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SAN DIEGO -- I always wondered why Harvard turned out so many lawyers. Now, due to overreach by the Trump administration, I know the answer. It's all the better to sue you with.

My MAGA friends think that President Donald Trump can perform miracles. Yet, as a "Never Trumper" who thinks the con man is desecrating the country, I was skeptical.

Now I believe in miracles. Honestly, I never thought I'd see the day when friends who graduated from Yale, Princeton and Columbia would be rooting for Harvard. All those football, basketball and hockey rivalries are suddenly just water under the bridge.

Trump has united colleges and universities throughout the United States against a common enemy: him. He achieved this feat through an aggressive power grab that seems intended to create a side hustle for him as the pseudo-czar of U.S. higher education.

Naturally. Why shouldn't the carnival barker who got sued for cheating and defrauding students who forked over their life's savings to attend Trump University, and then lost everything when the enterprise went bankrupt, be in charge of colleges and universities in this country?

Trump's attack on higher education was predictable. During his first term, scholars at some of America's most elite colleges and universities criticized many of his policies and treated him with hostility. Since the second term is about getting even, the Trump administration is retaliating against academia by launching what amounts to a hostile takeover.

The U.S. Department of Education wants to decide who colleges and universities admit, pick who they hire, approve curriculum, stifle student-led protests and control just about every aspect of campus life. On orders from the White House, the federal education bureaucracy that Trump has said he intends to dismantle became the equivalent of the schoolyard bully.

Any school that refuses to surrender control and pushes back runs the risk of losing federal funding. This includes mutually beneficial research grants that better all of society by making possible medical breakthroughs and scientific discoveries. Several universities quickly bent the knee in February, when the administration first threatened to yank federal funding from any college or university that considers race or ethnicity in any aspect of student life.

Harvard refused. Instead, my alma mater resolved to fight the bully. In the last several weeks, the oldest college in the United States -- and one of the most prestigious in the world -- has sued the administration not once but twice.

The first lawsuit was over $2.2 billion in research grants and contracts that the U.S. Department of Education yanked after Harvard refused to surrender to the power grab. The second was in response to the administration's attempt to prevent Harvard from enrolling international students -- a move that appears to be intended to punish Harvard for its defiance by attacking a cohort that makes up a quarter of the school's enrollment.

Trump seems to consider foreign students to be a national security threat and a group that is prone to antisemitism. But apparently, that's true only if they're studying in Cambridge. The administration is giving international students the option of transferring to another U.S. university or returning to their home country.

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs recently blocked the ban on foreign students, saying it was a form of retaliation against Harvard and thus violated the First Amendment.

The fact that Harvard is standing its ground against Trump is on brand. Someone has to slay the dragon. And that line of work is definitely in the school's wheelhouse.

Harvard President Alan Garber recently gave an interview to National Public Radio -- which, by the way, the administration is also targeting and threatening to defund of public dollars. He defined Harvard's core values as educational excellence and the pursuit of truth.

Garber missed a few things. Harvard is also about seeking justice, challenging the powerful and fighting tyranny.

John Adams (class of 1755) was the first of eight U.S. presidents who graduated from Harvard. He didn't back down from battling the British empire, even though the odds were against the colonists. That courage set the tone for all the Harvard graduates that wound up in the White House.

Meanwhile, the administration is now seeking to end all federal contracts with Harvard, which total about $100 million.

Expect more lawsuits -- and more wins for Harvard. Any other university in the country would be woefully outmatched in a war with the mighty U.S. government. But, with Harvard, this is a fair fight. I have to say, I like our chances.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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