Two weeks ago, Harvard student journalists Saketh Sundar and Avani Rai were sitting in the newsroom complaining they didn't have enough stories to write.
Now the 19-year-olds are working overtime for student newspaper The Harvard Crimson to cover the escalating fight between America's oldest and richest institution and the most powerful man in the world.
"It's been a wild ride," Avani said.
"In the past couple of weeks, everything kind of flipped on its head.
"I don't think either of us predicted just how fast and just how large the impact of the Trump administration would have on our university's finances."
The pair has been at the forefront of the fallout of US President Donald Trump's ordering of a freeze on $US2.2 billion ($3.45 billion) of federal funding to Harvard.
That costly decision was made after the federal government sent the institution a list of demands last week, ordering it to reform its hiring, admission and teaching practices.
The demands stem from what the White House characterises as a crackdown on antisemitism on college campuses.
Harvard's president has rejected the letter as overreach and said it has already made extensive changes to address antisemitism.
"The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights," Alan Garber wrote to the university's community.
Some other requests included a face mask ban, cancelling diversity programs and increased policing on campus.
Harvard law professors sue over 'authoritarian' attacks
Since Harvard defied the US president's demands, his ire has grown.
Mr Trump has threatened to remove the university's tax exemption, typically afforded to charities, religious organisations and colleges, and has threatened to ban it from enrolling international students.
Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem has accused the school of having an "anti-American, pro-Hamas ideology".
The Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing its requests breach free speech rights and are unconstitutional.
"If you look at the demand letter he actually sent to my university … those bullets have so many things that are demands that have nothing to do with antisemitism," Harvard law professor Andrew Crespo said.
"He wants to appoint a federal overseer for Harvard University to audit all of our courses, to audit all of our departments to see if they meet his definition of ideological balance.
"In other words, he wants to see what we're teaching, and he wants to change what we're teaching … he wants to make sure we're only asking questions that he wants to ask and giving the answers that he wants to be giving."
"That is not about antisemitism, that's about authoritarianism."
It's put the university at the forefront of a broader political battle between the US government and the country's higher education institutions.
Columbia University in New York was one of the first to be targeted by the administration which threatened to strip $US400 million in funding.
It conceded to several demands including overhauling protest and security policies and the university's Middle Eastern studies department.
Princeton, Cornell, Brown are among some of the historic universities that have also had funding threatened or suspended.
In total 60 universities are being reviewed by the administration.
"We have seen this playbook play out time and again across the globe and across history when people come into power and want to hold that power contrary to the norms of a constitutional democracy, they attack the institutions that are central parts of civil society," Professor Crespo said.
"Why do they attack universities? Because universities thrive on and exist for the open exchange and debate of ideas."
Activist students targeted by the US government
The administration also accuses several student groups in engaging in antisemitic activity and calls for the university to cease supporting them.
Corinne Shanahan is the co-president of the National Lawyers Guild which is named in the letter.
She refutes the administration's accusations of the association she leads.
"It's an organisation across the country that cares about leftist law issues and defends the rights of protesters," the 30-year-old said.
"It's not a surprise that Trump has taken aim at us."
The third-year law student was arrested last year at a nearby university for taking part in a pro-Palestinian encampment protest.
Protesters have become a target of the federal government too.
Immigrants who have previously vocally expressed political views or have participated in college campus activism have been arrested and detained.
In March former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested outside his home and is facing deportation.
While studying he was a prominent student figure in pro-Palestinian protests on campus and led negotiations with the university and student groups.
Although being born in Syria, he is married to an American and became a permanent resident last year.
In Massachusetts, only kilometres away from Harvard, Turkish national Rumeysa Öztürk was detained by federal officers.
The 30-year-old was enrolled at Tufts University and co-wrote an op-ed piece last year criticising her university's response to student demands that Tuft "acknowledge the Palestinian genocide".
As an American citizen, Ms Shanahan says she is not worried about herself but is concerned about the heightened risk for international students.
"I'm worried about people who will face severe consequences … and the people whose names you'll never know," she said.
"This is why I went to school; this is the kind of work to do fighting back against oppression of people who are marginalised."
Ms Shanahan said while she is happy Harvard defied the government's demands, she was critical about Harvard's crackdown on protesters over the past two years, which has included suspending students access to university resources.
Mia Stone-Molloy is Jewish and a first-year law student who had been suspended temporarily from accessing the law school's library after participating in pro-Palestinian rallies on campus.
"I have felt far more victimised as a Palestinian activist versus as a Jewish student."
Funding freeze having immediate impact
Inside the Crimson newsroom Saketh and Avani have been hitting the phones and have broken stories about the funding freeze impacts.
Their stories have been cited by the likes of The New York Times and CNN.
"We immediately started reaching out to researchers all over the university, at the med school, at the public health school trying to see what the on-the-ground impacts would be," Saketh said.
Benjamin Daniels is a first-year doctoral student studying public health and says he's been directly hit by the pause.
"We had a program where we were working on improving care for hepatitis and general medical care in Vietnam … we lost a lot of the grant that was funding that," he said.
"It's insulting, I mean I can't say that the people who are taking the money away have ever saved a life in their lives."
Professor Crespo says the demands keep increasing as part of a tactic the president is employing to coerce institutions to "bend to his will and get them to kiss the ring".
"These attacks are extreme. They're severe. They're dangerous to the institution and they're unlawful."
He hopes filing this lawsuit will demonstrate to other universities that it is possible to take a stand because "demonstrating courage together can breed more courage".
"I'm proud to see that our university is standing tall because it takes tremendous moral courage to stand up in the face of threats that are real and serious and frightening.
"The Trump administration's strategy is to try to divide and conquer, to pick off one institution after the other. The only way to withstand that is to stand together."
