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The Trump Administration is currently pursuing a consent decree that would place Columbia University under direct federal judicial oversight regarding its handling of antisemitism on campus. According to recent reporting, DOJ lawyers in the administration's antisemitism taskforce are seeking this legal arrangement, which would grant a federal judge the authority to monitor Columbia's compliance with agreements made to combat antisemitism. The consent decree, if implemented, would enable a federal judge to: hold Columbia in contempt of court if the university fails to comply with federal guidelines, impose substantial financial penalties for non-compliance, and maintain oversight potentially for years, creating long-term federal supervision of university policies.

This legal mechanism has historically been used to address civil rights violations in municipal police departments, such as in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, but hasn't been tried before in the context of higher education.

This is a good idea, and could form part of a broader strategy to pressure the university, but your correspondent still thinks the Administration should go all the way and put the Ivy League universities in conservatorship.

Policy News You Need To Know

#ChipsAct — In a combined Biden-Trump win, Nvidia has announced that it will manufacture Americanmade "AI supercomputers" and its latest generation of AI chips at TSMC's factory in Arizona.

#Energy — President Trump has signed a comprehensive set of executive orders seeking to bring coal back into the electricity generation mix of the United States, after its share of generation dropped from over half of electricity 25 years ago to around 16% today. Environmentalists will howl. But the President has set his energy agenda as clear as day: lower prices. That means things like nuclear, but it also means things like coal. The Institute for Energy Research has more.

#IRS — Senator Ernst has introduced the funnily-named Why Does the IRS Needs Guns Act that would force the IRS to sell its weapons stockpile to pay down the national debt. It's tax season!

#PublicHealth — You may have read about a recent surge of measles in the US. Mainstream media typically wants to tie this to the rise of antivax sentiment, particularly on the right. However, according to Washington Times columnist Cheryl Chumley, putting together local news reports, a more likely culprit is illegal immigration.

#Bipartisanship — The Bipartisan Policy Center has done the good work of trying to find areas of bipartisan agreement on tax reform. The main ones are: lower individual tax rates, doubling the standard deduction, doubling the CTC, and making the employer tax credit for paid family and medical leave permanent.

#PublicPolicy — The Cicero Institute has an interesting brief on the virtues of regulatory cost-benefit analysis.

#Healthcare — A classic from Cato's extremely sharp health policy analyst Michael Cannon: why Kenneth Arrow's 1963 article on health care doesn't say what you think. "As a health reform discussion lengthens, the probability that someone will cite Kenneth Arrow approaches 1. Close behind is the probability that this person will cite Arrow inaccurately."

#PublicSquare — It's Holy Week. Here's an interesting op-ed from Kevin Roberts and William Wolfe encouraging President Trump to reinject Christianity in the public square, per the American tradition.