the government now Everyone should know, and I think the courts have even given this, that funding can have strings attached. And if you’re not doing things up to the government standards, then they can pull that funding. And there are ways that this can be done, and that’s also part of this lawsuit. But there’s a reason why colleges like Hillsdale… Their entire history.
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They’re refusing it.
SPEAKER 11 :
They refuse to take any federal funding. Why?
SPEAKER 08 :
So that there’s no strings attached. No strings attached. Look, it’s part of even what we do here on a very basic level with the ACLJ. I always say that we are funded by you, the individual who gives that $30, $50, $70, $100. We are not funded by these major corporations or even these major donors. Sure, we have some major donors, but we always usually tell them, up front, unless it’s for a specific project. Hey, we want to buy a new building or a headquarters or redo this, something like that, that we approach. If they come to us and say, hey, we want you to do this and here’s a dollar figure, it’s probably not going to happen because you don’t want those strings attached. You don’t want other people being able to dictate how you run your business, your school, your job, whatever it is. And it can get very muddy very quick. I have a call I want to take real quick before we head to break. In the next segment, also, we’re going to be talking about our fight for life and some of the updates that are happening in the ACLJ. And as Will said, later on, Harry Hutchins is going to be joining us to go through the legalities of all this. And look, the truth is it could be an uphill battle for the Trump administration. We’ll see about that. Let’s go first, though, to David in Arizona, who’s on line four. David, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 15 :
Hi, I wanted to share my comment. I do agree with you about, I think that while I had mixed feelings about President Trump’s administration, I think I do agree with this point about the issues about funding big, giant universities. And I guess I wanted to ask you as well, a little comment, a question on it. Why do you think maybe the president doesn’t do more of this and share more about how he is helping the American people. Sometimes it just seems like he doesn’t share this information of why It’s really beneficial and helpful for people. Thank you.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, David, thank you. I appreciate you calling in. I have a friend who is on probably the most opposite side of the political spectrum from me. And we both could at least agree on one thing, and that was that billions and billions and billions of dollars do not need to be going from your taxpayer funding to this, to Harvard. That there are so many things that are needed in this country right now. There’s so many people truly in need and they have 50 plus billion dollars in endowment. And whether you are a consumer conservative who just feels like, you know, we need to always be pushing that or you are a communist socialist, we could probably all agree on that. Now, why does it not get more attention? I’m not sure, David. I think this is honestly a glaring issue that’s happened with the Trump administration over the first term and it’s happening again, which is the attention gets put on the wrong place because everyone can look at this and say, this should not be how we’re doing things right now. When we know how much debt we’re in, we know everything that we’re in, this needs to be taken care of. Unfortunately, it doesn’t necessarily make the headlines. And when it doesn’t make the headlines, it feels like the Trump administration decides to divert and put their time in somewhere else. I wish they would spend more time on this, just like I had wished they had spent more time on the Middle East eight years ago. And talking about the successes they had, that they can get caught up with themselves. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We need your support, though. Like I said, we are funded by individuals like you. Scan that QR code. There’s only eight days left to give to have your gift doubled. Please give now if you can. Scan that QR code. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Secular. We are going to continue your calls in just a little bit about the situation going on as Harvard is suing the Trump administration saying, we need our money. need our billions of dollars but i did want to take a second as i do most days to divert our attention a little bit to some important things that are happening around the country and of course this is our life in liberty drive we’re wrapping up here in just eight days we need your support because we are currently battling for the lives of the unborn all across this country and around the world we have an update out of the state of washington and you may say logan if you’re not in washington You know, is that really a state that matters, a state that’s going to actually help us here and be supportive? One of the biggest states that supports the ACLJ is Washington. We know that’s true with California as well. States that you may think are well gone, there are a lot of great people there ready to fight back. But there are interesting moments, there are loopholes that happen in the law, they get pushed forward that are to not to protect the life of the unborn or even the life of the born. And CeCe Hiles joining a senior attorney here at the ACLJ to break down what we’re doing right now as we have sent demand to Washington State to hopefully stop what they’re about to do.