The Trump administration has escalated its attacks on Columbia University. In a letter to the nonprofit that accredits Columbia, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights asks for the school’s accreditation to be canceled and accuses Columbia of violating the rights of Jewish students by “acting with deliberate indifference” toward reports of harassment during campus protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Meanwhile, President Trump on Wednesday moved to block nearly all international students from attending Harvard University — taking a separate approach this time, after a federal court in Boston blocked a similar effort by the Department of Homeland Security last week. Trump’s new effort invokes national security as a rationale. In a statement, Harvard officials rejected the freeze on international scholars as “yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the Administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights.”