The fallout from Trump's war on Harvard will outlast his term

The US president's ramped-up threats are seen by many as an attempt to reshape a stronghold of the left. Could he succeed?

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"Harvard's got to behave themselves," he told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. "Harvard is treating our country with great disrespect, and all they're doing is getting in deeper and deeper and deeper."

When combined with other administration attempts – freezing more than $3bn in research grants and suspending foreign students from enrolling in Harvard – Trump's directives represent a frontal attack on one of America's most prestigious, and wealthy, institutions of higher education.

Even if court challenges overrule some of these actions – some have already been put on hold – the impact is being felt across the landscape of American higher education.

"They're doing multiple things every single day, some of those things are sneaking through," says Greg Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors. "But more importantly, they're changing the culture. They're changing people."