Fast Takes: Whos really funding higher education, media minimizes leftist violence and more

“The higher-education lobby is trying to block the release of major foreign-donor names,” warns Craig Singleton at The Walls Street Journal.“The administration shouldn’t give in.” Federally funded universities must report large foreign gifts and contracts, but often haven’t.

Past disclosures revealed gifts and contracts worth billions, including $528 million from China in 2025 alone.Other transactions involve entities flagged as national-security threats, also mostly Chinese.

“The Education Department promised to publish ‘the names of all foreign sources from prior reporting cycles.’ Yet it has repeatedly delayed” amid pressure from higher-ed groups.Universities receive “billions in taxpayer support”; publishing names will provide “essential context for assessing” their relationships.

Team Trump mustn’t “let university lobbyists decide where transparency ends.”The threat of “right-wing violence” as a “greater threat” than violent action from the left “rests on a dubious premise,” observes City Journal’s John Tierney, derived from “statistics compiled by advocacy groups” that severely minimize left-wing violence.“Mentally-disturbed lone wolves” can be found on both sides, but “organized violence in pursuit of political goals” is a “recurring strategy” from the left, because “if your main goal is social justice, the moral rules change.” Leftists “have long been willing to overlook or rationalize the mob violence, social upheaval, and ruthless leadership required to impose their vision of the common good.” And when it’s not celebrated, “leftist mob violence tends to be forgotten or blamed on the other side,” as the “Left’s professional activists will always need to find a new demon to rally the troops.”After “the Brexit vote in 2016,” conventional wisdom said non-member nations would “join to avoid the UK’s ‘mistake,’ ” but “Iceland’s referendum on EU accession on ...