Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I wear my I wear my nerd cape or nerd
hat or nerd something.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Very proudly.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
So I'm very happy to welcome to the show our
second constitutional lawyer guest of the day. Zach Greenberg is
legal counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
That's their relatively new name, Fire the Fire thh g
f iri dot Org, a fantastic organization that for many
(00:31):
years has unflinchingly stood up for free speech rights. Zach,
Welcome to KOA. It's good to have you here.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I want to talk about the Trump administration versus Harvard,
or more broadly, the Trump adstration versus the universities mostly
elite slash ivy league universities at this point that it
seems to want to pick a fight with, and before
we get into the legalities of it, I just want
(01:02):
to sit in an overall frame and just see if
we agree on some stuff. I think that the I
think that the stuff that the administration complains about at
these universities, and by the way, I went to one
of them. As far as you know, DEI, restricting free speech,
not protecting Jewish students are like pretty much every even
(01:22):
to the point where Trump says they're run by woke
left idiots, depending on how you describe how you.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Want to define idiots. I think it's all true.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I think they've earned everything that's coming at them right now,
which doesn't mean it's all right when we'll get to that,
but I think they've.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Made themselves a ripe target. What do you think?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
The universities certainly don't have clean hands. They've had free
speech problems going back for decades now.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And Trump is.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Right when he says that there are issues these universities
not following their own polity, not following federal law, and
really being a hostile environment for free speech. That doesn't
mean his means of going at these universities, his process
is going to be right. There's certainly wame to go
around here.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
One of the things that comes up frequently, not always
with higher education, and in fact usually not with higher
education usually you know, K through twelve or other things,
is well, if you take any federal money, even if
you take a little, you're gonna end up having to
play by all the federal rules. So maybe you shouldn't
take any federal money. And that seems like that's at
play here, Although they get more than a little.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
They do, they certainly get a lot. There's a process
for when the federal government provides university with money and
they could be taken away. In this case, the process
was not followed here, And it's really a matter of
the universities following their own policies, their own free speech commitments,
for example, holding their own students free speech rights, and
when it comes to federal government funding, the university should
(02:52):
have at least a chance to show the universe so
the federal government what they're doing is correct and following
all the law. And that's just wasn't the process us
followed here?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So what all right?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
What would just briefly on this part, what would the
proper process be for the federal government to say we're
going to restrict let's say you're funding for science research.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, there would be a hearing, there would be an
opportunity for the university to show the federal government that
it was in fact following its policies and doing everything right.
They'd be more of a give and take, more of
a negotiation about what exact university is doing wrong and
how it can come back and comply with all of
its own policies. And part of the issue here is
(03:37):
that many of the federal government's requirements of the university
are in fact not okay with I can freedom in
that free speech, limiting what professors can teach, what students
can be a mid to university, what groups can exist.
These all pose free speech restrictions.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So though some of the.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Problems the federal government identified are in fact serious, it's
truly a matter of looking at the utality of a
circumstances here and seeing what can be fixed and what
should be revised.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
I mean, effectively, the federal government is arguing that these
universities are violating civil rights laws.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Right, Yeah, that's correct.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
So if they're arguing that they're violating civil rights laws,
why don't they just indict them for violating civil rights
laws rather than saying, you know, we're going to cut
your funding for you know, physics research, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
They can launch the investigation, they can bring a core case,
they can go through the proper channels and formally accuse
university of violating these laws, which allows the university to
come back and say no, we're not, and that starts
the process. But simply that's freezing the funds about any
sort of process at all, unless the university tentially becomes
a vassal institution under the entire control on preederal bureaucrats.
(04:48):
That's not the way to go about this.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So why all right?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So there's more probably of a contractual question than a
constitutional question.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Are the these university is actually entitled to the money?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I mean, if if the government signs a contract with
them for this particular research project and says, you know,
we're gonna we're gonna pay for this funding for this
I don't know, a new battery that might be used
for electric cars, and we're gonna we're gonna pay two
million dollars for the research. Okay, now there's a contract,
and that's got to be enforceable. But why why does
(05:22):
or why should a university ever have any ongoing claim
to any federal money?
