This almost sounds like a joke: A college president and a 'public' news organization walk into a bar to complain about their common enemy. At least one of them decided to be somewhat honest about it, but only somewhat.

Alan Garber, president of a beleaguered Harvard University, sat down with Steve Inskeep of an equally beleaguered NPR, both facing potentially ruinous litigation with the Trump administration. As if that scenario doesn't raise some conflict-of-interest eyebrows, Garber's admissions should. NPR leads the news report on the interview as "Harvard's president says they should 'stand firm'," but Garber concedes right at the start that Harvard is at fault, even while avoiding the consequences (emphases mine):

Alan Garber: In my view, the federal government is saying that we need to address antisemitism in particular, but it has raised other issues, and it includes claims that we lack viewpoint diversity. We have been very clear that we think we do have issues, and I would particularly emphasize the speech issues. We think it's a real problem, if – particularly a research university's – students don't feel free to speak their minds, when faculty feel that they have to think twice before they talk about the subjects that they're teaching. That's a real problem that we need to address. And it's particularly concerning when people have views that they think are unpopular. And the administration and others have said conservatives are too few on campus and their views are not welcome. In so far as that's true, that's a problem we really need to address.

Inskeep: Is it true?

Garber: I think that we have heard from some people that they do feel that way. What is perplexing is the measures that they have taken to address these that don't even hit the same people that they believe are causing the problems. Why cut off research funding? Sure, it hurts Harvard, but it hurts the country because after all, the research funding is not a gift. The research funding is given to universities and other research institutions to carry out work – research work – that the federal government designates as high-priority work. It is work that they want done. They are paying to have that work conducted. Shutting off that work does not help the country, even as it punishes Harvard, and it is hard to see the link between that and, say, antisemitism.

No, Harvard has not been clear that they "think" they have issues. They have occasionally paid lip service to those complaints, but that's all. Harvard hasn't even addressed its anti-Semitism, in particular or otherwise. They just rewarded two of the students who physically assaulted Jewish students on campus, for instance, even though the Department of Homeland Security specifically warned Harvard about both. Laughably, Garber claims that the main manifestation of anti-Semitism at Harvard is "social exclusion":

Garber: I believe that we have made substantial progress on campus over the past year, and that's what I've heard from many faculty and staff and students. There has been real progress. Comparing what goes on on campus to what goes on in the rest of the country is a little bit difficult because the manifestations may be different. From what I've heard, we have many fewer violent incidents. They're almost unheard of on our campus and probably a lot less vandalism. The main manifestation of antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias that we have grappled with has to do with social exclusion. It has to do with shunning. If a student sits down at a dining room table and they have good conversations with other students who don't know them, and when the other students find out that that student is Israeli, if they refuse to continue to speak to them, we have a serious problem that we need to address.

Gee, why might there be "social exclusion" of Jews at Harvard? Could it be because the university keeps rewarding students who physically assault Jews? 

Also, Garber makes these claims using the most passive voice possible. I believe... I think... From what I've heard. If .. then ... In so far as that's true ... Garber sounds as though he's being deposed about an organization for which he has no responsibility. Isn't he the president of Harvard? If it's so important to "stand firm" in defense of the school, why can't Garber speak in firm terms about what's happening at the school under his authority? 

And of course, Inskeep doesn't challenge Garber at all on this weak sauce, or even on the claims generally. After all, NPR's entire business model depends on finding allies in the Orange Man Bad War. That's what makes this particular interview such a journalistically corrupt action. 

The lack of follow-up on the free-speech claims is especially egregious, considering NPR's claims that defunding 'public' radio amounts to an insult to the First Amendment. Garber acts as though he only just heard about the oppressive campus culture to any opinion outside the progressive orthodoxy, but FIRE has been sounding the alarm on Harvard for years. In their ranking of 251 higher-ed schools in the US, Harvard ranks dead last at #251, with a speech climate rating of "abysmal." Their overall score of 0.00 actually overestimates their free-speech standing; FIRE explained that they do not assign negative scores, which Harvard would have otherwise received. Only Columbia University scored a zero (rank:250), and only Harvard, Columbia, and NYU achieved the "abysmal" rating. 

That normally wouldn't be an issue for the federal government. However, since federal funding has always been tied to compliance with the Civil Rights Act and especially Titles VI, VII, and IX, Harvard's anti-Semitism and oppression of student speech is germane to continued funding. And that's especially true since Garber concedes practically everything about the allegations from the Trump administration but refuses to take significant action to comply with the law. 

Jonathan Turley persuasively argues that Harvard's deliberate march toward lockstep radicalism on campus will not serve well in a public fight with Trump. If Harvard sneers at America, why should America care about defending Harvard?

Not long ago, I had a debate at Harvard Law School with Professor Randall Kennedy on the lack of ideological diversity at the school. I respect Kennedy and I do not view him as anti-free speech or intolerant. Yet when I noted the statistics on the vanishing number of conservative students and faculty in comparison to the nation, Kennedy responded that Harvard “is an elite university” and does not have to “look like America.”

The problem is that Harvard does not even look like Massachusetts, which is nearly 30 percent Republican.

The question is whether America will now support Harvard.

The school hopes that the public will rush to its side in this fight in the name of intellectual diversity.

Trump knows that this comes down to the numbers. 

It also comes down to the impunity of the elites. They want their nose in the taxpayer trough without any conditions, simply on the basis of their elite status. How many Americans will side with Harvard while Garber clucks his tongue but refuses to provide accountability?

Update: I had left out the link to Professor Turley's column, and I made the following sentence more precise in an edit. It also occurred to me that some may not get the reference to Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" in the headline. One refrain goes:

Wasted away again in Margaritaville
Searching for my lost shaker of salt
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame
But I think, hell, it could be my fault.

I've been noodling ways to write some satirical lyrics for this occasion, but maybe I'll just let the VIP members do that in the comments.