It is easier to understand their thinking when you combine each pair of demands: what they want is reversals, they've just split each into two steps because they think that will be more palatable. It makes it easier to sell to their own base certainly, because they can concentrate on whichever half has the most emotive effect in any given speech, and easier for their base to parrot: they just repeat the half they want and don't need to think about the other.
The end to current diversity policies and the start of others combined is a demand for u-turn: stop allowing the things we don't like, start allowing the things you were stopping.
Same for speech: stop auditing the speech we want to say, start auditing the speech you were previously allowing.
And so on.
In the minds of the administration it makes sense, because they think of each item separately where there is conflict and together where there is not. Such cognitive dissonance seems to be their natural state of mind, the seem to seek it.
Much like their cries of “but what about tolerance?!”¹ when you mention punching nazis. They want the complete about-turn: LBTQ out, racism/sexism/phobias in. You are supposed to tolerate what they want you to tolerate, and little or nothing else.
--------
[1] My answer there has often become “you didn't want tolerance, you specifically voted against continued tolerance, what you voted for won, intolerance is your democratically chosen desire, who am I to deny the will of your people?”.
Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
[..] The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time [..] was that it might all be true. If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?
[..] It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'
The quotes seem to be from the famous book "1984" by George Orwell. We had it in English literature class in high school.
There are some other famous quotes from that book or one of his other famous books, "Animal Farm".
Writing from memory and googling, so may be wrong:
"Some people are more equal than others."
The society that Winston finds himself in puts forth the slogan, "War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength." The meaning of this phrase is to force confusion upon the members of the Party. It is a form of propaganda, or misleading information typically given by a political party.
According to the article, the original version with "2 + 2 = 5" suggests complete submission to the oppressive regime, with the protagonist's mind being irreversibly altered.
Technically part of the Ministry of Love, Room 101 is the most feared place in all of Oceania and Winston learns far too well that it is here that the …
What is the final message of 1984?
… a warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and the ability of a repressive regime to manipulate and control individuals to the point where they betray ...
I am strongly reminded of my own governments (Sweden) attempts to introduce diversity programs into the school system, only to have each attempt ending in the court system that then finds the programs as discriminatory. In a few examples where they then went and tried to circumvent the anti-discriminatory laws, those attempts tend to favor the wrong demographic and get canceled shortly after. The very concept of favoring or hindering one demographic over an other in terms of grades or admissions are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which is the basis for those laws. It is somewhat understandable why politicians tries to work around laws that protect human rights, but the rulings of the courts are not surprising in the least. For now it seems that most those initiatives has died off with fewer attempts to challenge the courts on this issue.
Strong fundamental laws such as the European Convention on Human Rights exist for a good reason. It prevents political winds from undermining the very pillars that society is built on. It also forces those that want to create exceptions to design their ideas in general form, which has some nice side effects of illuminating contradictions and false premises. If political demonstration on university grounds are disrupting education, then it doesn't matter what political message they are shouting. Either you allow it all, or none of it. If you want to give women higher admission credits in programs where they are a minority, you got to give men higher admission credits in programs where they are a minority. If the consequences of such general rules are not fitting the political winds then the default is return back to the foundation that is human rights.
Sadly America was founded on principles that too 200 years to try and undo. And given the last year alone, they are still stripping rights as we speak. I don't know which fork we turned on that made us so reliable on racism and sexism to function and band together as a country that much of the EU seems to have navigated better. Maybe reconstruction should have had an actual Nuremburg trial instead of "forgiveness" (aka pushing the can down the street until someone could assassinate the one trying to compromise).
the main thing is that it's acceptable, meritorious even, to resent the privileged white male. But a jewish white male, that's racist. Also most white males in the ivies are jewish - the so-called privileged (non-jewish) white male is in fact underrepresented now vs. the general population.
Authoritarian governments are arbitrary governments, all decisions are made arbitrarily. Consistency is unnecessary. That's the trouble with choosing power as a guiding principle over reason or consent.
This comment and the parent’s are the best retorts I’ve seen yet to the “these people are just stupid” idea we hear all the time. These “rules” are not calculated and brilliant, and that’s the point. They’re controlling at any angle they want.
Is there any political tool to prevent rampant rule breaking and making the disliked rulebreaker specially vulnerable? Rule breaking is common and apocrypal form of strike involve following the rules to the letter and paralyzing the business. The prevailing principle is "you cant defend yourself by pointing to other rulebreakers" while reality is "its legal if a hundred businessmen do it".
It makes sense if you understand that they aren't focused on general principles. Diversity is bad when it involves non-whites, women, gay people or research involving these groups. Diversity is good when it involves "race realists." Free speech is bad when students are advocating for divestment initiatives. Free speech is good when a professor calls somebody the n-word online.
The goal is power. Suppressing DEI, etc is just a simple way to find a group of people that have different values and eliminate them from the power structure.
An important part about targeting DEI and trans communities is that these two groups stand for immutable properties: I can’t change my race. I can’t stop being my gender identity.
When you “other” people based on immutable properties, it becomes very dangerous. If you can’t force someone to be white and straight, what do you do with them? The government stops funding programs to help these groups, they spread lies and fear about them, and then they sit back. When the people in power tell their supporters that the “other” are the enemy, what recourse is left for one’s safety other than violence. Authoritarian regimes always trend towards genocide, and they always target groups with immutable traits.
Also called freedom from consequences. Free speech makes sense in a free society, freedom from consequences does not. Yet that's what they're calling for.
I'm not sure what "agree with the Palestinians" would mean. Like they are not happy with being genocided? I think that would be most people's feeling in that situation, though that doesn't show any proximity in belief, value or principle.
> Diversity is bad when it involves Whites, men, straight people or research involving these groups.
If you think that's what the "other side" is saying, then you've completely misunderstood what the diversity idea is about. You can't compare one idea with the misrepresentation of the opposing idea. That's just making things up.
The problem is- they are not anti-racist honest. You are either nurture or nature, but if its all nurture, they refuse to discuss that part, compare those parts, work out the problematic parts and compose better societal models. They just idealise, bigott stay quiet and adverse engage only with those who respond civilized. Its all lies and damned lies and statistics.
The demands of the administration are the demands of a bully who doesn't want your lunch money, he just wants you to know he can take it away at any time.
They want to have the old system (deliberate bias and vehement denials of there being any "bias,") but working for them, and the way to demand that without describing it is to require all of the results and "forbid," by name only, the necessary methods.
It all makes sense with a fascist power logic. The goal isn't to implement consistent policy to reach rational targets. The goal is to wield power and slowly errode any opposition with divisive actions that support anybody that is loyal to you. Importantly being loyal doesn't guarantee you will be spared. In these goals consistency is irrelevant, in fact being inconsistent and acting with arbitrary despotism is a feature since it produces more fear.
If you ever find any fascist critique of their enemies you will quickly realize that all of which they accuse their enemies of doing, they will do themselves. Decry freedom of speech as no one is "allowed" to say sexist/racist things anymore? Be sure they will go in and ban books, political thoughts and literal words. Hillarys emails? We literally operate our foreign policy in signal groups.
Quite frankly I am a bit puzzled by the neutrality with which some Americans try to analyze this absolutely crazy political situation. It is like pondering over the gas mixture in the smoke while your house is on fire, absolutely unhinged.
First I think people who recognize there are problems is what is needed now. You leaving makes things worse.
Then again, it is understandable not everybody has the luxury to be in circumstances that allow adequate forms of resistance.
If you ask about which country, I'd say it depends. It depends on who youaare, what your skills are, which climate zones and cultures you prefer, whether you're willing to learn a new language and so on.
Nothing they do makes sense until you accept that hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug, for them and their base. They know that what they're asking for is impossible to meaningfully comply with...
