Boston Public Radio Podcast
Best Of BPR 9/16: From Laura Loomer's Lips To Trump's Ears & Fewer Black Students At College
Support for Boston Public Radio comes from the University of New England, offering undergraduate and graduate programs in Portland, Maine, on the ocean in Biddford, Maine, in Morocco and online, the University of New England, UNE.edu. And the Office of the Massachusetts State Treasurer, the Unclaimed Property Division is holding unclaimed funds from medical bills, uncached paychecks, savings accounts, and more. To see if you have unclaimed money, you can visit findmassmoney.gov. I'm Jim Brody. And I'm Marjorie Egan. This is the best of Boston Public Radio, a new daily podcast from GBH, featuring our favorite conversations from our three-hour radio show in under 40 minutes. Don't panic. If you love filling your phone with episodes of our full-show podcast, you can still find it anywhere you get your podcast, or just catch us live on 89/7 GBH, starting at 11 o'clock. Today on the podcast, we talk about the media's coverage of now the second attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump. It is Florida golf course with Brian McGrory, head of journalism at BU, former editor of The Globe, and the paper's latest coverage of Stuart Healthcare's Ralph Dilitaries, "Deadly Greed." An act to Supreme Court get rid of race-conscious admissions last year, what does this year's incoming college class look like? We talk with Harvard's Khalil Gibran Mohammed. And here's the show. [music] We're joined now on Zoom by Brian McGrory. Brian is the head of the BU Journalism Department, former editor of the Boston Globe. Hello, Brian McGrory. Hello, Jim Brody. Hello, Marjorie. How are you? Great. I'm fine, Brian. Great to talk to you again. So let's start with another second assassination attempt against former President Trump on his golf course in West Palm Beach. What do you think of the tenor of the coverage? It doesn't quite as frantic as I thought, considering it was an assassination attempt of the former president. No, you got right to it, Marjorie. It's incredible to think that an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate who's the former president of the United States, a guy with apparently an assault rifle with a scope on it, it is golf course, is met with a collective yawn. And three hours after the arrest, we're all just kind of moving on. Okay, who's in the swing stage? What are they saying? It's really, really amazing how fast these new cycles are moving in this presidential campaign. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's not just because the new cycles are moving quickly. There may be something else going on here, and it's very hard to talk about, by the way, but you're being honest so far, so how about continuing? I don't know where you're going, Jim, but... I'll tell you where I'm going. No, the wrinkle I would add is that this is obviously the second assassination attempt in two months. And the first one involved actual bullets flying. It's not clear whether there was a bullet fired here. And the first one involved a bullet that struck Donald Trump, inches from his temple. So this one is, you know, by any measure, less than the prior one. And it seems like the readership, the country, is already sort of assimilating it. Well, that's not what I was getting at. This is very hard to talk about, but I would say, well, I think most of mainstream media is totally responsible and plays it fairly. I think it's also safe to say that as humans, most people have contempt for, most media people have contempt for Donald Trump's politics, and while I am surely not saying so, don't start sending texts that somebody wants him to be killed. There doesn't seem, I don't feel, and maybe I'm imagining this, the level of sympathy, empathy, whatever is the right word, that I would imagine, which is, I think where Margie was going. Margie was going for a former president or a presidential candidate. Actually, that wasn't. You look skeptical, Bryant. Wait, you don't agree with me? No. Well, let Bryant go first. That's not where I was going. Okay. Well, that's where I was going. So, Jim, no, I don't agree with you. Look, I don't think that my colleagues in the news media are saying this is less of a story because he's such a contemptible big year. I do think that there might be some influence that here is a person, a candidate, and a president who has spent lots of time, lots of energy, stoking violence. Yeah, that's a good point. And, you know, having people charge the capital, having people, you know, people of the capital died on January 6. That he constantly uses over the top rhetoric about his opponents and about others. He is hyperbolic in every possible way. So, when there's a sense that violence is visiting him, it just feels slightly, slightly different, but I don't think this is in any way because the media views him as a less-than-stellar figure. What were you going to say, Marjorie, that? Well, I think it's that. And I think it's also that violent rhetoric has become -- this was obviously more than rhetoric -- but it's become so commonplace. And we read yesterday about the Libertarian Party in New Hampshire tweeting out that Kamala Harris should be murdered. Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero. Yeah, and they took it down. And normal Republicans -- well, these are the Libertarians -- criticized them. But, I mean, that's a frontier that you don't often see crossed. Let's murder somebody. You know what I mean? There's this whole kind of soup of violence that's surrounding us. Look at the ruckus and Newton at the pro-issue. Shooting with the demonstrators, yeah? Brockus, in Newton and a small protest. That's true. So I just think that there's this mood, cloud of violence that is scary. So, Brian McGorry, what's fair game in the Laura Loomer situation? Clearly fair game, or her comments. This is the woman who's traveling with Trump's thing in Mar-a-Lago. She went to 9/11 ceremony, a memorial with them. She was the debate with them. She had videos all over the place with his hands all over. It's clearly fair game to say the White House is going to smell like curry. This kind of racist thing. And some issue around, you know, a calling center at the White House that she said. Bill Maher on the other end of the spectrum, not saying he's a journalist, is re-initiating his segment, the title of which is "Who's Trump Effing" around Laura Loomer. But it's his relationship with this woman, personal relationship with this woman fair game for responsible media. Look, Jim, I don't think we know enough about it, but why do you need to go to the personal relationship? Why not just deal with the political relationship? Because this thing is bizarre. I mean, let me ask you, did you ever hear Laura Loomer? Laura Loomer, yeah. Did you hear about, have you ever heard of her like six months ago, three months ago? No. I mean, I had a person on the extreme of the extreme who is just, you know, a provocateur who will do anything and say anything to get attention who Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yeah, that's right. I mean, that's hard to imagine. That is very racist is what she said her comments. This is Taylor Greene saying this. Think about that. I mean, so why do you even have to transcend the political relationship to go to the personal relationship? The idea that she is part of the Republican nominees entourage is he travels the country and is whispering in his ear. I don't need to know whether her lips are touching his ear. I just need to know she's whispering in it. And that's a really bad line. But that in itself, where is Trump getting his information? How is he getting swayed in the fact that she is part of this is a really legitimate story? Harris, we all know, has done one national interview since she became the nominee that was with Tim Walz. And she did a local hit in Philadelphia with somebody with five questions, but I think it's fair to say she's avoiding dealing with the press, the white house photographers association is complaining nonstop about their pool or nonpool access. I assume you consider the, well, I don't know, but I assume you consider the criticism legit and what should the media be doing about it other than complaining, which they've been doing? The criticism is very legit. And I got to tell you, you may not want to hear this, but it seems to have been a pattern among Democratic candidates and presidents going to full-time and it's a big maddening. Barack Obama was basically terrible with the mainstream news media, didn't grant interviews or did very infrequently. Joe Biden doesn't, he never learned the names of the main reporters in the White House briefing room. He didn't know who was who. Who was the president when you were the White House guy for the globe? Who was the president? No Clinton. He was amazingly accessible. I had three either very small group interviews or one-on-one interviews with him. He was very accessible. So look, what Kamala Harris is doing is egregious, but back to the point, I don't think voters care and she's got something very much playing in her favor right now. She is willing to get back on a stage in front of 50 or 75 million people with reporters questioning her in a debate and she's willing to take on Trump. And Trump has said he's not going to do that again. So I think that Harris can blunt much of the argument even though it's really maddening that she won't engage with the news media more. You know, Brian McGrawie, you did unbelievably great reporting on Ralph Deletory, the head of Stuart Healthcare. From you, we learned about his magnificent yacht, his magnificent fishing boat and his visit to Versailles during the Olympics to watch dressage. Now, of course, he's not honoring a subpoena from Congress and there's talks of people throwing him in jail. We can elaborate on that. But one of the things I wondered, I think you talked to people who know this man and I'm wondering, is he like in a panic, Deletory, is he in denial? Does he think he's going to hire the best lawyers to get him out of this or is he packing to go to Club Fed? I mean, what's his story? And it's hard to say. It's hard to say. I mean, this guy is hard to get your head around. I mean, given what he's pulled out of a struggling healthcare company in terms of the dollar, is given what he's done to it, given how he left it, it's hard to get inside his mind and picture what he's thinking. But we do know a few things. There is a grand jury investigation. The feds in both Washington and Boston are pursuing many lines of this. And obviously the Senate is coming after him, he didn't show up for that hearing last week. And if you're a Ralph Deletory, you've got to have some idea that your world is crashing down around you. Right? I mean, am I seeing that wrong? No, but there was this thing, we had two of your former spotlight people have done some great reporting the last couple of weeks, particularly on the impact on patients and at least 15 lives lost directly because of some of this behavior. And one of the things that comes, there's a history in this country, I think, of unwillingness to go after CEOs criminally, they say it's too difficult, they're too insulated, maybe we'll do a civil thing. I mean, the Sacklers are not in jail, which is incredible to me. And Malta has indicted a deletory in a number two and no grand jury in the United States has. So frankly, I hope something happens on that front because if it's just fines or something, what the hell's the difference? He just pays out of the hundreds of millions of dollars that he's grifted out of this company, you know? I agree with you entirely, Jim, but I will say that having his antics, hijinks, perhaps criminality played out on the pages of the Boston Globe and elsewhere has to be putting pressure on federal authorities, any US attorney, other prosecutors, they have to be feeling this pressure. And look, there is a lot to work with there. You're right. These cases are incredibly complicated, but, you know, often you end up getting them on tax issues based on other times they committed. I mean, isn't that what happened out? Al Capone, right? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I think those tax documents were in the safe when Geraldo opened it. You know, before you go speaking of press, you told us a month or two ago or a few weeks ago that you were creating sort of a, not sort of a like a student newsroom within the journalism department there. So what exactly is going on there, Brian McGorry? I appreciate you asking. So here at Boston University, where I've landed, the idea was to build a student-run newsroom with professional editors that will serve all of these sort of local and hyper-local nonprofit news organizations. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Everything from, you know, the big ones like the New Bedford Light and the main monitor, and Hampshire Bulletin, two really small ones like Brookline News, and, you know, what's going on in Newton. And while them, I mean, pick a town. Plymouth. Yeah, there's a non-profit news organization up and up. So the idea is to get students to be essentially a wire service for all of these local news organizations with professional editors. We've just hired a new editor-in-chief, a guy named Steve Greenley, who is phenomenal. He was the editor-in-chief of the Portland Press Herald. He stepped down from there to come down to BU, and we aim to have this thing launched by January and be out there with our own stories, helping these non-profits. That's fabulous, actually. That's great. That is great. I can't tell you how bad it is to lose your local paper, at least in my time. I didn't know what the heck was going on, and it's a real problem, but we have one more thing. Yeah, I think we should get his job. Do you want me to do this, or do you want this? This is a really important issue. Really, Marty and I were talking about something. We said Brian McGorry is the one to be able to answer this. According to the Washington Post, this woman, a woman who's quite prominent, has written in a recent memoir, quote, "sharing my most personal reflections does not come naturally." Now, that's interesting, except we learn it's actually her fourth memoir. This would be Hillary Clinton. The question is, "If it's your fourth memoir, how credible is it to say sharing my most personal reflections does not come naturally?" Brian, take it away. Go ahead. Go ahead. What do you think is happening there? Either the Clintons need more money, or a Hillary needs something to fill her time, but I'm going to leave that one alone. Sharing my most personal reflections. Is anyone ever written four memoirs? Has anybody ever written four memoirs? Is that really true? Yes. We started four memoirs. Four memoirs. They're not policy. No, they're four memoirs. The Washington Post said, "If the Washington Post said they're four, they're four, as far as I'm concerned." And what's the title of the book would buy a fourth memoir, like who would go out and buy this? It's a very good question. You should get that. Do you want to make a line, though? Something lost, something gained. Something gained. It's very whimsical. Love, life, and she's going to talk about love and life is what she's going to talk about. Sharing my most personal reflections does not come naturally. Can I say that? We're very good to see you. Last year, the Supreme Court had got rid of race-conscious admissions at colleges. Now, new class of students are taking to campus a far less diverse spectrum of students than here to four. Join now to talk about how the decision affected this year's higher education, admissions, and more with Khalil Jiran Muhammad. He's a Harvard Kennedy School Professor of History, Race, and Public Policy, and a BPR contributor. It's great to see you. Thanks for your time. Thanks so much. Great to be back on the show. Great. What do we know so far about how the Supreme Court's action has impacted the entering classes at some of the most elite colleges in the country? What do we know? Yeah, well, we're getting a lot of reporting based on data that is now being released by a number of universities, particularly the most selective universities about who has enrolled in their 2024 fall class. And we are seeing some pretty dramatic declines. We are not even across all institutions. But at the top of the list, we see that Amherst University fell by about 73% in terms of the number of black students over a two-year average before the Supreme Court decision as compared to this entering class. Brown University reporting about a 65% decline, MIT, 65%, so on and so forth. Harvard University is just about a quarter percent. It's fall class last year was about 18% black, it's down to 14% black this year. And a report from an organization called Education Resources Now is reporting that if you look across about 50 schools, you'll see that three quarters of those schools, black enrollment is down. In some cases, Hispanic enrollment is also down, but not nearly as dramatically across the board for Asian and Asian immigrant students, the numbers. In some cases have stayed the