Hacker News Reader

You're overthinking this. The university is vocal about keeping its independence. That's enough to warrant retaliation from this president.

Or, perhaps more simply, the days of the "Good Ol' Boys" who all went to the same power school and use that as a way to influence politics are over?

I'm reminded of the infamous George Carlin bit "It's a big club, and you ain’t in it"[1]. Maybe not anymore... and that's a most likely a good thing.

Going by Occam's razor, grandparent's hypothesis is more likely to be correct than yours.

It's also the pinnacle university, at least in optics.

It is like getting Zuck to kneel and donate $1M. Once he did that, everyone else donated a $1M and peaced out.