What the demand is, is institutional fealty to Donald Trump. Trying to interpret it as anything else is going to lead these institutions into poor decision making. Harvard is doing the right thing.
You see the establishment of separate, unwritten classes of things here, right? It will be a case-by-case basis which of these rules is invoked, that way no matter what happens they're "just following the rules we all agreed to" but they get to hand-select which thoughts are compulsory and which are forbidden.
>>- a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view
I'm sure we both know what this one means though. Forcing the university to hire people who think the earth is flat and that climate change isn't real - for the sake of diversity of course.
It makes sense when you realize that their true position is "free speech for me but not for thee". The contradictions are about censoring speech they disagree with and promoting speech they like.
To the fascist regime, "diversity" means "hiring black or gay people". Likewise "diverse points of view" means "viewpoints that think it's okay for black and gay people to be hired and for transgender people to pee". And "speech control" means "kicking out people who shout Hitler did nothing wrong in the middle of the library". And "inclusion" means "letting black or gay people study". It's all newspeak.
The demands only seem inconsistent if you don't look at the actual principle underlying them. Political discourse tends to present opposing ideologies as being about principles like "free speech" or "free markets" - it's really all about power, who has it, and who wants it.
In this case its strengthening particular social and economic hierarchies - america vs the rest of the world, and white christians over non-whites or non-christian.
What's interesting is that this is not necessarily a struggle between the top of a hierarchy vs the bottom of one, but between two different hierarchies. The democrats support cultural non racial and economic hierarchies, while the republicans support racial international and the same economic hierarchies. So while they both support the rich over the working class, there is a struggle over whether to support racial and international hierarchies. Democrats tend to support globalization, i.e unifying of the power of the top of the economic hierarchy across international boundaries, while eliminating racial and sexual hierarchies as they are seen as "inefficient" from a neoliberal perspective. Republicans are more focused on the "national elite", the rich people that depend on america being a global hegemon specifically, energy industry, military industira-complex, etc..
Plenty of Democratic voters are on board with taxing the rich and flattening those economic hierarchies.
The problem has been that the Democratic party is the neoliberal wing of the establishment. Its purpose has been to create the illusion that economic progress is possible while working hard to maintain the economic status quo. Cultural diversity was the distraction and consolation prize.
Now the establishment wants full, unquestioned, totalitarian control now and no longer cares about maintaining the illusion of choice.
Ultimately it wants a country run on plantation lines with voting rights restricted to wealthy white male property owners, a "Christian" moral narrative (really just racism, greed, supremacism, and sexual opportunism dressed up in bible rags) and no independent sources of intellectual dissent.
Which means the bare minimum of public education, no science, no difficult or non-commercial art, no free thought in universities or academia, and as little free travel and contact with the outside world as possible.
The most comparable country is North Korea. So the likely end will be a heavily militarised and even more heavily propagandised country, run as a pampered inherited monarchy which tolerates a certain amount of education when it's useful, but is violently hostile to all dissent.
It's quite hard to get there from here. The shock-and-awe of the last few months were supposed to establish dominance, but it's not going to happen without resistance. Harvard is one example. There will be more.
Ultimately the military will be used to force compliance, and - absent a not entirely unexpected medical event - they'll decide which way this goes.
They're so "accepting of diverging viewpoints" they mandated Harvard to devote effort to monitoring the viewpoints of foreign students so they can be deported for wrongthink...
Zero? I’m a visa holder in the US and I’m aware that supporting terrorists and celebrating violence against Jewish people is probably not going to make the country keep me here.
Have you no hesitation, even at this late juncture?
Read everyone elses comment above, and try to stretch your critical thinking ability just a bit.
Trump is our Caesar, we have ceased to be a constitutional republic, and you defend this with blithely pretending that 2 months of pure power-madness have not been occurring in plain view of the entire world?
I suspect that such discourse as we have will not be "permitted" indefinitely.
"It's fairly clear that Herr Hitler only means to instill properly virtuous German educational values."
No, we've seen more than enough to know exactly what kind of administration this is, and how it lies.
FFS it's just 3 months in and already they're kidnapping people from America into concentration camps for the rest of their lives (however short that might be) with no trial nor even the pretense of charges.
Come to think of it, what's The Hacker News policy on storing user information? Is it time for people who aren't fans of the current administration to make new accounts?
I was brought up as an American to believe that most important American value inscribed in the constitution was that the government cannot control your speech. So regardless of what Harvard does or does not do that quote, coming from the government especially, is simply unAmerican on its face.
Harvard's admittance policy should not be up to the government outside of preventing discrimination along protected classes. If Harvard admits students that are bad consistently, and they turn out to be bad hires/professional connections, then Harvard the institution will lose its competitiveness with other schools for the best talent and previous alumni will pressure/complain that recent admittance policies are devaluing their degrees.
> Do you think Harvard should admit students that are, "hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence
I'm not sure you thought this through—if Harvard stopped accepting Republicans like you're suggesting, I'm not sure how many people would be left.
> Do you think Harvard should admit students that are, "hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence
Sure, why not? Everything should be open to criticism at our institutions of higher learning. If not there, where? That which is above criticism is dogma.
> including students supportive of terrorism and anti-Semitism
In Trump administration code, this means "has ever said anything positive about the Palestinian people." So yes, them too.
There are 2 issues here. The first is that it's not consistent with ending speech control policies.
The second is that hostility to American values is actually pretty subjective. For instance, the January 6 insurrectionists were very hostile to American values and used violent terroristic tactics to try to destroy the constitutionally mandated transfer of power. But Trump pardoned them all because it improves his ability to wield violence against America in the future.
It's impossible to take any of this document seriously in that light.
2. We both know and understand that's not what's actually happening. When you have people peacefully protesting for the genocide in Palestine to end and they get disappeared by the state, then the situation is different. Please, at least try to be honest.
- Stop promoting Democrats' agendas as the ultimate truth; stop bullying people for non-Democratic views
- Allow Republicans' agendas to be equally represented
Is it really so difficult to understand?
Out of many bad things Trump has done, this isn't really bad for anyone except core Democrats voters.
The US academia has become hostile to anyone except one particular culture. This should stop.
Conservatives should start their own universities, if they aren't happy with the existing ones. The federal government has no business enforcing conformity to certain ideological demands in private institutions. It's right there in the very first amendment.
If the university was founded by the government, it should represent Americans. All of them. Half of Americans are conservative. Approx. half of academia should be conservative.
Harvard is older than both parties. There is no good reason why it should cater to only one half of Americans.
Conservatives have started their own Universities. No one likes going to those schools, and they end up bankrupt, with students who are functionally uneducated.
With their endowment above $50 billion, combined with Federal plus Non-Federal sponsored revenue at 16% of operating budget, it makes sense to me they just forgo Federal funds and operate independently.
If all 16% is canceled, then they'd need to draw an additional $1 billion per year from endowment at current budget levels.
That would put them above 7% draw so potentially unsustainable for perpetuity, historically they've averaged 11% returns though, so if past performance is a predictor of future, they can cover 100% of Federal gap and still grow the endowment annually with no new donations.
College endowments are typically tax-exempt, but a 2017 law imposed a 1.4% tax on investment income for a small group of wealthy private universities. A new proposal seeks to increase the endowment tax rate to 14%
Other article:
proposing an 8.6 percent tax hike
When hacking the government rules is used against you.
>A new proposal seeks to increase the endowment tax rate to 14%
That would be great that Harvard pays %14 on investment income on its 50 billion fund, considering I pay a minimum of 20% on my 'way less than $50 billion' in
taxable investments, which was funded by my already taxed earnings, where as Harvard gets much of its endowment funds gifted to it.