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, there was a bill in Washington that has passed the legislature and is actually now sitting on the governor’s desk. And it’s a bill that concerns really protecting the life of unborn or born babies. And so we sent a letter to the governor to say, please, Do not sign this bill. You need to veto this bill because it does not protect the lives of babies and it does not protect the lives of pregnant mothers. And it’s basically a bill that has repealed a law that made it a gross misdemeanor to conceal the birth of a child by disposing of the dead body. So no longer is it a crime to conceal the birth of a child by disposing of the dead body. And they try to spin this to make this like it’s protecting women.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I just want to pause for one second because I understand that usually I give a disclaimer and I didn’t this time. And I apologize to those who are listening who maybe have small children in the car or anything like that. Because I know when you hear this kind of story, it’s disturbing. These are disturbing facts. It’s really gut churning in sense of how this stuff should make you feel. But I do want to say we’re going to only talk about this for about the next six minutes. So if those who are listening right now, if you feel like, hey, this is not what I want right now or I’m with my kids, tune back in in six minutes. I don’t encourage anyone to ever leave, but I know that this is a very intense topic. And when you hear about this, all right, we’re going to get back into it. When you hear about this topic and you start hearing about who gets control over bodily remains of children, you start to question even why… These laws are being passed in the first place. Why is this even coming up? And it feels like it’s always for some sort of scooting around a law for nefarious reasons. And this could be for trafficking. This could be for so much that’s happening. It’s not just about straight up abortions at this point.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. If there’s any death of a child that happens for any kind of suspicious means or anything, if you tie the word abortion to it, all of a sudden it becomes hands off. So this bill even goes further to take from what the coroner’s jurisdiction over bodies is. So the coroner has jurisdiction to take on bodies. It literally takes out of the coroner’s jurisdiction abortion. any death that results from a known or suspected abortion or any death that’s due to premature birth or stillbirth. Whether it’s suspicious or not, the coroner no longer has jurisdiction over those bodies. So again, this does open the door for a baby’s death Again, whether that’s pre-born or born, for a baby’s death to be completely concealed and there’s no way to investigate it, there’s no way to prosecute it if that death occurred by illegal means.
SPEAKER 11 :
is similar, not exactly the same, because those that are trying to promote abortion freely throughout the country have gotten a little smart, and they took that word perinatal out that we’ve seen pop up in California, in Maryland, and that was where there was a series of bills that were trying to extend the period of when an abortion could take place that would have included time after the birth of the child and that was something that we were able to push back in some areas we even got some democrats in states that were like wait a second that word in this bill may not mean what we thought it meant and maybe that could have some bad repercussions so Although they were pro-choice, if you want to call it that, pro-abortion, even they recognize that could be problematic. But what you’re seeing here is another attempt. And at the very end of the day, Washington has very open, wide abortion laws. So when Roe v. Wade was returned to the states, they took it upon themselves to make sure that it was something that was protected in their state, that what they consider the right to abortion. What we’re fighting here, is so much beyond just saying that there is a right to abortion within a state. Even the states that say up to birth, there are no term limit, no gestational limit on this. This is now… opening up a Pandora’s box of nefarious activity, of criminal activity that should be, and just putting up an obfuscation completely at looking at what could be very real evil criminal acts, not that abortion is not, but outside of even that debate, by them trying to make it easier for abortion to take place in their state.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. And abortion, even in Washington, I think there’s a point that it is illegal. But again, you’re not able to. You’ve taken out any investigation and any right to criminally prosecute anyone who causes the death of a child if it’s tied to abortion or a premature birth or stillbirth. And so we see this, you know, Washington, again, if you’re thinking, why do we care about Washington? We see that this kind of legislation jumps from state to state to state. And like you said, we’ve defeated it before in other states that had similar legislation and used the perinatal, which allowed for the death of babies after their birth. But it’s very important for us. And we do this at the ACLJ. We not only watch ballot initiatives that come on the ballot that might make a state more pro-abortion, but we also just look at and track real legislation. This actually passed the House and the Senate, and it’s sitting on the desk for the governor to sign. We track that legislation. We are taking action to veto it because we stand for life and we will continue to do that.