Brain Food, for Thought

Greens, Grits, and Higher Education Access

Collards and Swiss chard, wilted down in olive oil with shallot and garlic, simmered in vegetable stock, finished with apple cider vinegar. Cheesy grits underneath.

How much hot sauce on your greens or seasoning in your grits? That’s your call. It’s your kitchen, your table.

Researchers at Rush University Medical Center followed nearly a thousand older adults for five years and found that one serving of leafy greens a day was associated with cognitive function equivalent to being eleven years younger. The nutrients doing the work are vitamin K, lutein, folate, and beta-carotene. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, conducted at a research university.

This is what science produces. The internet. Google, which started as an NSF grant at Stanford. The MRI. PCR tests. CRISPR. The Doppler radar in your weather app. The algorithm that matches kidney donors with recipients. The three-point seatbelt. Narcan. Ozempic. All of it rooted in publicly funded university research that nobody notices until someone tries to take it away.

Right now, somebody is trying to take that away.

Both Sides of Their Mouths

The people leading the demolition of American higher education built their careers on it.

JD Vance: Yale Law School. Yale Law Journal. Mentored by Yale professor Amy Chua, who helped him write Hillbilly Elegy. He now calls universities “the enemy.”

Ron DeSantis: Yale undergraduate, Harvard Law. Those credentials appeared on every campaign document he ever produced. His governorship banned majors in critical race theory, gender studies, queer theory, and intersectionality, engineered a hostile takeover of New College of Florida, and drove over 1,800 faculty out of the University of Florida in a single year.

Tom Cotton: Harvard, twice, magna cum laude. Called for defunding curricula tied to the 1619 Project and wanted the National Guard deployed to Columbia.

Josh Hawley: Stanford with highest honors, Yale Law, Yale Law Journal articles editor, Yale Federalist Society president, clerked for Chief Justice Roberts. Now supports dismantling the Department of Education.

Ted Cruz: Princeton, Harvard Law. He called universities "the most totalitarian institutions in America.

Elise Stefanik: Harvard. She toppled three university presidents in a December 2023 congressional hearing, then published a book this spring calling Harvard “the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education” and calling to cut off its federal funding. Harvard, whose name she has attached to her identity for her entire public career.

Christopher Rufo engineered the anti-DEI campaign behind Trump’s executive orders, the ouster of Harvard President Claudine Gay, and the New College takeover. His official bio lists a master’s from “Harvard University.” It’s from Harvard Extension School, an open-enrollment online program whose credits Harvard College does not accept. Harvard professor Jennifer Hochschild called it “weasel words to try to attach himself to Ivy status and prestige.”

Historian Jeremi Suri put it plainly in 2021: “It is impossible to imagine their careers without the prestige and networks of elite universities.” They used those doors. Now they’re trying to close them.

Details of the Demolition

On April 24, 2026, the White House dismissed the entire 22-member National Science Board by email. “Terminated, effective immediately.” The NSB was established by Congress in 1950. It oversees the National Science Foundation, which has produced or seeded nearly every foundational technology Americans depend on today. Thirteen former NSF directors and board chairs, from both parties, wrote to demand restoration of leadership. Their letter noted that for the first time in history, China is investing more in research and development than the United States. The letter has not been answered.

The FY2027 budget proposes cutting NSF by more than half. Congress rejected the same proposal last year. It’s back.

At NIH, 777 grants worth $1.9 billion were terminated. A peer-reviewed analysis in JAMA Internal Medicine found 383 clinical trials affecting more than 74,000 enrolled patients had been interrupted mid-study. Among the research frozen in the Harvard funding dispute, later ruled unlawfully blocked by a federal court: tuberculosis, ALS, NASA astronaut radiation exposure, and a model to help VA emergency physicians decide whether to hospitalize suicidal veterans.

They want to eliminate the program that has helped millions of poor kids become the first in their family to go to college. They’ve already started.

