I ended yesterday’s blog post with “Until my next blog post, which I hope won’t be until next week…,” but here I am posting again today.

I could write 1,000 words about today’s topic, but I’ll just stop with the following 168 words.

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Harvard University

Yesterday, US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem informed Harvard University that it can no long accept international students unless it meets all the Trump Administration’s demands in 72 hours.

One of those demands to for the university to give Noem films of all student protests that have taken place over the last five years.

International students make up 27% of the undergraduate and graduate student body of Harvard. That’s more than 7,000 students who now must transfer to another university or go home.

Under the guise of punishing Harvard’s leadership for not punishing antisemitic activity, Trump is going out of his way to hurt not only the international students but all the students, faculty, and the ideals of higher education in the United States.

This is not technically blackmail under US law because Trump is not demanding money from Harvard, but I do believe it meets the spirit of the law.

Other words that come to mind are extortion and coercion.

Or perhaps exaction.

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Until my next blog post

Let’s all just try to have a peaceful weekend, as Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of summer in the United States.

Janet