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s right. And the ACLJ is always going to be involved in this front because it’s so important to not only us, but to all of you out there. And I see that in the comments right now. I do want to encourage you as we head to the break. Some of you lose us right now. You only get a first half hour on your local radio station. Well, if you only are hearing us right now, you’re missing half the fun. Go to ACLJ.org, go to YouTube, go to Rumble. You can find us, see us. We have full television-style production going on right now, so you can see what we look like. You can have these conversations. You can actually engage. So make sure you check out the second half hour of the show. If you’re listening to this later on, not live, we’re live from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. You can work your way back from there. You can find us later on archived on our YouTube channel, on the ACLJ website, on the podcast feed. It’s all there on ACLJ.org and through the ACLJ app. So I want to encourage you to do that. But now we only got one minute. You just heard about our fight for life that’s going on right now. And those are tuning in right back, coming right back now. I see the numbers going up. I understand that now you’re done with that conversation. I’m not going to go into any more graphic details. What I’m going to encourage you, though, is the power of your donations are keeping us in this fight to save the unborn, whether that’s here, whether that’s in Washington State, whether you heard in around the world, what you heard about our cases in Massachusetts. I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. Have your gifts doubled today. Time’s running out. There’s only eight days left. have your gifts doubled so please as we head into this half hour there’s gonna be less than a minute break so right now if you’re watching scan the qr code that you see on your screen right now or go to aclj.org if you’re on youtube hit that like button you know that really helps us out a lot because we have launched so many new fights for life As we know, the battle continues. Be a part of it. And also, you can give us a call. Be a part of the show today. We’ll be right back with more. Again, I just want to give you this opportunity. Go to ACLJ.org. Be right back.
SPEAKER 10 :
Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome to the second half hour of Sekulow. Will Haines joining me in studio. This is Logan Sekulow, by the way. And we also have Professor Harry Hutchinson, one of the senior attorneys here at the ACLJ, coming up in the next segment to break down the news that Harvard is suing the Trump administration. That’s right. Harvard University saying we want our money. demanding their grants get put back because they don’t like the idea that two billion dollars two plus billion dollars has been said nope we’re not abiding by your rules but we still want your money now look they’re taking it to court and there’s a lot that can be done and that we obviously think that billions and billions and billions shouldn’t be going to universities like harvard when they have an endowment of over 50 billion dollars But that put aside, they’re in court. It’s going to happen in Massachusetts. What’s that going to look like when Harry Hutchinson joins us in the next segment? We’re going to discuss that further because you know what? It’s going to be an uphill battle as all cases are with the Trump administration. And look, I think you got to be, you know, call it like you see it. Sometimes they jump into this a little too headfirst. Let’s go ahead, though, and take a phone call. Let’s go to Patty. Patty’s calling in Illinois, and hey, there’s some phone lines open for you after Harry, or even when Harry’s on, we’re going to take some calls, and I want to take some more calls after that, because I want to hear from you, the most important voice in the room, at 1-800-684-3110. Patty, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 12 :
Isn’t it insincere and hypocritical to accept money from an entity that does not share your values?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, Patty, I think probably a lot of people feel that way. If you have such a problem with this Trump administration, why do you want to take their money? Now, they’re going to say… They’re going to say, we’ve had these deals for decades. Of course, we deserve this money. We haven’t changed. Nothing we’ve changed. Harvard hasn’t changed. The administration’s changed. Of course, we still need our money. But yeah, that’s how it is, though, in Washington, D.C. It’s how it is with lobbyists. There’s always money changing hands, whether that’s for a party you like, the party you don’t like. Sadly, it’s part of the game. I think that part of the game needs some big changes.
SPEAKER 11 :
don’t think harvard uh is thinking too much about their hypocrisy i mean they they are trying to say it’s about academic freedom while at the same time we saw the encampment uh that took over their campus that was stopping people from getting their education out of fear uh i mean that’s kind of blatant hypocrisy right there is that the the students didn’t have the freedom to go to class to get their education uh however i also think this is a much broader issue this shows You see AOC and Bernie Sanders out there saying, you know, fight the oligarchy like that’s their big thing right now. But I think what is kind of like an oligarchy is when you have these elite universities that are just getting so much money from the government that should be able to stand on their own saying you can’t survive without us. I mean, that is basically the tone they’re taking. They were in their letter rejecting oligarchy. And the Trump administration’s question, you know, saying we need you to reform in this area. They were saying, no, we will not. And if you take our money away, people will die. They always take it to that extreme. They’re saying that, you know, this is so essential that you have to keep funding us. And I think that there are actual people dying.