same, some small upticks, and some small down ticks. So a lot of heterogeneity in terms of across racial groups, but make no mistake about it, the headline here is that for African-American and for black students in general, we see dramatic declines in many places. And obviously, the next question is what to do about it. We've discussed that within the past, we're going to talk about it again in a minute. But should one conclude, I know it's early on, that for the quarter of schools that didn't see a dramatic change in its freshman class, in terms of black student admission, and I think Princeton, which you have some connection to and Yale, are among them, are they doing something already to attempt to achieve the same goal without violating the mandated spring court, or is it just serendipity for lack of a better expression? Well, I think that, first of all, anyone who can tell you exactly what all these places did to end up in the situation that they face is either on an admissions committee and is speaking from direct first-hand knowledge about that university, none of us can know for sure exactly what's going on. What we do know is that the Supreme Court did carve out this space through the essay writing process where someone could identify their own individual relationship to their racial identity, and so the extent to which the use of the essay in Yale and Princeton may have tipped the scales towards maintaining their goals, it could be, but I don't know. So the two things that we have heard most talk about, this is leading up to the decision and subsequent to the decision that could possibly restore some more balance to the diversity numbers, was one taking into account socioeconomic status, like to know your thoughts about that, and another approach which amazingly is one that is favored by a guy who was a beneficiary of affirmative action, but now hates affirmative action, that'd be Clarence Thomas, the system in Texas where the top 10% graduates of all the high schools are eligible for admission, I assume, to UT or whatever. What do you think of either of those, Khalil-Jabrah Muhammad? I think that the UT system has been successful, I'm sorry, not the UT, but the Texas system has been successful in terms of 10%, obviously the amount of segregation that exists in society based on where people live has a dramatic effect on where people attend school, particularly public schools, and as a consequence, it has been successful in Texas in terms of maintaining levels of representation on those campuses. It also rewards high achieving people who are black and brown from public schools that might not otherwise attend by simple virtue of their competing amongst their peers. In other words, they're high performing within the context in which they're attending schools based on all the layers of disadvantages that we know. And there's been an old saw, for example, that basically says, and it is true, that typically students coming from backgrounds where they have greater barriers to educational opportunity tend to bring that hustle and that sense of accomplishment overcoming those barriers into these universities. Listen, there's a way in which to critique the existing policies of race-based admissions, not on the terms that the Supreme Court did, which is to throw out essentially the actual meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, but to critique it on the basis of it may not have actually been the most sophisticated way to ensure that the opportunity structures to a league or selective schools was most efficient and effective. Our colleague here at GBH Shirley Leung wrote a great column today, and one of many great columns today. It sort of works at the globe, too, you know what I mean? She does. She works at the Boston Globe. She's business column is there, but I consider her a colleague because she's so great with us. Anyway, this just, I've said this to you before Khalil. I mean, I think of Harvard University, and my alma mater, Stanford, is up there, too. It's pretty, pretty important, you know, colleges in the country, sets the laws down. They're loaded. You know, Harvard's loaded, Stanford's not as loaded, but it's pretty loaded that they could stand up to some of these forces against them. I'm always surprised that they don't, anyway. Her point is, Claudine Gay, people are members. She was the first African American to be present, black women to be present, of Harvard University, and she's gone, pushed out basically, but six of the seven major leadership appointments at the university since she left have gone to white people, and four of those new appointments are Jewish people. So what's going on here? Well, the decision-makers in terms of the future, at least the near-term future of Harvard University have reversed course. There's really no other way to put it. An effort to take the oldest university, almost 400 years old, to have it better reflect in its faculty and administrators, the actual population of undergraduates, has now essentially been brought to a screeching halt. In my own reporting structure, I now report to a dean who is wonderful guy, Jeremy Weinstein, came from Stanford. He's a white guy, he's Jewish. The provost, John Manning, who came from Harvard Law School, who is a conservative, in terms of having once clerked for Antonin Scalia, no problem there, but white guy's Jewish. My executive vice president of the university, also Jewish, and Alan Garber, the president. So take it for what it's worth. People will say, well, they all learned their right to be there, and anybody else who was not a white person should be questioned as to how they arrived there. But that is a fact. And the truth is that Harvard University, across most of its faculty