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah, you're right. It is a contract. Is a contract
that as long as the university follows the applicable rules,
follows government policy, and follows the law, they can have
this kind of money. And when the university is violate
these policies or don't rite the terms of the contract,
for example, then the government can come in and say, look,
you know you're not by the terms of your contract,
or send them money away. That's not what's happening here, though.
(05:51):
What's happening here is federal governments come in and say
we're gonna freeze all your fund the whole thing. We're
also with the contracts have filed or not, unless you've
become under our attention, unless you make widespread revisions to
what you can teach and what students you can admit,
and what groups can think. This one campus and that
posed its own academic freedom issues the university's right to
control these instances.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
So it seemed on the surface that Columbia and Harvard
had very different reactions right the early stories where Columbia
basically gave in and said they were going to do,
you know, what the government wanted him to do, and
Harvard said, go pound sand. I don't know how much
on the list of what they told Columbia to do
is the same as what's on the list of what
(06:33):
they told Harvard to do. So that that's one one question,
I suppose, and and the other question is, let's let's
do that first. Let's do that first. Did Harvard say
we're not going to do the same stuff that Columbia
said we will do.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, Columbia essentially cave when it comes to adopting speech codes,
rising its policies. They essentially gave Trump what he wanted
when it comes to, you know, the demand that he
put on the university. But now they're coming back and saying, oh, actually,
we're not going to do those kind of things. Dispute
over whether what they're doing is actually say they're doing.
It's a bit complicated there. And Harvard equivocally rejected Trump's demands.
(07:12):
They said, We're not doing this. This is our institution.
We're not going to become a basketball institution.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
If you want to come.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
And restrict their donor money, you can do so, or
grant money, you can do so in proper channels here.
And the thing about these institutions is that when they speak,
others listen that they are a lead institutions. They are
Ivy League schools. They set the tone for the rest
of higher education. So in the way, it's good to
have universities like Harvard turned up to these these demands
from the administration, with universities like Columbia may now follow suit.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I really, I really struggle with this because on the
one hand, I don't think that this is I think
the federal government is massively overreaching, right.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I think they've got some legit points.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I think they probably I think they could win. I'm
not saying I'm certain they would win, but I think
they could win a case against some of these universities
for civil rights violations. And I say that as a
Jew who went to Columbia, and even though there were
lots of other Jews there with me, it felt to
me like kind of an anti Semitic place even when
I was there.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
And that's forty years ago. But so I'm torn.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
In the sense that I don't think it's right for
the government to be telling the universities who they can hire,
who they can admit all this stuff. And as I
mentioned earlier in the show, in a different context, I
imagine what happens when you get President Kamala Harris who
decides she wants to do the same thing to the universities, right,
and just in the other direction.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
So it's very dangerous the reason.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And so at the end of the day, I'm probably
siding with Harvard for those reasons.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
But the reason I'm torn.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
About it is almost everything and maybe everything, but almost
everything that the government is telling Harvard to do is
stuff that if I were on the board of Regents
or I think they call it the Harvard Corporation there,
and I would tell them we need to do this,
like because the Harvard is access pool and Columbia is
(09:09):
a cesspool of woke, anti into ect, intellectualism, anti free speech,
anti everything that I think colleges should stand for there
against it.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, and I think I would I totally agree when
it comes to we want Harvard to polish litmus tasks.
We want Harvard to allow students to fully forres themselves.
We want Harvard to have student groups on campus and
espress and wide of reviews. They are all good things,
but the means matter. And like you said, to give
the government the power to essentially make these universities and
to subserving institutions to have this kind of control, who
(09:42):
knows how it's going to be abused, not only with
this administration, but also against other administration in the future.