But I don't understand why 14%? It should be the same as you, 20%.
Same goes for religious organizations, but it would be extremely hard to enforce, as they might say "government is interfering us practicing our religion", as practicing religions helps to not pay taxes and protected by the Constitution.
People already paid their taxes on all of the principal before they donated it to fund education. You and I are not chartered as an educational endowment; things like Roth IRAs exist for us.
No skin in the game, but curious to know why any Republican would want to raise taxes. Is this some sort of power play like the tariffs? Feels like they’re ghost riding the economy for the lulz.
They don't care about taxes - they are happy to implement regressive taxes that disproportionately burden the middle class and poor, such as sales taxes, Social Security, etc. They just don't want to pay taxes themselves.
> Feels like they’re ghost riding the economy for the lulz
Yes. The abstract of "the economy" doesn't matter. The priorities are "owning the libs" on Twitter and other media, and their own personal bank accounts which can benefit from insider trading the tariffs, state-sponsored memecoins and so on.
Easy, Harvard is essentially a training center for their ideological enemies on top of providing an actual education. They're just putting the boot down and saying stick to teaching instead of implementing and advancing a specific ideology. If taxes are the tools, so be it.
LoL - why it makes any sense to do this for universities and not billionaires is beyond me, but I'm sure half the country can explain it to me like I'm 5.
I’m not half the country, but I can explain it to you. Billionaires already pay tax on investment income. Universities are exempt but now the proposal is that they pay as well, just like individuals (including billionaires) and other profit-making groups.
Doesn't this tax only apply to "net investment income"/realized gains? Billionaires technically already have to pay it at a higher rate. And well they generally do? I mean when they personally actually sell stock and or receive dividends and interest.
Why do you expect a billionaire to steal from billionaires? a portion of non-essential stealing comes from respct, and of course these billionaires are all a part of the same club.
The other lens is simple as well: big fish don't go after the other big fish. That just ends in two hurt fish and no food. Trump thought he was going after a small fry and underestimated the response. just because Columbia folded doesn't mean all universities will.
>> College endowments are typically tax-exempt, but a 2017 law imposed a 1.4% tax on investment income for a small group of wealthy private universities.
> LoL - why it makes any sense to do this for universities and not billionaires is beyond me, but I'm sure half the country can explain it to me like I'm 5.
Because they already do it for billionaires: unlike university endowments, billionaire investment income is not tax-exempt by default, it's already subject to income tax [1].
[1] At least theoretically, ignoring the loopholes and tax-dodges billionaires can take advantage of with literal armies of accountants.
I think the 9 billion is very misleading. More than half goes to hospitals affiliated with Harvard. I am not sure but I don't think they get anything from the endowment. The impact of loosing this money would be very uneven across different parts of the university and hospitals affiliated with it.
The faculty of arts and science would be fine. Yes, some cuts, a hiring freeze etc. The med school and public health school would feel a big impact. They employ so many people on "soft money" through grants including many faculty members.
The hospitals are a different story and I am not sure why they are even lumped together.
Yeah this isn't purely a question of Harvard's P&L being dependent on subsidies. The money in question is grants attached to specific practices or research. The money isn't just gratuity for Harvard being so great, it's awarded for specific objectives that Harvard was deemed capable of delivering. Cutting off the money isn't going to hurt Harvard, it's going to stop all the programs the grants were funding.
People here have little idea about how Harvard works. Harvard is financially vulnerable. It is currently running on a deficiency considering the endowment. And Harvard can't freely use most endowment for personnels anyway. If the government takes away funding, Harvard will have a financial crisis. I guess the leadership made the decision in hope someone could stop the government before bad things happen but when bad things do happen, you will probably see mass layoffs of researchers in particular in life sciences and biomedical research.
I mean, we literally just saw what happened at JHU when their USAID funding vanished. Everybody on that soft money got laid off.
That’s what makes stands like this hard for admin: you’re risking massive layoffs in the programs that are often the least political to defend the academic freedom of the programs that are often the most political. Columbia made one decision. Harvard is making another. You could make Lord Farquaad jokes here, but if it alone loses its federal funding in these expensive research areas, it will lose its preeminence in those areas for a long time.
This might be true for Harvard, but I don’t think free speech should only be for those who can afford it. I know my school couldn’t if the government came knocking.
Harvard is free to say whatever it wants and operate without government funds. A shocking idea may be for a school to actually use the tuition paid by students to educate them.
This is forced speech for all those of us who disagree with Harvard's politics and yet have our tax dollars sent to support it anyways.
Could you explain how government research funding constitutes forced speech?
If an individual who receives a government tax credit (say EITC) speaks out contrary to your politics, is the government allowed to withhold that credit too?
I posted this deep in another part of this discussion - but the majority of the money being discussed here isn’t really for Harvard or educating its students - the largest portion are for NIH grants funding to Boston area hospitals, most of which have affiliations with Harvard Medical School.
> The Crimson analyzed the proposed Trump administration funding cuts and estimated that the five hospitals’ multi-year commitment from the NIH is over $6.2 billion and the University’s multi-year federal research funding exceeds $2.7 billion.
I’m sure that you have legitimate issues with politics at Harvard, but penalizing a number of independent non-profits that serve the community because they associate with a University that the administration disagrees with also seems to be forcing speech.
Just watch what happens when they exercise their Constiutional right to "say whatever it wants."
Stephen Miller made it clear this morning:
"Under this country, under this administration, under President Trump, people who hate America, who threaten our citizens, who rape, who murder, and who support those who rape and murder are going to be ejected from this country."
If the government decides you "hate America" or your business supports some hypothetical rapist/murderer they imagined, you're going to end up ejected from this country without due process.
That's just how government works, buddy. I disagree with my tax dollars being spent to shoot wild horses and fund Lockheed-Martin, but here we are. It's not forced speech, because you have representatives who (in a working system) you could ask to fight against tax dollars being spent on something you dislike. You have a voice, you just don't get to have the only voice.
i disagree with you but i still think you should be allowed to drive on public roads and access publicly-funded health care that are funded by my tax dollars.
Cannot edit my original comment, because I wrote it 16 hours ago, but I am somewhat surprised by the fluctuating up/downvote count, going from 0 to 6 and back.
It seems that the very idea that some employees in academia might be superfluous is very disagreeable for some HNers.
Why? Institutional bloat is a well known problem, it happens in private sector, public sector, churches, military, wherever you can think of. It probably already happened in Ur and Nineveh. Why should academia be somehow immune from this problem?
And if it is not immune, shouldn't it try to do something with it?
There was a massive increase in tuition in the last generation or so. How much of that extra money goes to the core mission of the universities, and how much is spent on "nice to have extras", starting with opulent campuses and ending with "Standing Committees on Visual Culture and Signage"?
Everyone has to trim the fat down a bit from time to time. Even Google and Meta. Why not Harvard.
People are reflexive. In a different context, driven by someone else, many of the people currently defending Harvard would instead be pointing out that Harvard and the other elite institutions are part of "the problem". In general this year, it's been interesting to me to see Republicans become protectionists and Democrats become neoliberal free traders, both parties flipping their talking points to either align or disagree with Trump.
This article lists out why it's not good of an idea as you think.
>Universities’ endowments are not as much help as their billion-dollar valuations would suggest. For a start, much of the money is reserved for a particular purpose, funding a specific professorship or research centre, say. Legal covenants often prevent it from being diverted for other purposes. In any case, the income from an endowment is typically used to fund a big share of a university’s operating costs. Eat into the principal and you eat into that revenue stream.
