This week, in its ongoing negotiations with Harvard over federal funding and (they say!) campus antisemitism, the White House escalated its demands with a lengthy list of frankly insane requests obviously designed to blow up the deal. Naturally, Harvard rejected terms, leaked them to the press, and all of academia rose to the institution’s defense. “Harvard’s objections to the letter it received are rooted in the American tradition of liberty,” said Stanford, “a tradition essential to our country’s universities, and worth defending.” And here I agree. I just continue not to understand when and where and how “liberty” came to be defined as “I am personally forced to pay a communist training facility $2 billion in federal grants.” The thing about public money? The public gets a say in how you do things. If you don’t like that — and it sounds like none of us do — it’s time to part ways.