ranks, remains a very white and male institution. So the only way you get to change those numbers in terms of decision-making and leadership is to make sure that the undergraduate and graduate populations are also continuing to push and provide the kind of quality, excellent education, even for an elite institution so that one day those leaders will actually have the opportunity structure, well, once again, there will be a black or brown or an Asian or Latino leader of this university. So the intimation by Shirley and her piece, or at least some people with whom she spoke, suggested that the large number of Jewish leaders was a function of an attempt to appease donors after what happened last year. Do you subscribe to that school of thought? I think I'd be a fool not to ask the question again. Any of us who are part of understanding how the world works, and particularly within a university context, have to ask these questions. So in a world where it's okay for an entire party in this country, the Republican Party in this instance, and many voters believe that Claudine Gay was selected because she was black and therefore didn't deserve the opportunity, I think it is fair to ask the question to what extent did donor pressure and political pressure compel the current leadership of the university to appoint a number of significant Jewish leaders at this time? Did you mention Marjorie that of the six or seven, this is from Shirley Leung's piece, six or seven leadership members teamed or white, three of them replaced black people who were in the positions before, which is even to me more jarring. What do you make of that, Khalil? Well again, I mean, people, listen, if Jonathan Swain was here for this conversation, he'd say that each instance of leadership change is its own story. So okay, fine. That being said, Michelle Williams, who was the Dean of Chan, Bridget Terry Long, who was the Dean of the Education School, and of course, Claudine Gay, who had been the Dean of Faculty Arts and Sciences. Each one of them does have their own particular story, but that doesn't change the fact that Larry Bacal, who appointed each, actually Michelle Williams was appointed by Drew Faust, but in the case of Bridget Terry Long and Claudine Gay, it was Larry Bacal, who appointed them. I spoke to Larry many years ago. He was very proud of his commitment to diversifying the leadership ranks of this university, and he himself is a Jewish man. So the fact that they were followed up with the same profile that we've seen at this university for hundreds of years is to some degree troubling. She raises another great point about black scholars, you're a black scholar, and you're leaving Harvard to go to Princeton. She asks in her column, what star black scholar would want to hold a position of power at Harvard right now? They would have targets on their back. Do you agree with her? Absolutely. There's no question about it. I mean, listen, when four significant African-American women have been targeted by the university, and yes, I include Claudine Gay in that number down to an untinured sociology professor whose reputation was attacked in a way that didn't hold up to third party scrutiny, and yet the mere accusation of plagiarism for a person at that stage of the career can be ruinous to that person's professional career. So if I'm looking on the sidelines wondering what is the culture of Harvard University for black faculty, staff, and administrators, especially when there have been very few if no public statements in defense of the black community at Harvard in terms of faculty and administrators, I would think twice about coming to this university as well, and I would advise people to do so. By the way, you're sick of us mentioning this, but you're one of those people. For those who haven't heard our prior discussions with a professor here, he was singled out by Virginia Fox, the chair of the committee, that did all this interviewing, questioning of the university presidents, and he was singled out as the root of the problem there at Harvard University. And you didn't get much support from the leadership of your university in the wake of that. Did you or did you? Certainly no support from Garber or any senior leaders of the university. The dean of the Kennedy School, who's now a former dean, Doug Almondor did, it sent me some notes of encouragement. So I will have to give him credit. Private notes of encouragement or public support. I can send you a private note if you want a private note. Fair enough. Fair enough. You didn't let that one slip off. Okay. So there's one, I just want to say one other thing about Shirley's column, which is fabulous. I called Shirley about it this morning. You always was most upset, well, not most upset, every part of it was upsetting. I said something like, why did you only speak to this guy? And that'd be you. And do you know what her answer was? You guessed what her answer was. What was it? She couldn't get anyone else to talk. Yeah. That is really at Harvard University with a lot of tenured souls who theoretically have strong opinions. Nobody else would talk on the record where Shirley Young about this. I just want to ask you, I asked you this before, but I'll ask you again because I think it's such a fundamental question. As I said before, Harvard has got, was it a dominant, some incredible... Fifty billion? Fifty billion. Fifty billion. And I think you would say it's the most famous university, you should say, four hundred years old in the country. Why is it knuckling under like this? So you know what I mean? They gotta know that this is looking pretty bad. I mean, I think it speaks to, I mean, so if you're responsible for Harvard at this point, you might take the view that