>What is more, eating into the principal is difficult. Many endowments, in search of higher income, have invested heavily in illiquid assets, such as private equity, property and venture capital. That is a reasonable strategy for institutions that plan to be around for centuries, but makes it far harder to sell assets to cover a sudden budgetary shortfall. And with markets in turmoil, prices of liquid assets such as stocks and government bonds have gyrated in recent days. Endowments that “decapitalise” now would risk crystallising big losses.
More worrying is the fact that the federal government can inflict even more harm aside from cutting off federal funding:
>the Trump administration has many other ways to inflict financial pain on universities apart from withholding research funding. It could make it harder for students to tap the government’s financial-aid programmes. It could issue fewer visas to foreign students, who tend to pay full tuition. With Congress’s help, it could amend tax laws in ways that would hurt universities.
To some degree it already has been. After the economic genius Larry Summers paid for the Allston campus expansion with some dodgy loans that blew up in their faces during the 2008-9 financial crisis, there was some attempt to reform the endowment, back off some risky investments, and build up more of a free-cash emergency fund. This actually paid off during the Covid lockdowns, which the university was able to weather without too much disruption.
The other oddity of Harvard's endowment is that each school at the university basically has it's own fund--so that for instance, the Business school and the Law school don't have to worry about money the same way that FAS (the main undergraduate school) does.
Not to mention all those legal covenants have another party to them - they're not written in stone. I'm sure a good number of them would be willing to considering loosening legal restrictions if it would really help.
They made a big fuss a few years ago about what I read imo as over investing in foreign farm land, esp south America and Africa. Which seems to have completely flopped, if not yet realized.
At this point, you really do have to question whether each university hire was merit based or not, including the fund managers.
>...much of the money is reserved for a particular purpose
I would assume that a tax on an endowment would be like a capital gains tax, i.e., taxed on the investment growth. Is the growth 'reserved for a particular purpose'?
It's reserved because the donation was earmarked for a specific purpose (eg. a business program or whatever), not because they reserved 30% on tax owing.
>Is the growth 'reserved for a particular purpose'?
It's probably safe to assume donors are competent enough that such glaring loopholes don't exist. After all, the concept of endowments being used as long term savings, rather than spent immediately, isn't exactly a new concept. Failing to take this into account would mean any earmarks are void after a few decades.
It’s never a guarantee when it comes to government funding. It can come and go at any time. Take the politics out of it, Harvard has been operating at risk with this funding source for some time.
He still controls the congress, the white house and the supreme court. So he could potentially pull a completely illegal fast one and freeze their accounts. Since rule of law seems on fairly shaky ground right now in any case.
He may issue an EO against them similar to the ones he's successfully used to bring major law firms he doesn't like to heel: ban consideration of former Harvard employees (... maybe also graduates?) for Federal jobs, revoke clearances held by anyone employed by Harvard, and ban them from Federal property. Maybe with some other creative terms thrown in to mess with universities in particular.
This is about lots more than money. Sure, Harvard can go without federal funds. Then comes federal tax breaks. Then Harvard's ability to recruit foreign students (no visas, no foreign students/professors). After that comes the really draconian stuff like the fed revoking clearances or not hiring/doing business with Harvard grads. Such things were once thought illegal but are now very much on the table. That is why Harvard needs to win the money fight no matter the numbers.
Right, money is just the first and most obvious cudgel. Does Harvard have any biomedical labs that require federal approval to handle hazardous materials? That could be delayed or revoked. Do they file taxes? They could face an audit. There's no shortage of painpoints an organization that large has exposed to an unethical government.
According to NYT, “ of the $9 billion in federal funding that Harvard receives, with $7 billion going to the university’s 11 affiliated hospitals in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., including Massachusetts General, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.”
If I give a school 20 million yearly to research a specific form of cancer, and I find out that they instead used that money to upgrade the plumbing in their dormitories and spent nothing on cancer research, I would not give them 20 million ever again.
Sure, due to funding cuts students will suffer with slowly degrading infrastructure and will need to do plumbing fixes at some point. But that doesn't mean people who give them money for one purpose are happy with it being used for another purpose.
This is absolutely par for the course for university endowments. They're not big pots of money, they're thousands of small pots of money with various restrictions on their investment, disbursement, etc.
Harvard has sat on $53B tax free leveraged 40% into private equity and now might have to panic sell because their VIP status got clipped? Color me surprised.
those endowments, especially for the Ivy League schools, aren't liquid at all. They'd take a massive haircut if they had to start pulling funds from it
Presumably they could go to a large bank and make a deal so that they only have to take a relatively small haircut by getting a loan to be paid back from endowment interest.
Harvard is probably thinking they just need to draw the $1 billion extra for another 4 years. Unless, Trump runs for a 3rd time which he has floated. If that happens then I think everyone's just screwed.
With an overbearingly powerful executive like the federal US executive you can come up with so many ways to fuck with companies or institutions like this one beyond not giving them money.
It's very dangerous to assume "oh, this will only last four years". The rights currently being eroded (free speech, habeas corpus and voting rights themselves) are required for free and fair elections. Even if the term of the current Shitstain In Chief ends when it's supposed to, his replacement will be from the same cloth.
I'm sure he's got plans to issue an executive order declaring all of the votes against him null and void because they weren't cast and counted within 4 hours of each other on election day.
Which is, of course, why the internet is a spectacular failure and SpaceX is our best chance to ever put a man on the moon, and polio is still ravaging the country. Great point.
From the United States government letter to Harvard: "Harvard must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious and immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension."
So if a student has, say, an immunodeficiency syndrome and wears a mask to protect their health during the riskier seasons of the year, they would face dismissal from the university? (Or worse - whatever that is - according to the letter.)
This is how we know that the Republican party has no interest in freedom as the word is conventionally defined.
I wrote this on another thread recently, reposting here:
Things started to make more sense to me once I realized that by nature, human beings hate freedom and love tyranny. Once you accept this, it all falls in place. Deporting citizens to foreign prisons? Sounds great. Incoherent foreign and economic policy? Love it. Freedom of the press? Who needs it! Destruction of democracy? Own the libs! Legalize bribery of foreign officials? Even the playing field! And finally, words don’t need to mean anything because they are simply evocations intended to stir up certain emotions. They are more akin to a hunter’s duck call. The hunter doesn’t speak duck and doesn’t care whether that sounds he’s making have any meaning, he simply makes noise and looks for a result. Not getting the desired result? Just change the noise a little.
This is why democracy will eventually fail and autocracy will rise in its place. And no one will ever learn.
Seems like this could also be explained by short memories. Most westerners, me included, have never lived through true tyranny, we don't know the signs and probably are just too comfortable coasting along, thinking what we have now won't suddenly disappear [1].
We can read history, but it's nothing compared to actually living through it. And I think most American voters don't know their history, and don't bother to inform themselves either, which makes things much worse.
Autocracy, or some form of it, has been the dominant form of governance throughout the history of human civilization. That's not gonna change just because we got Apple watches. Democracy was a really nice experiment, but it's over now.
The current regime in Washington is clearly fascist, there is nothing democratic at all about them. They want to banish Americans to foreign concentration camps for torture, he said that just before his interview with the El Salvador President who is hosting at least one of said concentration camps. Yet the media says little.
A "comprehensive mask ban" would presumably include exceptions for people who are immunocompromised, actively sick with an upper-respiratory infection, etc.
"presumably" is carrying a lot of water here. For instance women are bleeding out in Texas parking lots because doctors are afraid to give abortions even on women who could potentially die from complications because it's not a sure thing. This is the MAGA mentality
Let's be realistic: how many doctors have ever been held accountable for performing abortions to avoid complications? How do you even imagine a trial against such a doctor? Women are bleeding out in Texas parking lots because doctors wants them to bleed out to make a political stunt.
