I'm Christopher Leiden, and this is open source tracking President Trump's squeeze on higher education.

And the argument in the Ivy League, whether or not to make a fight of it.

First, Columbia surrendered under a Trump threat to cut $400 million in federal funding.

Then Princeton said, no way, we'll fight your flimsy charges to the end.

And then Harvard, with $9 billion at stake, tried gentle engagement with the Trump inquiry,

until 800 of its professors and staff said, no way, when free expression and democracy are at risk.

What's required, they said, is open, coordinated resistance,

which gives the rest of us time to learn what this fight is all about.

Ryan Enos is a young professor in Harvard's government department.

You're in the thick of it.

You were among the first of the 800 signers of that petition, Brian.

What's the fight about? And where is it going? Well, in many ways, I think we think this fight is just about

whether or not professors can say things, whether or not people like myself have academic freedom.

And we should definitely talk about that. Or have a job even.

Oh, have a job even. Absolutely. Some people's jobs are at risk. And there's, of course,

risk for graduate students. There's risk for undergraduate students. And we've seen some of that

already in this country. But in many ways, this fight is about something much larger than

universities. What this fight is about is it's about democracy and it's about an authoritarian

attack on civil society.

And universities are just part of that.

What we see here is we see a pattern that we've seen over and over again when

authoritarian have tried to take power in countries.

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