In the Cross-Hairs

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/us/politics/trump-to-pause-175-million-for-university-of-pennsylvania-over-transgender-policy.html

("White House Plans to Pause $175 Million to Penn Over Transgender Policy")

The "not doing enough" offense. Another of Mr. Trump's thumb on the scales maneuvers as he seeks to punish universities who do not fit his definition of acceptable.

"Elite" schools long in the cross-hairs of the Republicans. Harvard, Columbia, Penn, MIT having first suffered the enmity of this party for insufficient reaction to the turmoil that ensued on their campuses in the wake of October 7, 2023. Their respective school Presidents subject to Congressional tongue lashing by those like Elise Stefanik. A scarlet letter of shame, and for some, expulsion their penalty.

And now, Mr. Trump exerting his power to bring financial retribution to those who don't meet his subjective standards with their stance on protests, to the overall makeup of their student body, to their response to having a transgender athlete in their midst. In the process he tramples over any notion of freedom of speech or of equal rights. Creating censorship and making these educational institutions nothing but unwilling participants in Mr. Trump's war on Constitutional protections and democratic principles.

Lia Thomas, a former transgender student-athlete at Penn, still Mr. Trump's poster child for all that is wrong with accepting the concept of transgender persons as worthwhile members of our society. His "two genders" mandate a denouncement of this community and of anyone who does not follow his lead with sufficient purpose.

His reach breathtaking in scope. And absolutely devastating in consequence.