Against universities might be Harvard in Columbia, but schools that
have similar issues. And so, yeah, we're concerned about federal
government overreach here. And we do hope that the Harvard
University Corporation and its leadership understands its own problems about
(10:03):
free speech, about the academic freedom issue at stake here
and self cracks without need the federal government to come
in and bigfoot all over them.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Right, and again, I'm not trying to make excuses here,
like saying that what the government is doing is okay
as a.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Matter of law.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
But you and I both know because you work at
FIRE and for those just joining, we're talking with Zach Greenberg,
legal counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
The website is thefire dot org. You know from your
work there that unless massively pressured with lawsuits.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
They know who they're going to lose.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
All of these universities will continue to restrict free free speech.
How many of these how many of these places have
had free speech zones right one percent of the campus
where you're allowed to go say just what you want
to say and only with an appointment.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I mean, it's disgusting, and so.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
They they won't make any of these changes unless they
think they're gonna lose money.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
They don't care about anything else.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
The one silver lining here is that this could be
a wake up call to universities like Harvard and Columbia,
maybe even the Yales and Cornells of the world, that
their current course of action is unsustainable and they cannot
continue to violence student free speech rights and become these
hostile places for minority views without getting the attention of
journalists organations like fire in the federal government. And so
(11:24):
we're hoping the course crack are hoping they make their
university a better place to a free speech and if
they do, Buyer is here to support them and help
them do so.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Last question for you, our last topic for you. There's
been a few reports out there that the Trump administration
is pushing their own IRS to consider revoking Harvard's tax
exempt status. And all these big universities, or not just big,
their nonprofits. Some of them have amazingly large endowments. Harvard's
(11:54):
is over fifty billion dollars. They earn income tax free.
And so my question for you is do you think
the IRS can legally revoke Harvard's tax status.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I'd have to say I'm not a tax tescher, just
a mere First Amendment lawyer. This does look like retaliation
for Harvard rejecting Trump's previous demands, and I think the
larger question is do we want the IRS to be
targeting political enemies? Do you want the IRS to be
trying to look into taxical statuses of university's nonprofits other
businesses maybly because they if the president. That sounds like
(12:29):
a weaponization of the tax code. And I would have
want that any free countries, especially in America.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, I mean, who was it?
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Was it? Maybe Janet Reno or whoever was whoever was
running well, I guess that was DOJ. There was the
whole thing where the IRS was being weaponized against True
the Vote and some other groups, against conservative groups. And
I'm blanking on who was running the show at the time,
but you know, conservatives were really pissed off.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And this it was back to the thing.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
I said before, Right, everything Trump wants Harvard to do
Harvard should be doing, but to tell the but to
have the government force him to do it. And then
you get President Kamala Harris or President I don't know,
Bernie Sanders or Tim Waltz or whoever, and they're going
to go through and tell all these people. You go
way too many conservatives.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, yeah, a lot of conservative organizations out there are
definitely benefit from the nonprofit pass religious group, sports organizations.
I don't think this is a proper role faires to take.
Of course, the US wants to look institutions and see
if they do comply with the tax go and do
actually have their status. Sure, go for it based on
this with a selective political enforcement, and that's not good
(13:43):
for anybody.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Last very quick question, do you do you think this
is going to go to some kind of trial or
do you think Harvard and the government are going to
sort it out?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And if it does go to trial, who do you
think wins?
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Even though we don't exactly know what the issues at
trial would be, we don't know all you know which
ones that'll take to trial.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
We do you believe it will there'll be litigation here,
getting the lawyers involved. We do think that these universities
may sue to get their federal funding back and they
the lawsuit might just simply require the government to go
to the process to have the hearing, have the notice,
give the university a chance to get their funding back,
and so they are.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Complying with the law. If they do lawsuits.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Kind of lawsuits, it'll be difficult to put the federal
government to defend against that. I think it'll be a
good case. But you know, we'll see no one knows
this Happle litigation, but a lot of money at stake,
and we do expective there'd be some court cases and.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Lawsuits about this.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Zach Greenberg, legal counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights
and Expression The Fire T H E F I r
E dot org.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Thank you, Zach, great conversation, appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Have a nice beect you too.