I mean...the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is really clear, and the Democrats have weaponized it to help the constituencies they're pursuing. Whether that's morally correct or not is beside the point, because that's not why the party machine is doing it. They've institutionalized racism and sexism at a scale we haven't seen since the civil rights movement brought merit ("...by the content of their character.") to the fore.
It's just words, obviously contradicted by many of Harvard's recent actions, but all I can think is what a fucking lay-up. If only Columbia's administration had half a spine they would have responded similarly.
Probably not, they'll just pump up international student numbers to recoup and basically gut the domestic student experience. There's near infinite demand for American universities overseas even now.
I am nervous about the US right now. So many cases are going to end up at the Supreme Court that is controlled by conservatives. It may not be the lay-up you think it is.
Also what happens if Trump just decides to ignore a court loss as he did with the recent deportation of Kilmar Garcia?
Believing that something is inevitable is the first step towards it becoming inevitable. But there feels like there is a momentum in people, and in society as a whole that only ends one way, and we need to release and explore. I don't know if once society gets the "bug" to tear it all down there's any going back.
I feel like we're destroying our societies and getting into wars out of curiosity, and because we've forgotten how it hurts more than anything else.
Or you could find illegal conduct for congress people, have them sued in criminal courts, and then hold elections to elect people (republican or democrat) who will make congress function as it is meant to.
Perhaps someone can provide security services to republican congress people who are threatened with violence if they dont toe the line, so that they are safe enough to stand up to trump. (This is an actual reason given for their cowardice)
Perhaps. The Courts and the Legislature have yet to defend their powers, but the crunch point to do so is approaching. When we get past the stage that they have fully capitulated to Trump then it'll get truly ugly.
From a geographic standpoint, the conflict isn’t state vs. state this time around, though, it’s rural vs. urban. Blue cities in red states. Red counties in blue states. Not very conducive to conventional military conflict.
The biggest irony here is that after Roberts, the justices Trump appointed are the conservatives most likely to do the right thing. Gorsuch and Barrett are fine justices (even if they have opposing views to mine), Kavanaugh could be worse. Hopefully he doesn't get to choose another one or we'll get another Alito or Thomas.
So first they demand "Merit-Based Hiring Reform" and "Merit-Based Admissions
Reform", and then it continues to demand "Viewpoint Diversity in Admissions and
Hiring".
I can't even engage with these levels of cognitive dissonance. Or bad faith. Or whatever it is.
I have never been a "woke" person, but Trump really makes me doubt the meritocracy argument. If Trump was a black woman he would never get away with half the things he is doing now.
> If Trump was a black woman he would never get away with half the things he is doing now
If Trump were a black woman (or man), he would have never survived the release of the Hollywood Access tape and therefore would have never gotten elected.
As others have pointed out to you, "woke" is just from AAVE, meaning to be awake to the racial prejudices and social injustices of the world. Leadbelly used it at the end of his "Scottsboro Boys" [1] in 1938, and it likely was in use many years before that. Erykah Badu's "Master Teacher" also uses it prominently, which probably helped bring it out of AAVE into more mainstream use [2].
Anyway, that's all to say I find it sad and funny that people are all up in arms about being "woke" these days. It's like stating "I'd prefer to be ignorant".
> "woke" is just from AAVE, meaning to be awake to the racial prejudices and social injustices of the world.
Yes, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a democracy that serves the people of Korea.
Sometimes expressions have meaning beyond what advocates for the related concepts claim. For example, as I’m sure you are aware, ‘woke’ viewpoints repeatedly advocate for racial discrimination in American universities.
You have come to the realization that systemic racism exists, and it grants privileges to the dominant socioeconomic groups. Congratulations, you are now "woke"!
That's what the term originally meant, before it was turned into a strawman for "anything I don't like" by the conservative media machine and weaponized to divide people.
> If Trump was a black woman he would never get away with half the things he is doing now.
It sounds like you're aware of the present reality of race and how it impacts how one is treated in America just for being who they are.
> I have never been a "woke" person
I have news for you!
Edit: to be clear, I'm certain you don't match the the adversarially bastardized caricature of what a "woke person" is, but it sounds like match the original, well-meaning definition.
It's not cognitive dissonance, or bad faith. Of course.
If you let Harvard do "merit-based hiring", they'll move a little in the direction of actually complying with employment law, but not much. If you institute a regime such as the one that existed for race and sex for decades (i.e., if you don't have "enough" black people, you need to show how your recruitment pipeline means that's necessarily the case, like not enough get the required type of degree), you'll get much better compliance.
Frankly no. I don't think they actually care in the way that equal outcomes was baked into what it meant to be Blue Team for a while, and the bureaucracy ("deep state") is against them, especially in Massachusetts, and I don't think they're competent enough.
How is this a no brainer? How many of their faculty identity as believers in a flat earth? Are we concerned about that viewpoint being underrepresented as well?
We're talking about going from 2.3% to maybe 13%. And this isn't a reflection of attitudes among people who are potentially employed there, it's a reflection of overt, rigid filtering on the basis of political beliefs.
So pick one or the other: having a broad representation from many walks of life is important or it's not. You can't mix or match depending on which group you like.
And that is what I'm commenting on. I'm not a fan of Trump's "war on DEI" but if it was applied with some consistency I could take it as a genuine difference in viewpoints. That would be okay. But the movement is railing hard and vitriolic against anything with even a whiff of "DEI" while applying wildly different standards to themselves. This is hard to take as a genuine difference in viewpoints.
Conservatives will make observations such as "the most educated people are almost never conservative" and they will conclude that it's not their ideology that may be on shaky grounds, but rather the concept of education itself.
"Most American academia" !== "most educated people" (much less so if taken globally).
Many Americans would be seriously surprised by the balance of left and right at continental European universities. It is nowhere near as one-sided. And Asian universities are a completely different world.
Generalizing from the extremely lopsided ratios in academia of the Anglosphere to the global educated class is somewhat unreliable.
- In 1989-1990, when HERI first fielded this survey, 42% of faculty identified as being on the left, 40% were moderate, and another 18% were on the right.
- in 2016-2017, HERI found that 60% of the faculty identified as either far left or liberal compared to just 12% being conservative or far right
Now you say it's 2.3% conservative.
The universities argue they haven't changed, it's the politics of the right. I'd say they are correct as the right now to disavows and ridicules the output of universities on things like climate change, tariffs, vaccines, health, voter fraud in US elections ... well it's a long list. It wasn't like that 30 years ago.
The universities are supposed to be intellectual power houses fearlessly seeking out fundamental truths and relationships, regardless of what the people in power might think of their discoveries. Both sides of politics once celebrated that. Now one side wants to control what types of thought the universities allow, demanding they monitor, snitch, report, and police the on ideas the conservative base don't like. That's directly opposed to how Universities operate. They allow and encourage all types of thought, but insist they be exposed to a torrent of opposing thoughts so only the soundest survive.
Frankly, I'm amazed 2.3% still identify with a mob that clearly wants to undermine that. I'm guessing it will drop to near 0% now.
> Now one side wants to control what types of thought the universities allow, demanding they monitor, snitch, report, and police the on ideas the conservative base don't like. That's directly opposed to how Universities operate.
American conservatives are increasingly not grounded in facts and reality. This isn’t partisan, it’s just an observation of reality. I used to identify as a conservative, but they have become less and less grounded as a party.
that’s the faculty of arts and sciences—is this administration going to mandate university economics and business schools —which likely lean heavily capitalist—demand ideological diversity and bring in more communists?
> Harvard will immediately report to federal authorities, including the
Department of Homeland Security and State Department, any foreign student, including those on visas and with green cards, who commits a conduct violation.
Conduct violations at Universities are a pretty broad set of rules at universities and don't necessarily line up with what's legal or not but more with the university's cultural and social norms.