SPEAKER 08 :
Where there’s actual people, human beings dying on the streets of our cities right now from starvation, from the homeless crisis that’s happening around the country. If you can go to some of your most popular cities in the country right now and tell me you don’t think that there’s some major crisis happening and there are ways to solve that. And some of that ways is with some cash. There are ways to work on this. There’s ways to handle this. You may not like to hear that, but it’s just the truth. You may say, Logan, I don’t want to fund that either. That’s fine if you just want to say, hey, government needs to get out of that stuff. That’s where charities need to get involved. That’s where Christian churches need to get involved. That’s fine, too. But if we’re going to be spending tens of billions of dollars to fund elite universities, we’ll set oligarchy like it’s a bad thing. Just kidding. Just kidding. When did they take the word oligarchy from us? No.
SPEAKER 11 :
Sorry. Let’s go ahead. I don’t even get it.
SPEAKER 08 :
I don’t either. Look, we’re getting back. Harry Hutchins is going to join us because we need to talk about the law, what it’s going to look like in the court. Because you know what? It’s not as easy, as common sense as you think it is. It’s unfortunate this is sometimes how we end up in this country, where it’s going to go to the court and we kind of can already see some of the path they’re going. And look, Trump administration, sometimes they make some unenforced errors. We’re going to talk about that coming up. Doesn’t mean they’re not in the right, but it may not mean that they’re in the right legally by the courtroom and by the courtroom’s expectations, specifically in a state like Massachusetts. We’re battling in the state of Massachusetts right now because they’re trying to shut down pro-life pregnancy resource centers with government funding. Okay? Think they want their money still going to Harvard? I think so. I think so. Scan the QR code. Go to ACLJ.org right now. Make your donation today. Harry Hudson, join us in just a second. Seculo, Harry Hutchinson joining us in studio, senior attorney here at the ACLJ to talk about what’s going on at Harvard. Harvard’s obviously taking the Trump administration to court. We’ll list it off the people that are on that list. And it’s a hefty list to say the least. All the heavy hitters are on there, whether it’s Pete Hegseth or whether it’s… Pam Boddy, Linda McMahon, RFK Jr. Linda McMahon just trying to enjoy the WWE Hall of Fame ceremonies as her son, Paul Triple H Levesque, was put in the Hall of Fame this weekend. I watched it. She was there front row, smiling ear to ear. You know, let Linda McMahon do what she needs to do. Okay? Don’t put her in court. Not over this. Send her to wrestler court. The Undertaker used to preside over that. I digress. Okay. Let’s get back to the topic here, because Professor Hutchinson, one of the things that we’ve brought up with this billions and billions that are going to Harvard and they’re suing saying, hey, we deserve it. It’s our money. It’s our grant money. There may be some validity to the agreement. And this could cause some trouble for the Trump administration when they jump into these kind of topics headfirst without thinking about. I mean, they may be thinking about the ramifications, but they know that their audience, if you want to say the American people. what results quickly. And that’s not necessarily the best way to get a victory, unfortunately.
SPEAKER 09 :
Absolutely. And in fact, the rules are designed to impede quick action by the president. And so one of the things that the Trump administration needs to do is to be aware of these rules and to think proactively about when and how to attack these institutions who have engaged in anti-Semitic activity. And one of the things that the Trump administration I think needs to do is to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act. Now, most of our audience is not going to be excited about the Administrative Procedures Act. But as a lawyer, you have to comply with those rules. And the failure to comply with those rules means that the Trump administration will be tripped up in court because the judges love those rules.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and it’s an uphill battle. It becomes an uphill battle because of that. Look, you say that your audience may not like it. Some of the audience got very offended when I said you have to start picturing what a billion dollars looks like. They’re like, Logan, we can count. Our audience is very intelligent. They understand. They understand what’s happening here. But if you were to count to a billion, it takes you 31 years.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah. 31 years, no breaks, closer to 48 with sleep and mealtimes. We wouldn’t even be here right now. I mean, I can use a calculator, but I cannot count to a billion. I can count to a million.
