The initiative adds to the pressure Donald Trump’s administration has already piled on US universities, notably Columbia and Harvard. As it so often does, the administration has latched on to real if minor shortcomings and used them as a fulcrum to advance its own goals. Indeed, Americans well beyond the Maga camp have harboured concerns that universities were too politically homogenous for their own good, let leftwing identity politics chill debate, and bungled their responsibilities in managing protests against Israel.