How Yale escaped the crackdown on higher education

President Trump has made an example of Ivy League universities, attacking, cajoling and fining them in brisk succession.

- Douglas Belkin

There's a notable exception: Yale University.

In New Haven, Conn., the school's conspicuous absence from the crosshairs has become a subject of intense campus speculation-among professors, students and even parents.

"This is the $64,000 question," said Evan Morris, a Yale professor of radiology and biomedical imaging. "My colleagues and I are all looking at each other and waiting for the other shoe to drop."

The question hung over October's Yale Family Weekend, as parents partook of cherished traditions like performances by the Yale Glee Club, lectures by distinguished faculty and tours of the neo-Gothic-style campus.

During a talk with moms and dads, university President Maurie McInnis was asked why Yale had been spared. She said there was no obvious answer, according to the Yale Daily News.

"Whether it is that long tradition, the long tradition we have of encouraging open debate ... or whether it's we're at the end of the alphabet, I don't have that answer," McInnis told the gathering, according to the student paper.

The perception on campus is that McInnis has tried to lay low. Some students have rallied around that tactic. In an exchange on Fizz, a student social-media site open to those with Yale email addresses, classmates reacted to Trump freezing funds at other schools and warned peers to keep their mouths shut and stop protesting the conflict in Gaza, according to screenshots reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

"The only thing continuing to protest will do is to take education and opportunities away from the rest of us," said one post. "Ppl need to stop being stupid and selfish and realize they will gain no ground under this administration on the Israel issue."

'Thoughtful discourse'

When Trump began accusing universities of being Marxist indoctrination factories, Yalies girded themselves. The school has long been known as a progressive bastion.