Brian Ler on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone.

So have you been listening to On the Media the last few weeks, season two of the miniseries,

The Harvard Plan, by way of background in season

one, they explored the history of how the political right has been at odds and at times

trying to dismantle the credibility of institutions of higher education. Made in partnership with

the Boston Globe, the series focused on the tenure of Harvard's first black president, Claudine Gay,

and how she was pushed out of her position in the wake of the protests against the war in Gaza.

This new season explores how the Trump administration is attempting to force Harvard and many other universities

to change

their policies by freezing billions of dollars in federal research funding, launching several

investigations into DEI initiatives that the administration thinks are discriminatory

toward white students and threatening international student enrollment.

So Ilya Merritt's is back as reporter on part two of this story that is season two,

and he joins us now.

Some of you will remember that Ilya was co-host of the Trump Inc. podcast during Donald Trump's first term and the Will Be Wild podcast about the events leading up to January 6th.

Now he's with the Boston Globe and doing this series for the Globe and OTM on the media.

Hey, Ilya, welcome back to WNYC.

Hey, Brian. Great to be here.

Remind people of the very basics here.

What gave you the idea for the Harvardvard plan what were you first setting out to explore in season one yeah so i i just happened to be

like a visiting fellow at harvard in the fall of uh 2023 which is when harvard got first black president, as you said, Claudine Gay.

And listeners may remember pretty quickly she stumbled into just a kind of a multi-dimensional

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