Don’t Confuse the Culture War With the Constitution

The Constitution belongs to everyone, or it belongs to no one.

American academia, media, tech, and big law have produced more Chamberlains than Churchills in the last three months as industry after industry folds to government overreach seemingly without a fight. All the more credit then to Harvard, which earlier this week rejected the Trump administration’s attempts to blackmail the university over everything from teaching practices to admissions and hiring.

I disagree with many Harvard policies and if we could take the federal government out of the equation, I would actually agree with some of Trump’s stated aims, like increasing viewpoint diversity and breaking ideological orthodoxy on campus.

But my opinion on such matters is less relevant in this case because the fact is that the government is involved here, and for them to make such demands on the internal policies of a private university violates fundamental free speech principles. As Harvard’s lawyers write, what the state is now demanding goes “beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”

Therefore, I must applaud Harvard’s willingness to fight. But whether its bold stand is an anomalous blip or a meaningful victory is far from certain. Converting this tactical win for the pro-freedom camp into a strategic turning point means we have to revisit some sacred cows.

The president’s decision to start his siege against American civic life by going after campuses was a deliberate one.

Trump knows that many top US universities cultivate left-wing group-think. He knows that a number of those involved in the raucous protests since October 7, 2023 are themselves fringe political extremists. The pendulum swings and far-left indulgences invite far-right abuses.

I grew up under a regime that spun every euphemism it could find to market terrorists as freedom fighters. So I’m glad that most Americans reject the views of campus radicals. And I’m hardly alone in this perspective.

Trump laid a political trap, and his opponents fell right into it.

Mahmoud Khalil, one of the administration’s first targets, belonged to a fanatical student organization whose kind words for terror organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah are well-documented.

We must not allow the fight for the Constitution to become conflated with that toxic ideological agenda.

Trump’s agents have already begun harassing apolitical bystanders. Kilmer Abrego Garcia was snatched off the street in Maryland only to wind up imprisoned in El Salvador, whose leader, Nayib Bukele appears to be an unaccountable subcontractor for ICE. President Trump is defying a 9-0 Supreme Court order to return Garcia stateside from the Salvadoran dungeon where he is now languishing. His willful disregard for a rare unanimous decision (from a conservative court, no less) represents the most serious threat to the American system of separation of powers in generations.

Prominent Democrats and activists made Khalil the poster child of their fight against authoritarian excess while Garcia’s case is receiving less attention. They chanted “free Mahmoud Khalil” when the 230-year-old words of the First Amendment would have made for a far more effective slogan.

It’s not that Khalil doesn’t have rights and civil liberties worth defending. He does—the same as Kilmer Abrego Garcia or any of us. But a character defense of a radical like Khalil is a poison pill for a pro-freedom movement trying to build a big tent.

Instead, we should focus on principles over policy, which is to say that reasonable people can disagree over what our immigration laws should be. But as we enforce existing laws, we have to do so with an eye towards guaranteeing due process for everyone, regardless of how objectionable their views may be.

I wish that major universities had discovered their love of free speech four years ago, when they were ostracizing or even punishing people with controversial views on the other end of the political spectrum, but their mistakes do not give the government an excuse to violate First Amendment and due process protections.

And for those trying to draw an equivalence between disagreeable university policies of the last few years and today’s invasive government action, take it from a Russian dissident: the side that has a lot of guns and the ability to throw you in prison is always more dangerous.

We must defend our fundamental rights, period. Not controversial folk heroes. Not polarizing pet causes. The Constitution belongs to all people in this country, or it belongs to no one at all.