What the Washington Post’s Platforming of Kristi Noem Tells Us About Free Expression and the Motivation of the Trump Administration’s Harvard Obsession
The article is a thinly veiled threat to Harvard—and by extension, to the broader community of American universities.
The Washington Post’s decision to publish Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s June 23 op-ed—ominously titled “Harvard flouted the rules. Now it’s getting a hard lesson”—should concern every American who values academic freedom, institutional independence, and the First Amendment. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/23/kristi-noem-harvard-foreign-students-dhs-restriction/
The article is a thinly veiled threat to Harvard—and by extension, to the broader community of American universities. As alumni, scholars, and citizens, we must recognize it for what it is: an assault on the First Amendment masquerading as immigration enforcement.
This is largely directed at Harvard to make people believe that the triumph of the Trump Administration is inevitable. It builds on the perplexity among the intellectual elite that Republican politicians are entirely subservient and must comply with the MAGA agenda or face retribution and retaliation. It’s about dominance. It’s about who gets to educate America’s students—and under what constraints. It’s about sending a message to university administrators, faculty, and even parents: cross the ideological line, and you will be punished.
What makes the Washington Post’s platforming of Noem’s propaganda so troubling is that it attempts to show that the paper has granted the Trump Administration the one thing it lacks: credibility. Under its new editorial leadership, the paper has seen a quiet exodus of serious journalists.
What once claimed to be a bulwark of democracy has, in this instance, become a vessel for state propaganda. The Trump Administration already enjoys a media ecosystem that includes Fox, Newsmax, Sinclair, and a swarm of algorithmically juiced social media channels. It didn’t need help from the Post.
It is hard not to miss the disturbing trend of impacting institutions being cowed into silence or submission, as well as efforts to silence NPR and PBS. Look no further than the case of ABC News. Earlier this year, Donald Trump granted an interview to veteran ABC correspondent Terry Moran. The exchange was classic Trump:
Moran asked about manipulated images used to falsely portray asylum seeker Kilmar Abrego García as a gang member.
Trump responded with disdain: “I chose you because I’ve never heard of you.”
When pressed about his confidence in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Trump dismissed the question as “stupid.”
Shortly after the interview aired, Moran tweeted that Stephen Miller was a “world-class hater.” ABC didn’t just scold him—it ended his nearly 30-year career. Whether they admit it or not, the message was clear: journalism has its limits when the price of honesty is too high.
As Legal AF host Michael Popok put it in his June 20 episode:
“[Donald] Trump’s main 'co-president' for Domestic Policy and real homeland security secretary, Stephen Miller, is the reason that ICE is gassed, with low morale, over budget by $1 billion dollars already, and diverted from actually protecting Americans from criminal migrants, as they instead chase human beings through Home Depot and 7-11 parking lots at his direction.” See Michael Popok, “Trump Agency Runs Out of Gas as it All Goes Wrong,” Legal AF, June 20, 2025. at https://michaelpopok.substack.com/p/trump-agency-runs-out-of-gas-as-it?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=48mla&triedRedirect=true
That’s the real DHS—not the one pretending to defend public order from Harvard undergrads.
Let’s be candid: the Trump Administration’s campaign against Harvard is not just cynical. It is authoritarian in design. It seeks to control educational institutions by holding their budgets, credentials, and student visas hostage. This is not “policy.” It is retribution.
And let us not overlook the racial and xenophobic overtones.
Foreign students—27% of Harvard’s student body—are portrayed not as contributors but as threats. Yet these students add incalculable value to our universities and our country. They bring new ideas, strengthen our scientific and economic networks, and often become lifelong allies of the United States. Many pay full tuition, contribute billions to local economies, and join research teams tackling everything from climate change to artificial intelligence.
Enter the surreal case of Ksenia Petrova, a Russian biologist now facing federal prosecution for allegedly “smuggling frog embryos.” The charge would be comical if it weren’t so transparently political. This isn’t about biosecurity. It’s about optics. It’s about turning scholars into suspects and scholarship into subversion.
And still, the Administration draws a through-line between frog embryos and fentanyl—weaponizing public health crises to justify xenophobic targeting. But prosecuting researchers for technical infractions is not justice. It’s MAGA entertainment, the modern-day equivalent of bread and circuses.
This is how authoritarianism creeps in—not with martial law, but through bureaucratic precision and symbolic scapegoats. If Ms. Petrova were a researcher at a state university in a red-state, a phone call from the governor would resolve the matter. The prosecution of researchers, especially at Harvard, irrespective of potential benefits to the U.S., including the defense and public health sectors, signals that curiosity is dangerous. The firing of journalists warns that truth-telling has boundaries.
This is how authoritarianism gains ground: not with tanks in the street, but with bureaucratic tools and public scapegoats. The attack on Harvard is meant to intimidate. The prosecution of researchers is meant to silence. The firing of journalists is meant to deter opposition in any forms, not only writers and reporters, but their sources as well.
The First Amendment does not defend itself. It tops the Bill of Rights for a reason—and unlike the Ten Commandments, it is enforceable law, not ancient inscription. One need only witness the evasive, smug, and often nauseating testimony of Trump Administration officials on Capitol Hill to see how little regard they have for its protections, especially when those protections are invoked by persons who challenge their authority.