The question now is what happens next? Will our most thin-skinned political leaders accept opposition from a bunch of snot-nosed nerds?

Harvard said no. No to government minders, no to intellectual dishonesty, no to conservative DEI.

In a forceful letter of rebuke to the Trump administration’s threat to withhold federal money from the university if it does not acquiesce to a series of “ham-handed” demands—including government audits to monitor “ideological capture”—Harvard president Alan M. Garber basically told the government to f–k all the way off. He said it in a more Harvard way, but that was the message.

In response, the government said it would be withholding $2.2 billion in already-appropriated grant money to the school. This is money that Garber said, in the past, “has led to groundbreaking innovations across a wide range of medical, engineering, and scientific fields.” Oh well. We probably didn’t need innovations, anyway.

Harvard’s defiance stands in embarrassing contrast to the actions of Columbia University, which, faced with similar demands, folded like a cheap diploma. (I’m exaggerating. In this country, there’s no such thing as a cheap diploma.)