SPEAKER 08 :
You don’t have to.
SPEAKER 11 :
You can’t count to a billion.
SPEAKER 08 :
You don’t have to full send endorse me. It’s okay. You can just say the audience is right. The audience is always right.
SPEAKER 11 :
They are always right.
SPEAKER 08 :
I learned this. You got something, though.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and these are kind of the three claims that are in this lawsuit that Harvard is bringing to restore their funding. They’re trying to get a permanent injunction on this funding freeze, as well as several other things that they have in their prayers for relief. They’re arguing a constitutional issue and a statutory issue. The Constitution issue, they’re saying it’s a violation of the First Amendment with academic freedom being a subset of the freedom of speech and freedom of association and things of that nature. And that by trying to get them to dictate… academic policies whether it be with governance structure or dei curriculum etc that they’re violating that and that this is ideologically motivated and then second that there is retaliation against them for them exercising their constitutional right to free speech and academic freedom so that’s kind of the first part which is uh i mean that one is probably a little bit more heady more law school paper kind of exercise thought exercise but then this one is probably the easier claim I think for Harvard to win on in court which is what you already brought up is that The government alleges that because of them not protecting the students on campus, that they are violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. So that’s the government’s partially their claim for being able to take this funding away. And Harvard’s using that against the government by saying that, well… If we’re violating this… And remember, Harvard actually lost at the Supreme Court just a year or so back because their admissions process was discriminatory as ruled by the Supreme Court. So this wouldn’t be a novel idea that Harvard is doing something discriminatory. But… In that Civil Rights Act, the Title VI, there are provisions of how you then start to remove funding, take this away because of this civil rights violation. And what Harvard is arguing is not necessarily against the claim of title six violation but saying that if you’re going to use this you have to do it the proper way there’s a time period there’s a time to engage the party to try and get them to no longer discriminate as it were and that’s where it goes the administrative procedures act and that brings up a larger question too about has the regulatory state And the bureaucratic state made it so difficult for the government to do anything to change because of how much these procedures get put in place, how long it can take to actually see real change. And it actually gives plaintiffs like Harvard in this situation a real opportunity to stop the Trump administration from carrying out this funding freeze.
SPEAKER 09 :
I think your analysis is spot on. So essentially what the federal government has done is it’s set up a number of procedures which do what? The procedures entrench the existing policy. And so what Harvard has also done skillfully with the help of good lawyers is that they are using the law against the federal government. And so if I were to fault the Trump administration, I would fault them for not thinking proactively. What is Harvard likely to do? So what the Trump administration should have done is comply with those procedures first, anticipate that Harvard would bring a suit. And where did Harvard bring its lawsuit? In Massachusetts. That is a favorable jurisdiction. And what the Trump administration should have done is that they should have set up a crisis team that would go through each and every procedure ahead of time before announcing a public campaign against Harvard and these other universities. Harvard has huge resources. Many of these resources have been given to them by the taxpayers. And now Harvard is using its wealth against the American people. And I think the Trump administration should have anticipated that.
SPEAKER 08 :
I’d like to take a call that’s coming in right now. Hopefully this spurs you to call in as well, because we’ve got a few lines open at 1-800-684-3110. Beverly has some thoughts in Maryland. Beverly, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Hello. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 08 :
I can.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. So here are my thoughts. Taxpayer money should not fund elite prestigious institutions, but I feel that Harvard should have the right to academic freedom without strings attached to the government. I don’t think Harvard should sue for funds, but sue for academic freedom. They have the right to free speech. I do not think that Harvard is an anti-Semitic institution. I don’t think that they do not care about…
SPEAKER 08 :
Jewish students and the Jewish student body I understand that some of this Beverly is they’re caving to the agenda that’s happening through the media so yes I don’t think everyone who works at Harvard every student there is sitting there being a anti-Semite now do I think there are other ways they could do it like we talked about with Hillsdale where you don’t have to take government funding no one’s forcing these non-profit organizations to take government funding but they’ve decided to to the tune of billions of dollars
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and I think Professor Hutchison to that point as well is one, they are receiving the money and they are required to protect the civil rights of their student body, especially if they are receiving government funding under the Civil Rights Act. And what we did see, while… It’s true, Beverly. The administration of Harvard may not be anti-Semitic, but what they have allowed to fester on their campus is a place where students do not feel safe. They have been attacked. They have been blocked from their academic freedom of being able to attend class without fear of assault. And those things are very serious. So while yes, Harvard itself, the institution may not be anti-Semitic, they have allowed that rot on their campus to fester. And that is very serious and can actually have repercussions as far as losing funding.