I wear my I wear my nerd cape or nerd
hat or nerd something.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Very proudly.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
So I'm very happy to welcome to the show our
second constitutional lawyer guest of the day. Zach Greenberg is
legal counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
That's their relatively new name, Fire the Fire thh g
f iri dot Org, a fantastic organization that for many
(00:31):
years has unflinchingly stood up for free speech rights. Zach,
Welcome to KOA. It's good to have you here.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I want to talk about the Trump administration versus Harvard,
or more broadly, the Trump adstration versus the universities mostly
elite slash ivy league universities at this point that it
seems to want to pick a fight with, and before
we get into the legalities of it, I just want
(01:02):
to sit in an overall frame and just see if
we agree on some stuff. I think that the I
think that the stuff that the administration complains about at
these universities, and by the way, I went to one
of them. As far as you know, DEI, restricting free speech,
not protecting Jewish students are like pretty much every even
(01:22):
to the point where Trump says they're run by woke
left idiots, depending on how you describe how you.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Want to define idiots. I think it's all true.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I think they've earned everything that's coming at them right now,
which doesn't mean it's all right when we'll get to that,
but I think they've.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Made themselves a ripe target. What do you think?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
The universities certainly don't have clean hands. They've had free
speech problems going back for decades now.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And Trump is.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Right when he says that there are issues these universities
not following their own polity, not following federal law, and
really being a hostile environment for free speech. That doesn't
mean his means of going at these universities, his process
is going to be right. There's certainly wame to go
around here.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
One of the things that comes up frequently, not always
with higher education, and in fact usually not with higher
education usually you know, K through twelve or other things,
is well, if you take any federal money, even if
you take a little, you're gonna end up having to
play by all the federal rules. So maybe you shouldn't
take any federal money. And that seems like that's at
play here, Although they get more than a little.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
They do, they certainly get a lot. There's a process
for when the federal government provides university with money and
they could be taken away. In this case, the process
was not followed here, And it's really a matter of
the universities following their own policies, their own free speech commitments,
for example, holding their own students free speech rights, and
when it comes to federal government funding, the university should
(02:52):
have at least a chance to show the universe so
the federal government what they're doing is correct and following
all the law. And that's just wasn't the process us
followed here?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So what all right?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
What would just briefly on this part, what would the
proper process be for the federal government to say we're
going to restrict let's say you're funding for science research.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, there would be a hearing, there would be an
opportunity for the university to show the federal government that
it was in fact following its policies and doing everything right.
They'd be more of a give and take, more of
a negotiation about what exact university is doing wrong and
how it can come back and comply with all of
its own policies. And part of the issue here is
(03:37):
that many of the federal government's requirements of the university
are in fact not okay with I can freedom in
that free speech, limiting what professors can teach, what students
can be a mid to university, what groups can exist.
These all pose free speech restrictions.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So though some of the.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Problems the federal government identified are in fact serious, it's
truly a matter of looking at the utality of a
circumstances here and seeing what can be fixed and what
should be revised.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
I mean, effectively, the federal government is arguing that these
universities are violating civil rights laws.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Right, Yeah, that's correct.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
So if they're arguing that they're violating civil rights laws,
why don't they just indict them for violating civil rights
laws rather than saying, you know, we're going to cut
your funding for you know, physics research, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
They can launch the investigation, they can bring a core case,
they can go through the proper channels and formally accuse
university of violating these laws, which allows the university to
come back and say no, we're not, and that starts
the process. But simply that's freezing the funds about any
sort of process at all, unless the university tentially becomes
a vassal institution under the entire control on preederal bureaucrats.
(04:48):
That's not the way to go about this.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So why all right?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So there's more probably of a contractual question than a
constitutional question.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Are the these university is actually entitled to the money?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I mean, if if the government signs a contract with
them for this particular research project and says, you know,
we're gonna we're gonna pay for this funding for this
I don't know, a new battery that might be used
for electric cars, and we're gonna we're gonna pay two
million dollars for the research. Okay, now there's a contract,
and that's got to be enforceable. But why why does
(05:22):
or why should a university ever have any ongoing claim
to any federal money?