Some of those international students with their visas revoked apparently only had traffic violations according to what I read in the Texas Tribune. They are going after any level of law breaking in order to match their stated goal of kicking out criminals, since they are having trouble reaching the numbers promised in campaign speeches.
From the feds documents they describe the federal government as thought police:
>Viewpoint Diversity in Admissions and Hiring. By August 2025, the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.
Even ICE had a deleted tweet that makes it clear the thought police are active:
I prefer these thought police to the thought police we had previously.
The "diversity" thought police had very strong views about what the only acceptable thoughts were. These people are like, "if we could get it up to 30% that would be a huge victory". Actual diversity in thought at top American universities would be a boon.
Merit-based admission sounds good to me. Harvard is vigorously defending its "right" to continue to deny admissions to highly qualified Asian applicants out of nothing but pure racism, and somehow they are the good guys?
Standardized tests are bullshit, IQ tests are phrenology, class rankings are not comparable across school districts. Someone who was president of every club at school may be less able than a kid who had to flip burgers in the evenings to help make rent.
Merit to a university may mean "someone whose charisma and social connections will bring great repute to the institution" more than "a child prodigy who will burn out at 27 and end up fixing typewriters in his parent's garage because they actually had an undiagnosed mental illness growing up".
Merit may mean "a middling student smart enough to pass who will stick around working as a post-doc temporarily forever because they have no ambition beyond performing slave wage labor in exchange for the cold comfort of the known and familiar".
Any definition of merit is going to be irredeemably faulty. Like recruiting sporting talent based solely on stats without considering if the talent is an asshole who will destroy the atmosphere in the clubhouse and immediately get arrested for DUI after being signed.
I thought we wanted to let the market decide?
The government funding aspect is irrelevant. Nearly every business in the country receives some form of government funding either direct or indirect and they hire based on a wide variety of criteria. I was once hired to a position I would need time to be a productive in because I am a ham radio guy and my boss wanted someone to talk radios with.
Standardized test reliably predict academic success. IQ tests similarly.
Here in Sweden, if you do well enough on the entrance exam, we simply let you in, even to the best universities. This means that people other than hoop-jumpers have a chance.
> Standardized test reliably predict academic success. IQ tests similarly.
So do home addresses. And skin colour. And parent's money. There are issues with all of those for different reasons. People saying IQ is problematic don't mean there's no correlation at all. Just that they can be culture / approach / etc. specific and we shouldn't treat them as an objective measure.
Y'all have a lot of inner city neighborhoods that have been systematically destroyed over decades due to redlining, Jim Crow laws, lynching their inhabitants or just outright burning them to the ground, or is “but we do it in Europe” maybe frequently as stupid a comment as “but we do it in America” and is best kept to one’s self, if one doesn’t actually understand how it might be applicable?
Also, bullshit on IQ tests. They do reliably predict a number of socioeconomic factors, so I suppose they’re a great way to keep the poors out. How very “enlightened” of you.
I fail to see how the lack of a perfect quantifiable metric of merit logically flows down to "stop admitting Asians because we have too many"? Whatever the university's method of determining merit is, it should be applied to everyone equally, and racially discriminating because one group historically performs well is indefensible imo
Both standardized tests and IQ highly correlate with success in higher education and career over a lifetime. Harvard's performance and reputation have tanked as a result of its anti-meritocratic policies, and the market is indeed responding, slowly but surely. You are making things up and conjuring nonsensical hypotheticals to deny the evidence that's right in front of our eyes.
Yeah, it's like how when they wanted to put in a Jewish quota at the university it was struck down and then they found that the same percentage of Jewish applicants were well-rounded coincidentally so they just stuck to determining if they were well-rounded. Today's folk may call it anti-semitism but really it was just that Jews Were Square.
When the "other side" is pretty much evil, yeah, you are the good guys. Like, by default. I would even go so far to say Harvard could do much, much worse and they would still be the good guys.
On a closely related note, you are legitimately out of touch with reality if you believe any part of this is done with the intention of "merit". This is done to strengthen allegiance to MAGA and conservative ideology.
Does that sound a bit scary and fascist-like? You decide. But it's explicitly stated as the goal of this constriction on higher education in Project 2025. So, take it up with them, not me.
Merit as defined by an administration whose cabinet is composed of Fox News personalities, DUI hires, and some of the least qualified people for the jobs they were given.
This administration has ZERO credibility to define what "merit" is.
> Merit as defined by an administration whose cabinet is composed of Fox News personalities, DUI hires, and some of the least qualified people for the jobs they were given.
Are you referring to the defense secretary Pete Hegseth? He also attended Harvard so clearly there's some intersection in how both Harvard and the Trump administration evaluate candidates.
Or maybe there are better applicants than your highly qualified asian applicants. But sure, an Asian canadian came over here, helped kill AA, and nothing's changed. Well done Asian community. You fucked over a tiny fucking minority for nothing.
If the Trump admin could directly control admission, I truly believe future classes would consist of close to 100% far right leaning ("anti-woke") WASP types.
It really isn't. Harvard used to be a special cultural institution now it's just another research institute. Whoopee, nothing can be special, everything has to all be the same gray sludge cause otherwise it isn't """fair"""
While I agree with this, if you read the letter of demands from the administration I don't think Harvard had any choice. I think the letter was much more egregious than what the Columbia demands were (at least from what I read about the Colombia demands). I think if Harvard had acquiesed it wouldn't have much reason to exist anymore, and I say this as a Harvard alum who took plenty of issue with the direction of the university in recent years.
In contrast, most of the demands I read for Columbia, except for the one about putting the Middle Eastern studies department under some sort of "conservatorship", seemed relatively reasonable to me if they hadn't come from the barrel of a gun and from an administration who has clearly defined any criticism of Israel and any support for Palestinians as anti-Semitism.
> Harvard just earned some reputation with me. It was already a place with great research. But now, it is also in institution with actual moral fiber.
I'm not so sure. The Harvard endowment is huge. I might not be so much "moral fiber" as having enough fuck you money that risks don't matter as much as they do to others.
No. This fight will be much bigger than money. It’s true they have money, but this will be a literal fight of academic freedom against authoritarianism.
More of that! When a mountain of old money is suddenly put at risk, it can easily be mistaken as moral fiber. We will see if Harvard suddenly decides to defend others, or just fend for itself.
Maybe? Or maybe they realize that they will lose all future credibility with students, government and NGO's if they bow to the conservative & Christian right?
There are two outcomes for the the current American government situation - a slide in to authoritarianism (it's right there in Project 2025), or these wackjobs get voted out because they are destroying global financial stability.
If it's the former, Harvard eventually has to cave because literal Nazi's.
If it's the latter, Harvard is screwed if they capitulate.
The thing is there's really no choice. The version of Harvard we get if they cave is the same as burning it all down. It would be dead as an educational institution and would only serve to foster the same kind of insane doublethink that leads people to ask for "diversity in viewpoints" at the same time they ask for the removal of the viewpoints they disagree with.
Yes, I doubt they're cool with the ideas in the letter like the federal government auditing everyone's "viewpoint diversity" and mandating staffing changes to fit what the federal government wants.
I don't know, is it moral to give legitimacy and a platform to someone like J. Mark Ramseyer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Mark_Ramseyer)? Less clear example would be keeping around Roland Fryer.
I find that very few people and even fewer institutions are consistently always on the right side of things morally, even in very clear-cut cases (never mind that what exactly the "moral thing" is, is a whole discussion in itself). It's probably better to look at the overall pattern rather than a incidents (either good or bad).
I have no opinion on Harvard myself by the way; I don't know enough about it. I'm just saying this is not an especially good criticism.
This is the only correct response, but I don't think I'm being overly cynical in thinking they're being opportunistic either.