SPEAKER 09 :
We only got about 40 seconds. Absolutely. And Harvard wants to have it both ways. It wants to have government funds and claim freedom of speech. If you want complete freedom of speech, then they should adopt the Hillsdale model.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yep. All right. Thank you, Professor Hutchinson, for joining us. Look, we’ve got one more segment coming up, and I always like to hear from the most important voice in the room, and that’s you. And right now… You’ve got a lot of opportunities to call in. There’s a lot of you watching, but not a lot of you calling. So give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. If you do that in the next couple minutes, you’ll most likely make it on the air today. So 1-800-684-3110. Whether you’re listening on the radio, watching on TV, watching on the Salem News Channel, or on ACLJ.org or YouTube, you can always call in. You can always support the work. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Seculo. There are some calls coming in. We’re going to get to you at 1-800-684-3110. I do think we should flash back a little bit. Well, there was a moment with Elise Stefanik and at the time was Harvard’s, I guess, the head of Harvard, the president of Harvard. And they had this conversation. It’s one of those ones that really, really punches you in the gut when you hear someone talk about it now. this head of Harvard no longer there, correct?
SPEAKER 11 :
Correct. She resigned after one, this, but then also, speaking of academic freedom, it turned out that she had a history of plagiarism. Yeah. So there was also some plagiarism accusations as well as this wonderful performance that she put on before Congress, you know, really standing up for the students of Harvard that she was the president of at that time.
SPEAKER 08 :
It was this. We need to set the record here. This was after the attacks. of october 7th this was after sort of the big protests that have happened so again this is in the last couple years this was when everything was really rising was at a peak if you will in this moment i don’t know the exact date but we’ll find it back in december of 2023 so just a couple months after the october 7th attacks but uh but really remember we had that kind of two-week period where people were supportive supportive of israel was out there talking and then
SPEAKER 11 :
All of a sudden, you saw the campuses around the United States absolutely going berserk with these encampments and threats and violence against Jewish students.
SPEAKER 08 :
Let’s take a listen again. This is a bit of a throwback to remember where we started here with Harvard.
SPEAKER 07 :
And Dr. Gay, at Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?
SPEAKER 06 :
It can be, depending on the context. What’s the context? Targeted as an individual? Targeted at an individual?
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals. Do you understand your testimony is dehumanizing them? Do you understand that dehumanization is part of antisemitism? I will ask you one more time, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment, yes or no?
SPEAKER 06 :
Antisemitic rhetoric when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, That is actionable conduct, and we do take action.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s actionable when anti-Semitic rhetoric goes beyond rhetoric. But anti-Semitic rhetoric on itself, totally fine.
SPEAKER 11 :
So what she’s saying here is that, you know, you can call for genocide, fine. You can hate your Jewish students. If you do genocide, then you’re going to get suspended from Harvard and there’ll be actions. That’s the ridiculousness of what the president of Harvard said. And now she had to resign in disgrace because of this. But it wasn’t this alone. It also took people that started diving into her record, finding that she also didn’t have the highest academic standards when she was accused of lifting entire paragraphs from other people’s work and using it in her own. So plagiarism, something that typically gets you suspended or kicked out of college pretty quick is,
SPEAKER 08 :
especially at an elite university if you are found to be doing but it wasn’t just the protection of anti-semites it also took another layer yeah absolutely i also want to for you to hear from our president from donald trump who spoke about this just a couple weeks ago uh this happened again this president donald trump take a listen
SPEAKER 01 :
I think Harvard’s a disgrace. I think what they did was a disgrace. They’re obviously anti-Semitic, and all of a sudden they’re starting to behave. But when you see where they, what they were saying, what they were doing, when you see the way they took care of events, when you watch that woman, that horrendous president that ruined the image of Harvard, maybe permanently, in Congress, in the halls of Congress, when you take a look at what happened there, It was horrific.