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah, you're right. It is a contract. Is a contract
that as long as the university follows the applicable rules,
follows government policy, and follows the law, they can have
this kind of money. And when the university is violate
these policies or don't rite the terms of the contract,
for example, then the government can come in and say, look,
you know you're not by the terms of your contract,
or send them money away. That's not what's happening here, though.
(05:51):
What's happening here is federal governments come in and say
we're gonna freeze all your fund the whole thing. We're
also with the contracts have filed or not, unless you've
become under our attention, unless you make widespread revisions to
what you can teach and what students you can admit,
and what groups can think. This one campus and that
posed its own academic freedom issues the university's right to
control these instances.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
So it seemed on the surface that Columbia and Harvard
had very different reactions right the early stories where Columbia
basically gave in and said they were going to do,
you know, what the government wanted him to do, and
Harvard said, go pound sand. I don't know how much
on the list of what they told Columbia to do
is the same as what's on the list of what
(06:33):
they told Harvard to do. So that that's one one question,
I suppose, and and the other question is, let's let's
do that first. Let's do that first. Did Harvard say
we're not going to do the same stuff that Columbia
said we will do.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, Columbia essentially cave when it comes to adopting speech codes,
rising its policies. They essentially gave Trump what he wanted
when it comes to, you know, the demand that he
put on the university. But now they're coming back and saying, oh, actually,
we're not going to do those kind of things. Dispute
over whether what they're doing is actually say they're doing.
It's a bit complicated there. And Harvard equivocally rejected Trump's demands.
(07:12):
They said, We're not doing this. This is our institution.
We're not going to become a basketball institution.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
If you want to come.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
And restrict their donor money, you can do so, or
grant money, you can do so in proper channels here.
And the thing about these institutions is that when they speak,
others listen that they are a lead institutions. They are
Ivy League schools. They set the tone for the rest
of higher education. So in the way, it's good to
have universities like Harvard turned up to these these demands
from the administration, with universities like Columbia may now follow suit.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I really, I really struggle with this because on the
one hand, I don't think that this is I think
the federal government is massively overreaching, right.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I think they've got some legit points.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I think they probably I think they could win. I'm
not saying I'm certain they would win, but I think
they could win a case against some of these universities
for civil rights violations. And I say that as a
Jew who went to Columbia, and even though there were
lots of other Jews there with me, it felt to
me like kind of an anti Semitic place even when
I was there.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
And that's forty years ago. But so I'm torn.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
In the sense that I don't think it's right for
the government to be telling the universities who they can hire,
who they can admit all this stuff. And as I
mentioned earlier in the show, in a different context, I
imagine what happens when you get President Kamala Harris who
decides she wants to do the same thing to the universities, right,
and just in the other direction.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
So it's very dangerous the reason.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And so at the end of the day, I'm probably
siding with Harvard for those reasons.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
But the reason I'm torn.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
About it is almost everything and maybe everything, but almost
everything that the government is telling Harvard to do is
stuff that if I were on the board of Regents
or I think they call it the Harvard Corporation there,
and I would tell them we need to do this,
like because the Harvard is access pool and Columbia is
(09:09):
a cesspool of woke, anti into ect, intellectualism, anti free speech,
anti everything that I think colleges should stand for there
against it.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, and I think I would I totally agree when
it comes to we want Harvard to polish litmus tasks.
We want Harvard to allow students to fully forres themselves.
We want Harvard to have student groups on campus and
espress and wide of reviews. They are all good things,
but the means matter. And like you said, to give
the government the power to essentially make these universities and
to subserving institutions to have this kind of control, who
(09:42):
knows how it's going to be abused, not only with
this administration, but also against other administration in the future.