They're quite happy to turn a blind eye to unfashionable political views being silenced, so there's a pinch of hypocrisy in making such a show of standing for openness.
It's my understanding that the issue is not that they're "espousing the right views" but rather that they have the constitutional right as a private institution to espouse whatever views their students and faculty want under the first amendment.
right, freedom of speech is free as long as it agrees with the viewpoint of who's in power. similar to how history is written by victors but this part is conveniently ignored. it's just facts in the open marketplace of ideas yay!
I mean, while this is the only correct response, it could still cost Harvard around $9 billion, which isn't chump change, even for Harvard.
And while I agree and have been disgusted with Harvard's slow slide to demanding ideological conformity over the past decade plus (e.g. https://www.thefire.org/news/harvard-gets-worst-score-ever-f...), I believe they have made some belated changes in the right direction over the past year.
The Federal government making funding to a university contingent on them "reforming" specifically named departments whose foreign policy views the executive branch disagrees with (Israel/Palestine policy) seems like a clear violation of the First Amendment.
They are deporting permanent residents for op-eds.
One permanent resident was sent to a concentration camp in El Salvator without due process, none over speech yet that I know of but his was for being spuriously labeled a terrorist.
Good. I think Harvard has faltered a bit recently with academic integrity scandals, but they are still well-respected overall. Them standing up for students is an important signal to other less high-profile schools that they can do the same.
We are well past the point where in a future history class a student will raise their hand and ask 'Why didn't anyone stop them?' followed by 'Why were so many people members of that party?'
All of the information is saved, it's going to be interesting to study, the first "class" of people to leave are the ones from tech, you know, the backbone of USA services, it's going to be interesting, it's going to be an economy fall that didn't happen in Nazi Germany
No mention of anti-Asian discrimination? It made big rounds in all the American media circles a few years back, and if memory serves, MAGA boarded that train too.
MAGA loves to say how universities screw over poor hard-working Asian students, and then they turn around and defund universities and fire researchers. Their pity on Asians is not sincere, because they detest higher education in the first place.
And I'm saying this as an Asian father whose kid is going to a US college this year.
Harvard was one of the universities "screw[ing] over poor, hard-working Asian students", so I'm not sure the criticism holds, especially when the government's letter is asking for merit based admissions reform.
Are there other universities that weren't discriminating against Asians that the government has or has moved to defund?
These "values" are not sincerely held, but tactical. Once they got the SCOTUS win and affirmative action was toast, they quickly moved on from fighting anti-Asian hate to a new fig-leaf/tool to useful for fighting the next ideological battle, which was prominent protests against government policy, which happened to be pro-Palestine, so this is the best tool for the job.
The messaging is very similar too, conflating pro-diversity with anti-whiteness, or anti-asian when needed, and now redefining being pro-Palestine as anti-Semitic or pro-Hamas. It's dumb, lacks nuance, but effective when the Fifth estate is pliant, co-opted or otherwise ineffective.
Asians are not a uniform block. They forget, often, just like every other ethnicity. Or they convince themselves that the values are actually still being held.
Good points. But they did open themselves up to this by blatantly discriminating against Asian students. I mean, "you have an ulterior motive in arguing against our hugely racist policies" is not a great defense.
Harvard, as an institution capable of sustaining itself without relying on federal funding, bears a heightened responsibility to champion academic freedom and intellectual independence. Its financial independence positions it to defend these principles more vigorously than universities with fewer resources, which may face similar pressures but lack comparable institutional stability to resist government overreach.
I predict a surge of alumni donations in the weeks and months to come, not just at Harvard but also at other institutions that are showing their willingness to stand up against the creeping fascism of the current administration.
I think people who value education, academic freedom, and understand the economic and societal role that universities play, were hoping to see one or more of the major institutions stand up for these principles.
Why is it any more necessary to fight "leftists and muslims" than it is to fight righties and MAGAs?
That's the question that the Trump people never seem to acknowledge that the rest of America is asking itself?
What's the difference between muslims bombing whatever and MAGAs shooting up or torching a black church? The rest of us are finding it hard to see the distinction.
In fact, recent events have served to crystalize the dangers posed to the republic by ill considered MAGA policies. And to concentrate minds on the problem of how to extricate ourselves from the crises they have gotten us into in as efficient a manner as possible.
If efficiency is even possible at this point? Maybe "in as minimally painful a manner as possible" is a better way to say it?
If you've read history, this rhymes with certain acts that have happened before under certain regimes. Under a non-authoritarian Government, this type of showboating can be dismissed, but when habeas corpus and the right to due process is suspended — such actions take on a very different cast indeed.
It's good that Harvard is fighting this. The more people accede, the more they will accelerate down a path where there is no coming back from.
Just say "oops, sorry, that was a mistake but we can't get that person back" every time you want to disappear someone, and somehow you'll have people claiming that habeas corpus is still alive and well while people get disappeared.
It's clear that the administration does not consider collateral damage a bug, but a feature; it confirms that as long as they insist that they will not do anything, then nothing will be done.
If they can decide someone is a migrant and deport them without due process and no recourse, they can decide anyone is a migrant and deport them without due process.
If a class of people don't have habeas corpus, no one does.
> Although the president was caught on mic musing about deporting American citizens
The canaries in our coal mine are permanent residents. Anything that can legally be done to a permanent resident can basically be done to a "bad" citizen. Trump is trying to run roughshod over permanent residents' habeus corpus rights. Courts are currently pushing back; I expect he will defy them. That, for me, will be the line at which I'll start helping with civil disruption.
The rubicon has already been crossed. If you asked some of the framers of the US constitution - beyond all other factors, unelected powers etc - what was the one defining trait of the government structure they wished to avoid; they'd have replied with arbitrary imprisonment and the suspension of due process.
Please don't take my word for it, hear it from the Prosecutor's Prosecutor. The SCOTUS justice, former AG and former USSG who led the American prosecution against the Nazis at Nuremberg, Robert H. Jackson,
No society is free where government makes one person's liberty depend upon the arbitrary will of another. Dictatorships have done this since time immemorial. They do now. Russian laws of 1934 authorized the People's Commissariat to imprison, banish and exile Russian citizens as well as "foreign subjects who are socially dangerous."' Hitler's secret police were given like powers. German courts were forbidden to make any inquiry whatever as to the information on which the police acted. Our Bill of Rights was written to prevent such oppressive practices. Under it this Nation has fostered and protected individual freedom.
The Founders abhorred arbitrary one-man imprisonments. Their belief was--our constitutional principles are-that no person of any faith, rich or poor, high or low, native or foreigner, white or colored, can have his life, liberty or property taken "without due process of law." This means to me that neither the federal police nor federal prosecutors nor any other governmental official, whatever his title, can put or keep people in prison without accountability to courts of justice. It means that individual liberty is too highly prized in this country to allow executive officials to imprison and hold people on the basis of information kept secret from courts. It means that Mezei should not be deprived of his liberty indefinitely except as the result of a fair open court hearing in which evidence is appraised by the court, not by the prosecutor
There is a reason why citizenship was not a requirement for receiving due process under the law. Citizenships are bestowed by the government. They can be taken away by the government. The framers held certain rights to be unalienable from human beings - something that no government can take away, and that was the right to not be unjustly detained for your beliefs, your behavior, your dress, your religion or composure.
Suspending due process for anyone is fundamentally un-American. But we have crossed that threshold. What comes next is fairly inevitable - if the process isn't stopped now.
The more fundamental corollary is that the US government does not grant any rights. We have them by default and cede limited power for the benefit of an orderly society. Within such a framework, it should be impossible to disenfranchise people by denying them due process.