The GSA proposed requiring every university to certify compliance with the administration’s anti-DEI orders, with personal criminal liability under the False Claims Act for whoever signs.

The American Council on Education’s Jon Fansmith noted: “They’re saying we won’t just deny you the ability to participate in federal programs. We’re going to go after your CEO or CFO or general counsel personally.”

The Yale Study

The Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education released a serious report this spring, and it’s worth using honestly. Public confidence in higher education fell from 57% in 2015 to 36% in 2024. The committee found that colleges bear real responsibility: tuition too high, admissions too opaque, speech culture too chilled. They were right.

The report also found that community colleges are the most trusted part of higher education. Public universities rank above private ones. No sector faces more skepticism than the Ivy League.

The institutions under the most sustained political attack right now — TRIO programs, public HBCUs, minority-serving institutions, community college pipelines — are the ones Americans trust most. The demolition crew isn’t targeting the institutions that earned the public’s frustration. They’re targeting the ones that serve the public that doesn’t have another option.

It’s extraction over reform.

Food for Thought

The greens wilt fast — a few minutes in a hot Dutch oven with olive oil, shallot, and garlic, then simmered in vegetable stock until tender. Vinegar at the end lifts the whole thing. The grits take ten minutes, finished with milk and sharp cheddar. Hot sauce on the table. Everyone seasons their own bowl.

The cook made something nourishing. The family decides the rest.

The government has no business walking into your kitchen and telling you how to season your grits. It has no business walking into a classroom, a research lab, or a university and dictating which ideas are permitted, which studies can be funded, which histories can be taught.

Colleges aren’t perfect. But the solution to an imperfect institution is to make it better, not to hand the wrecking ball to people cashing in on degrees they spent their whole careers borrowing credibility from.

Stock the pantry. Don’t lock the cupboard.

Eat your greens.

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Greens and Grits

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

FOR THE GRITS

• 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

• 1 cup quick-cooking (5-min) grits

• ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

• ½ cup whole milk

• ½ cup shredded Cheddar cheese (3 ounces)

• Salt, to taste

FOR THE GREENS

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 shallot, minced

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• Pinch of red-pepper flakes

• 1 bunch collard greens (12½ ounces), stems removed, leaves cut into 1-inch pieces

• 1 bunch Swiss chard (10 ounces), leaves and stems cut into 1-inch pieces

• Salt and black pepper, to taste

• 1 cup chicken or vegetable stock

• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

• Hot sauce, to serve

Directions:

1. Make the grits: In a medium saucepan, heat the vegetable stock and 2 cups water over medium-high until boiling. Once boiling, slowly pour in the grits while whisking to reduce lumps. Once the grits come to a boil, reduce the heat to maintain a simmer and cook, whisking frequently, until thickened, 5 to 8 minutes.

2. Remove the pan from the stove. Season the grits with the pepper, then stir in the milk and cheese until the cheese melts. Season to taste with salt. Set aside and cover to keep warm.

3. Meanwhile, make the greens: Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high. Add the shallot and garlic, and cook, stirring often, until softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the red-pepper flakes, collards, and chard. Toss to combine until wilted, 3 to 5 minutes. Season with salt, add the vegetable stock, and bring to a simmer.

4. Reduce the heat to maintain a simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the greens are very tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the vinegar, and season again to taste with salt and pepper. Divide the grits among plates and top with the greens and a dash of hot sauce.

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Kitchen Counter Civics is a series where I cook something and break down complex issues. Both of these activities are better when you take your time.

Sources:

Morris MC et al., “Nutrients and bioactives in green leafy vegetables and cognitive decline,” Neurology 2018

Patel VR, Liu M, Jena AB, “Clinical Trials Affected by Research Grant Terminations at the National Institutes of Health,” JAMA Internal Medicine, Nov. 2025

Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education, April 2026

NSF Impacts (nsf.gov/impacts)

Association of American Universities briefing on NIH grant terminations

NPR, Reuters, Higher Ed Dive, Inside Higher Ed.