Against universities might be Harvard in Columbia, but schools that
have similar issues. And so, yeah, we're concerned about federal
government overreach here. And we do hope that the Harvard
University Corporation and its leadership understands its own problems about
(10:03):
free speech, about the academic freedom issue at stake here
and self cracks without need the federal government to come
in and bigfoot all over them.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Right, and again, I'm not trying to make excuses here,
like saying that what the government is doing is okay
as a.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Matter of law.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
But you and I both know because you work at
FIRE and for those just joining, we're talking with Zach Greenberg,
legal counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
The website is thefire dot org. You know from your
work there that unless massively pressured with lawsuits.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
They know who they're going to lose.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
All of these universities will continue to restrict free free speech.
How many of these how many of these places have
had free speech zones right one percent of the campus
where you're allowed to go say just what you want
to say and only with an appointment.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I mean, it's disgusting, and so.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
They they won't make any of these changes unless they
think they're gonna lose money.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
They don't care about anything else.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
The one silver lining here is that this could be
a wake up call to universities like Harvard and Columbia,
maybe even the Yales and Cornells of the world, that
their current course of action is unsustainable and they cannot
continue to violence student free speech rights and become these
hostile places for minority views without getting the attention of
journalists organations like fire in the federal government. And so
(11:24):
we're hoping the course crack are hoping they make their
university a better place to a free speech and if
they do, Buyer is here to support them and help
them do so.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Last question for you, our last topic for you. There's
been a few reports out there that the Trump administration
is pushing their own IRS to consider revoking Harvard's tax
exempt status. And all these big universities, or not just big,
their nonprofits. Some of them have amazingly large endowments. Harvard's
(11:54):
is over fifty billion dollars. They earn income tax free.
And so my question for you is do you think
the IRS can legally revoke Harvard's tax status.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I'd have to say I'm not a tax tescher, just
a mere First Amendment lawyer. This does look like retaliation
for Harvard rejecting Trump's previous demands, and I think the
larger question is do we want the IRS to be
targeting political enemies? Do you want the IRS to be
trying to look into taxical statuses of university's nonprofits other
businesses maybly because they if the president. That sounds like
(12:29):
a weaponization of the tax code. And I would have
want that any free countries, especially in America.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, I mean, who was it?
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Was it? Maybe Janet Reno or whoever was whoever was
running well, I guess that was DOJ. There was the
whole thing where the IRS was being weaponized against True
the Vote and some other groups, against conservative groups. And
I'm blanking on who was running the show at the time,
but you know, conservatives were really pissed off.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And this it was back to the thing.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
I said before, Right, everything Trump wants Harvard to do
Harvard should be doing, but to tell the but to
have the government force him to do it. And then
you get President Kamala Harris or President I don't know,
Bernie Sanders or Tim Waltz or whoever, and they're going
to go through and tell all these people. You go
way too many conservatives.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, yeah, a lot of conservative organizations out there are
definitely benefit from the nonprofit pass religious group, sports organizations.
I don't think this is a proper role faires to take.
Of course, the US wants to look institutions and see
if they do comply with the tax go and do
actually have their status. Sure, go for it based on
this with a selective political enforcement, and that's not good
(13:43):
for anybody.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Last very quick question, do you do you think this
is going to go to some kind of trial or
do you think Harvard and the government are going to
sort it out?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And if it does go to trial, who do you
think wins?
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Even though we don't exactly know what the issues at
trial would be, we don't know all you know which
ones that'll take to trial.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
We do you believe it will there'll be litigation here,
getting the lawyers involved. We do think that these universities
may sue to get their federal funding back and they
the lawsuit might just simply require the government to go
to the process to have the hearing, have the notice,
give the university a chance to get their funding back,
and so they are.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Complying with the law. If they do lawsuits.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Kind of lawsuits, it'll be difficult to put the federal
government to defend against that. I think it'll be a
good case. But you know, we'll see no one knows
this Happle litigation, but a lot of money at stake,
and we do expective there'd be some court cases and.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Lawsuits about this.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Zach Greenberg, legal counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights
and Expression The Fire T H E F I r
E dot org.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Thank you, Zach, great conversation, appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Have a nice beect you too.
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com