we are as prestigious and as wealthy and as powerful as we are precisely because we know how to manage through crises and we know that being conservative in times of tumult and crises is the way to actually properly manage this university, to be good fiduciary in the terms of board management leadership over an organization like that. My guess, a total guess, is that is baked into the culture of the university. Right at odds would say Michael Roth, who is the president of Wesleyan University, who has essentially called Harvard cowardice for its position and punishing expressive activity on his campus going forward this year and in the future. By the way, we have raw sound and this is in response to the Harvard maintaining a position which I hope you can explain to us again of neutrality on, I don't know if it's non-core issues, you'll explain it to us in a minute. Here he is talking to CNN's audit Cornish last Thursday about Harvard's leadership deciding to stay out of a lot of controversial political issues. Here he is. They think Trump might win and if he wins and you say the wrong thing, they'll come after you and if you say nothing, they won't come after you. They'll just come after your undocumented students, they'll come after you, they may come after your gay students, they will come after your students of color and you're not going to say anything. To me it is cowardice, it's an application responsibility. I never heard of this guy, he's my new hero. What is the policy of neutrality and to what does it apply at Harvard now? Sometime over the summer, Harvard adopted a policy that had been in place at the University of Chicago for decades since the late 1960s in the midst of that university's own anti-war protest inspired by criticism by students of the Warren Vietnam. In a nutshell, the policy essentially says that the university shall no longer take positions, often positions of empathy in the case of world tragedy, war or other significant global events including domestic ones of which students often make demand on the university to speak in solidarity of one point of view or another. This notion of institutional neutrality essentially says that because these are always highly charged and sometimes partisan issues where there is no clear position in the world, Harvard would inevitably alienate one part of its constituency or another and therefore we will no longer take positions. By the same token, they have maintained a commitment at least to speaking on matters that pertain directly to the function of the university and perhaps to some degree higher education more generally, which by the way would include all the madness that is going on with the Committee on Education and Workforce Development which is attacking higher education or in the case of JD Vans who has literally promised to destroy universities for the liberal takeover that they represent, in which case most of what we are talking about today pertains directly to the university in its future. Where did JD Vans go to school or forget? Where did he go to school again? I can't remember. Where did he go? Yeah, I lost school. Yeah, I lost school. What a coincidence. It was amazing. Yeah, you often wonder what, you know, we criticize as so many people criticize schools like Harvard and Yale for being so ultra liberal and yet some of our most rabid conservatives came out of Harvard and yeah, like a Vans, you got Josh Hawley, right Ted Cruz, DeSantis, I mean, I don't know, there must be a little corner somewhere that they're all hanging out together, I guess that's it. Well, it is the perfect expression of hypocrisy. Here these individuals, by dent of all the hard work that they participated in, I'm not criticizing them on those terms, use the privilege and platform associated with their own educational pedigree to then use their influence to try to shut down the pipeline for others behind them. And one could argue potentially that Ted Cruz and others, DeSantis, would not be up in arms about Harvard and its prestige but for the fact that these universities have caught up with the world we live in, which is a world where the majority of people are of color, which is the world where the majority of those people of color have been on the short end of resource extraction and power imbalances tied to slavery and colonialism and that the world is changing. And for most of us, that's a good thing. But for them, it's not. And they are turning this into a political fight where the existential realities of higher education in this country are under the greatest assault perhaps that they've ever been in. And in fact, I mentioned JD Vance, but Donald Trump is campaigning now on promising to use the full weight of the federal purse and the accreditation process and partly inspired by Project 2025 to change the way that universities get accreditation, which would then create a chilling effect or incentivize them to roll back so many gains that have unfolded over the past four decades. This is not something that we can look a scan set as just the kind of anxieties of privileged elites hidden behind their Ivy League gates. This will change fundamentally the way truth is established in this country and all the policies that flow from fact finding that is required for us to understand how to live in this world, including the science of climate change. Thanks for listening to the Best of Boston Public Radio podcast from GBH. Our crew is Zoe Matthews, Aidan Conley, Nicole Garcia, Hamilloss, our engineer is John the Claw Parker, our executive producer is Jamie Bologna. You want to hear the full show, download our full show podcast, or tune into 89/7 GBH 11 to 2 each weekday. Today's episode was produced by Zoe Matthews. [MUSIC PLAYING]