SPEAKER 08 :
And again, that was actually just yesterday that President Trump is out there talking about it. So again, it’s on the minds of a lot of people right now as they head to court. Let’s go ahead and take a couple calls real quick before we wrap up the show for the day. Let’s go to Kathy, who’s calling in California, who is watching on Rumble, one of our favorite free speech platforms, speaking of free speech. Kathy, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, hi. I just was thinking that people have civil rights people have constitutional rights but Harvard is an institution and what’s going on is they are violating the civil rights of some of their students Because they’re responsible for what other students are doing in their institution. And they seem to be saying okay to these people who are violating the civil rights of the other students. So I don’t see how they can sue the government and say you’re violating our civil rights. Because they’re not a person. They don’t have civil rights.
SPEAKER 08 :
Kathy, why you got to be so rational? But unfortunately in our country, it’s a little bit different. As Mitt Romney once said, corporations are people too.
SPEAKER 11 :
What? He said my friend at the end. He said corporations are people too, my friend. I gave the full quote. You gave it, you know, edited.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s fine. Kathy though, I understand your thoughts on this. Now look, there are agreements that are set in place. There are things that they’re going to have to look into because whether you like it or not, whether I like it or not, certainly I have been pretty clear. I do not care for it. Uh, They have the right to also fight and say, hey, this is unconstitutional that you’re taking away our funding because of a certain belief or certain things we would or wouldn’t do or wouldn’t say. You know what? It’s going to be for the court to decide. And unfortunately, I think it’s going to be a bit of an uphill battle for the Trump administration. But what I hope is that you actually are exposed to the truth here. And that is that tens of billions of dollars are being spent on these elite universities. And we need to make sure that that gets cleaned up as well. Let’s go ahead and hit .california.com. who’s watching on Salem News Channel, which we’re available there live. Great lineup of people there. Dot, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, thanks for taking my call. I was just wondering, Harry Hutchins said all the things that the president and the administration should have done, but I didn’t hear what they can do now to fight it in court.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, Dot, well, it is in court now. So there will be some sort of briefing schedule put out. The administration will respond to this lawsuit with their own brief arguing why they are within their rights to suspend this funding, to freeze this funding. And then it will continue on from there. It is federal court. So the judge will be involved. I assume there will be an oral argument potentially on this at some point. There could be a temporary injunction put in place on this freeze. There’s a lot of different angles that could come out of this. But as of right now, it is in court. the Department of Justice and the lawyers for the government, as well as probably counsel at these individual agencies that are enumerated as well, will all be involved in fighting back on this. So there is still a fight in court to happen. I mean, this could even get to the stage where we’re talking about constitutional rights that there are amicus briefs brought in by organizations like the American Center for Law and Justice. We need to see what that plays out in the court as we go forward. But as of right now, This is just the very first step because they filed the lawsuit. So now there will be a response from the government. And really, it’s what we were breaking down is kind of Professor Hutchison’s analysis on the three claims, the two First Amendment claims and the Civil Rights Act Title VI claim.
SPEAKER 08 :
Go back and listen to that if you didn’t. Harry Hutchison was on earlier in the broadcast, really kind of broke down the legalities of it. But I want to take this last minute here. tell you the work of the aclj continues we’re gonna figure out how we can get involved in this look we’ve been fighting for the rights of our friends our jewish and christian students on these campuses throughout the country for the last nearly two years of course we’ve been doing it for decades and decades but the last few years when it really got heated after the october 7th attack we have been there for them wherever we can we’ll continue to do that We’ll also continue our fight for the unborn. I want to encourage you right now, let’s throw that QR code up on the screen. It’s not that I don’t want you to see my pretty face. Of course I do. But right now, I need you to go to aclj.org, scan the QR code that’s on your screen. There’s only eight days left to have your gifts doubled. You need to do it right now. Okay, this is the time to do it. aclj.org or scan that QR code you see on the screen. We have so much going on, even in the next few hours, and we need your support. We’ll be right back tomorrow with more on Seculo.
