Trump vs. Harvard

Plus: City-run grocery stores, Peronists for prison, California can't figure out how minimum wage hikes work, and more...

Judge will decide: "The Trump administration and Harvard University will appear before a federal judge on Monday as each party seeks outright victory in their clash over billions of dollars in research money that the government has taken from the school," reports The New York Times. "The hearing is likely to be a milestone in a lawsuit that partly hinges on what the government's role in higher education should be."

Judge Allison D. Burroughs is expected to issue a summary judgment, which decides the lawsuit without it advancing to trial. Harvard has sued the Trump administration over its pulling of research funding following Harvard's refusal to comply with the administration's demands, which included auditing to make sure there was sufficient viewpoint diversity in academic departments, verifying that professors weren't plagiarizing, and reporting lists of international students who had gotten into trouble. The Trump administration also claims Harvard has not handled antisemitism on campus. Harvard believes this crackdown to be an egregious and improper First Amendment violation and attempt by the federal government to wield control over the university.

"By August 2025, Harvard must make meaningful governance reform and restructuring to make possible major change consistent with this letter," wrote federal government officials back in April, "including: fostering clear lines of authority and accountability; empowering tenured professors and senior leadership, and, from among the tenured professoriate and senior leadership, exclusively those most devoted to the scholarly mission of the University and committed to the changes indicated in this letter; reducing the power held by students and untenured faculty; reducing the power held by faculty (whether tenured or untenured) and administrators more committed to activism than scholarship; and reducing forms of governance bloat, duplication, or decentralization that interfere with the possibility of the reforms indicated in this letter."

Other demands: "By August 2025, the University must adopt and implement merit-based hiring policies, and cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin throughout its hiring, promotion, compensation, and related practices among faculty, staff, and leadership." Ditto with admissions policies.

But more worrisome, just below, in the same letter: "By August 2025, the University must reform its recruitment, screening, and admissions of international students to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism. Harvard will immediately report to federal authorities, including the Department of Homeland Security and State Department, any foreign student, including those on visas and with green cards, who commits a conduct violation." Given the March arrest of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil for his role in anti-Israel protests by plainclothes federal agents, it's just not clear that the government will actually give wide berth to universities to allow a range of expressive speech—even odious, offensive speech—on campus.

How Burroughs rules will be of great significance in the government vs. higher ed battles that have characterized President Donald Trump's second term. Of course, most libertarians are in favor of the federal government getting wholly out of funding higher education, something it never should have done in the first place. But, if it comes at the cost of speech rights on campus and greater crackdown on foreign students, will it be worth it? The federal government might be (marginally) shrinking its outlays, but still growing its power in ways that should disturb libertarians.

Zohran Mamdani doesn't seem to get it: One way we can try to judge whether New York City's city-owned grocery stores will succeed is by judging whether they've succeeded in other places where a similar concept has been tried. Kansas City is one such place: "KC Sun Fresh lost $885,000 last year and now has only about 4,000 shoppers a week," reports The Washington Post. "That's down from 14,000 a few years ago, according to Emmet Pierson Jr., who leads Community Builders of Kansas City, the nonprofit that leases the site from the city. Despite a recent $750,000 cash infusion from the city, the shelves are almost bare."

Shoppers report frequent shortages, but also issues with drug dealing and theft inside and outside the store.

The city opened the grocery store back in 2018, having used $17 million to fix up an old privately-owned one. At first, it was a sort of private-public partnership, where a private company owned the store, but the government gave a massive infusion of cash to get it all started. Then, in 2022, ownership switched to Community Builders of Kansas City, a nonprofit that leases the site from the city; the grocery store has asked for more and more cash infusions.

"We typically have the same group of offenders every week that are recognizable by face and by name," said city police Maj. Chris Young. Incidents have included someone peeing in the grocery store vestibule and a naked woman going on a rampage in the store. "A small percentage of people are ruining it for the rest of the community that deserves to go to their grocery store and their library." The city apparently doesn't currently have a jail, "so people arrested for minor crimes are quickly released instead of being held in rural counties miles away," reports the Post. 

I wonder how this would work in New York City! I guess, if Mamdani gets elected mayor, we'll get the pleasure of finding out, won't we?

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Scenes from New York: A sweet little write-up from Fox News on Beach Mass, in Long Beach, just outside the city limits. I've gone, and it's absolutely awesome.

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QUICK HITS

• "The leader of modern Peronism"—Argentina's former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner—"has been sentenced to six years in prison, although she can request to serve under house arrest as she is over 70 years old," writes Agustina Sosa for Reason. "The sentence also carries a lifetime ban from holding public office. … Kirchner and her collaborators stole from the Argentine people through the creation of an illicit organization to redirect public works funds to benefit businessman Lázaro Báez, another recurring character in the country's corruption saga. The operation began under Nestor Kirchner's presidency (2003–2007) and continued during her terms (2008–2011 and 2012–2015)." This is what Argentina's President Javier Milei means when he talks about "La Casta." Profound corruption from the Peronists for decades on end with very few consequences.
• "European Union and US negotiators are heading into another week of intensive talks, as they seek to clinch a trade deal by Aug. 1, when US President Donald Trump has threatened to hit most EU exports with 30% tariffs," reports Bloomberg. "Officials in Brussels are prepared to stomach an unbalanced agreement that favors the US if that's what is required to break the impasse before the deadline."
• Incredible scenes from California. Who could've possibly predicted this:

California's $20 fast food minimum wage reduced employment by 3.2 percent (roughly 18,000 jobs) over the first year since its enactment, from @jeffreypclemens, Olivia Edwards, and Jonathan Meer https://t.co/IaAwyZEJgr pic.twitter.com/qtma1Wnmzy

— NBER (@nberpubs) July 20, 2025

• Full article here. Absolutely ghoulish. (Though, somewhat relatedly, I've long been a proponent of compensating kidney donors, which could help to alleviate shortages and possibly solve some of these problems. There are a lot of different ways you could do this, including "no-give, no-take laws," which Alex Tabarrok writes about over at Marginal Revolution.)

This is insane https://t.co/6pU4iIqAb8 pic.twitter.com/hs1XxoJrwS

— Mason (@webdevMason) July 21, 2025

• Interesting:

A @maxwelltani mustread on a new effort by a Palantir exec to remake Hollywood pic.twitter.com/bFZFHxQFK8

— Ben Smith (@semaforben) July 21, 2025