Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday on the grounds that a recent $2bn (£1.5bn) funding freeze was unlawful. It is the most significant act of resistance taken by a US college in response to Trump’s crackdown on higher education.

Ed Pilkington, chief reporter for Guardian US, explains to Michael Safi that capitulating to Trump’s demands would have severely undermined Harvard’s reputation, and that the administration was targeting it for being a bastion of liberal thought.

As Pilkington describes, at the same time Trump is tapping into a deep seam of resentment towards higher education that has been building in the US as the cost of college attendance rockets and more people see the liberal ideas emerging from universities as irrelevant to their lives.

The pair discuss the way Harvard is trying to appeal to the public by highlighting its contributions to society and whether the ultimate survival of higher education’s autonomy will be determined by the law courts or the court of public opinion.

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