Chapter 3 discussed the mechanisms for enforcing spending laws absent private litigation--the federal government stripping funds. This is unwieldy and unhelpful for reasons we discussed in class.
But this article (around p. 30) goes a step further--stripping funds is unhelpful to enforcing civil rights laws but useful for a president to use the threat to strip money (and the pretext of civil rights enforcement) to abuse his political opponents or critics. The authors argue this is what the Trump Administration is doing with Harvard, Northwestern, Columbia, and other universities. They propose that Congress eliminate fund-stripping as a remedy in favor of more vigorous private enforcement of civil rights laws (presumably by creating an express private right of action to override the recent narrowing of § 1983.
