Alan Dershowitz says no legal ground for schools to sue Trump as taxpayer money must not fund political programs

Amid ongoing debates over political bias in academia, attorney Alan Dershowitz said on Newsmax Friday that there is no legal basis for universities to use taxpayer funds to support political programs.

Following allegations of antisemitism and pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University, the Trump administration reportedly decided to cut $400 million in federal funding to the institution. In an appearance on “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Dershowitz said that he’s ready to defend the Trump administration as no school is entitled to fund its political programs.

“There’s always going to be legal challenges. I want to volunteer publicly to defend the Trump administration against legal challenges as long as there’s no interference with free speech and First Amendment rights,” Dershowitz said when asked if he expects legal challenges to some of the Trump administration’s actions. “No college or university has the right to have taxpayer money fund its political programs. And so I think if there is a legal challenge, I will help defend it if I’m asked, and I think they will fail.”

Dershowitz also highlighted a trend at major universities where external groups, including those he describes as antisemitic and anti-American, receive significant funding and support. Specifically, he pointed out the presence of Code Pink, an organization he says is backed by the Communist Party of China, which, he said, uses anti-Israeli sentiment to undermine American values and the integrity of higher education.

“In every major university, there’s an organization now called Code Pink, which we know is financed by communist China. It’s by the Communist Party of China, Code Pink. It appears on most American university campuses. They use the anti-Israel sentiment as an excuse. It’s all designed to bring America down. It’s all designed to destroy American higher education,” Dershowitz said.

Dershowitz said these are part of broader efforts by some educational programs to promote leftist ideologies under the guise of academic discourse.

“Qatar sends billions of dollars of conditional funds to American universities conditioned on them hiring biased professors. Yale University today had to fire somebody who, it turns out, is an Iranian spy who was working for Iranian mullahs against America, hired by Yale Law School in its so-called human rights program,” Dershowitz said. “Yale Law School doesn’t have a human rights program. It has a human wrongs program, which is simply designed to promote leftist ideology. We see this at every major university campus, and it has to be rooted out.”

Dershowitz said that this and similar initiatives at other universities are effectively anti-American and antisemitic, aimed at destabilizing traditional Western values.

“It’s not enough to go after the radical professors. These programs, these bureaucracies that teach students about intersectionality, it’s the core of what’s at anti-American, antisemitic, and anti-Western values,” Dershowitz said.

The American Federation of Teachers and the American Sociological Association filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging its efforts to curb diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in educational institutions. They said that a Department of Education memo from Feb. 14, which threatens to cut federal funding for schools engaging in racially discriminatory practices, distorts the legal framework governing the consideration of race in educational settings.

President Donald Trump has actively sought to eliminate DEI and similar subjects from schools and federal agencies by issuing executive orders that prohibit federal funding for these topics. Despite this, numerous school administrators have defied Trump’s directives.

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