My column today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Not many people have sympathy for Harvard University in its fight with President Donald Trump. Harvard is rich — with an endowment of more than $50 billion — arrogant, and the school protected neither its Jewish students nor its pro-Palestinian students during demonstrations.

But you should worry about the attack on Harvard.

This was explained for all time by a German Pastor imprisoned by the Nazis in WWII, Martin Niemöller: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Socialist. / Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. / Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. / Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

In other words, you’re next.

The meaning of liberty and law

Americans love to talk about liberty and the rule of law. But what do these things mean?

Liberty means at least that if I do not break the law, it is none of the government’s business what I do. Americans can do what we like without having to please some government official.

The rule of law means at least that the government must follow lawful procedures in prosecuting people, with a judge ultimately deciding whether they acted unlawfully, and, if they did, imposing a punishment limited to sanctions officially set out beforehand.

Trump is violating all of those norms in going after Harvard.

First, Trump demanded that Harvard change its governance structure and what its professors teach in its classrooms or face government sanctions. But how the school is run and what it teaches is none of Trump’s business.

Harvard is a private entity, like you and me. We don’t work for the government and are free to run our own affairs as we see fit unless we have broken the law. So is Harvard University.

Then Trump froze $2.2 billion in Harvard federal research grants, claiming that Harvard had failed to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic violence.

If true, that failure would be a violation of the law. Harvard participates in the federal student loan program and the program obligates the university to run its campus free of religious discrimination.

But there are prescribed procedures to prove such a case and specified sanctions if Harvard is proven to be liable. The case against Harvard has never been proved in this official way and freezing research funds is not an approved sanction.

Research funding has its own rules, which the administration never showed — never offered any evidence at all — to have been broken by Harvard.

The attack on Harvard is as if Trump accused me of bank robbery and then, without my being arrested for or put on trial on that charge, stopped my Social Security payments.

Almost unlimited power

On May 22, the administration increased the stakes by rescinding Harvard’s right to enroll foreign students, claiming that Harvard had not complied with sweeping record requests for foreign students. This was so obviously a retaliatory pretext that one has to call it by its proper criminal law name — blackmail.

The administration was saying, give in to us or face immediate ruinous consequences, even though you might succeed in lawsuits against us eventually. Foreign students are about a quarter of all students at Harvard.

The media have pointed out that there is no way for Harvard really to prevail. The university can sue the Trump administration for every illegal outrage, every violation of its rights.

But the government has an almost unlimited capacity to keep up the pressure for as long as it takes, as witnessed by the most recent cancellation of federal contracts. With a subservient Republican Congress, there will be no removal, and with Supreme Court granted presidential immunity, no later prosecution.

That might not be true of members of the Trump administration, however. A creative Massachusetts prosecutor might charge the Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security with blackmail. They do not share Trump’s total immunity.

Their defense would have to be that they were carrying out valid federal law. But they might have a hard time making that case. And they would have to make that showing in open court, where the whole country could see the venal considerations that have landed Harvard in Trump’s crosshairs.

For Trump is not going after Harvard for law violation. Jewish students are not suffering anti-Semitic violence on Harvard’s campus now. There is no need for immediate sanctions.

Political anger

Trump’s anger against Harvard is political. He has called Harvard and other Ivy League Schools “woke” and “Marxist.” This attack is about going after perceived political enemies. All of it is a challenge to our rights of free speech and association.

I doubt a prosecutor will haul Trump administration officials into state court for trying to blackmail Harvard. Our freedom depends on the American people.

If we don’t care about Harvard’s rights, Trump will win. If we react with the outrage of a free people, Trump will back down. It is up to us, especially those Americans who voted for Trump.

They started with Harvard, but they won’t stop there.

Bruce Ledewitz is a professor of law at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University. He writes every other Monday. The views expressed do not represent those of Duquesne University. His previous article was “A non-believer explains why Catholic conservatives never understood Pope Francis.”