By S. T. Karnick
President Donald Trump has pushed colleges and universities across the country into severe consternation and distress with his threats to cut their federal funding and revoke their tax-exempt status. The president cites extensive civil rights violations, such as failures to protect students, staff, and visitors from antisemitic disruptions and their refusal to obey federal laws and Supreme Court rulings against discrimination.
College administrators such as Harvard University President Alan Garber say Trump has no legal right to interfere with their operations and that doing so will destroy academic freedom. In fact, however, the acceptance of taxpayer money gives the federal government power over every single activity in which a college or university engages, under laws that have been in place for decades. Government funding is thus the…