So when would you consider the US crossed this threshold? Guantanamo Bay? The internment of ethnic Japanese in WW2? The Trail of Tears? Or is there something about the excesses of this particular administration that makes this an unprecedented and irreversible step, if I understand your metaphor correctly?
the judge you are quoting literally worked in FDR's admin when they were deporting millions of Mexicans, regardless of whether they were born in the US. They didn't get due process
Perhaps but "the framers of the US constitution" are almost always over idealized. It was the very early stages of democracy (even if you can call it that). When elected to office they regularly used they official powers to supress political opponents, partisan enmity was endemic and the levels of corruption were pretty extreme (of course there was only so much money to go around due to very low taxes). Trump is unhinged of course but some of the founders or early US politicians weren't too far off...
The constitution was more of an aspirational ideal than a binding document back then since there were very limited ways too enforce it (e.g. the only way to repeal the Alien and Sedition Acts was by electing a new president/congress). The First Amendment was also interpreted and viewed extremely different that it is now before the 1900s...
the timeline of the first plane clearly shows that that is not the case (plane departed after the judge's stay). it would be helpful if people didn't cavalierly pronounce these kinds of things.
So you acknowledge that it’s a race for the government to get permanent residents on flights as fast as they can to El Salvador before a petition is able to be filed?
The point of no return is Trump getting a third term. The parallels are strong there.
I was just thinking this morning that we very much needed the USA's help fighting Nazi Germany, but who will we turn to when we're fighting fascists coming from the East _and_ West? (Russia and the USA)
Once Americans pardoned an attempt by the sitting president to overthrow US democracy the game's over.
America desperately needs a huge revision to the powers conceded to individuals and should instead mature to a slower, maybe less effective at times, but stronger democracy that nurtures parliamentary debate and discourse.
> Once Americans pardoned an attempt by the sitting president to overthrow US democracy it's over already
By this logic it was “over already” at the end of the Civil War. Suspending habeus corpus, ignoring the courts and then meeting with public indifference will be the point of no return. Trump’s third term would just be the canary passing out.
Nope, it didn't. The Nazis started a war economy almost immediately and yes, they hiked employment, but the Nazi economy was boom or bust. They couldn't sustain it long term without the war.
The nazis just robbed minorities and used slave Labour to prop up their economy and rich certain people/ethnicities
Which, again, is a parallel to Trump. If the peoll,e he deports to El Salavdor start to have their assets taken by the state/their neighbours/the people that dobbed them in, good luck.
Edit to explain my point, because I'm getting downvoted (which I don't care about, but I _do_ care if people don't understand my point): fascism was a specific ideology/movement in the 20th century that, other than being right-wing and authoritarian, doesn't bear much resemblance to right-wing authoritarianism today: they have different goals, different motives, promote different policies, etc.
It seems people just use "fascism" as a synonym for "destructive right-wing populism" or even just "bad". And I agree that things like the MAGA movement, or AfD in Germany, ARE bad, and one could even argue that they are just as bad as historical fascism.
But I don't think we should use "fascism" in this way, because it gives ammo to your opponents: the supporters of these right-wing movements can point out that indeed, they are not the same as historical fascism and make you look silly.
Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right [checks box], authoritarian [ignoring courts decisions, sending people to prisons without any due process; check], and ultranationalist [MAGA, american exceptionalism, etc; check] political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader [do I really need to explain; check], centralized autocracy [feckless GOP congress, EOs left and right; check], militarism, forcible suppression of opposition [J6, anyone? also see Maine and TFA and the law firms being blacklisted and more; check], belief in a natural social hierarchy [pro-life, shrouded in "traditional family values", anti-gay, anti-trans, etc; check], subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race [tariffs, massive deportations without due process, etc; check], and strong regimentation of society and the economy [bathroom bills, tariff policies with exceptions for those who bribe him with million dollar dinner purchases, etc; check].
I get what you mean, and I understand the frustration. We should be more careful with words for exactly the reason you say at the end.
Having said that, the reason I chose to use it here was because I felt it was time, i.e. it has finally become earned. I could defend the usage with anyone who brought that up (and someone's done a thorough job in one of the replies).
I mean.. Mussolini's Italy or 30s Austria weren't exactly Nazi Germany. So while there still might be some way to go the comparison is not that extreme.
Equating Trump with Hitler is of course a stretch. Mussolini however? Well..
The point of no return is Trump getting a third term
That's a little alarmist. It's not going to happen.
Things are close to going off the rails and people are understandably troubled with the direction in which the US government is headed. I am as well. But we all need to start turning down the temperature a bit.
People keep saying this about everything the admin does before they do it. Pretending it won't happen won't stop it happening.
The real question is, who is left to stop it? The man is saying he's not joking about it. It's in line with his previous actions. They have actively refused to comply with court orders. They actively tried to reject the results of an election.
Why is it alarmist to say they may do the thing they want to do, and can do?
If there was no track record of Trump doing things off the rails, we could turn down the temps. However, he very much does not, and quite the opposite. Him admitting they are "looking into it" on how to achieve a third term is quite unsettling. Especially with congress acquiescing to any whim he has as well as SCOTUS giving him permission to do whatevs. None of this instills confidence that there will be any push back.
The same people that came up with Project 2025 are the very people that would come up with plans for giving a third term. Those plans might seem ridiculous to some, but so did the alternate electors and the other things Trump has already tried before. The fact that no negative outcome came from any of those previous attempts just emboldens even further attempts.
It will definitely happen if everyone is as complacent as that. At this point this attitude is extremely hard to take serious: you're either not paying attention or you're not engaging in good faith.
Steve Bannon went on Bill Maher recently saying they are working on finding a way to make it happen. He was not joking. When challenged, Bannon's response was that Trump was already flooding the courts with cases.
This is where I was at, but am believing less and less as the parallels stack up.
I used to tell people to look at Russia if they wanted to see the Nazi script play out, and that this could never happen in the USA. Now I'm reminded of others that weren't taken seriously early enough.
I have had to listen to people like you for almost 10 years talk about things Trump said that were never going to happen. At what point do you just accept the evidence of your eyes and ears?
If you really believe that then I don't know what to tell you. You've been successfully brainwashed. I hope one day you're able to hold a 5 minutes conversation with an actual student and clear that bullshit out of your head.
I agree, each UK citizen is infused with the original sin of being a colonizer and their opinion should be discarded until they purge this sin from their bodies through appropriate cleansing rituals.
Perhaps some form of self-flagelation or bloodletting?
So you're fine with them arresting dissenters as long as you disagree with the dissenters? That's fairly antithetical to the ideas expressed in the US constitution.
I'm fine with stopping the flow of federal money to people who hate me in particular and who take a salary to convince others to do so too. Those who defend the conduct of universities need to pause and consider that the public has noticed the radicalization of academia, despises it, and will support state action to reverse it.
Yes we all know what good defenders of truth and knowledge the Trump administration is. Surely the same people who seem to have made a habit of causing constitutional crises and have directly challenged the 1st, 5th and 14th amendment have our best interest at heart.
I did; it explicitly demanding an audit of employees and students political views, the forced hiring of more professors who are sympathetic to the current administration's politics.
That doesn't sound authoritarian to you? Can you imagine if Obama had demanded that any university do an ideological purge of its conservative staff and students?
Yes it does sound authoritarian. Thank you for answering my question in good faith.
I am noticing a pattern; whenever I ask clarifying questions on hacker news threads regarding politically charged topics, most people assume least-respectful interpretation of my questions and heavily downvote them. As someone who is curious and genuinely trying to understand what's going on (I am here instead of other social media because I am looking for nuance, analysis, details, etc), it's really frustrating and disappointing when I am attacked for asking questions.
So thank you, again, for engaging in my question constructively.
There are many points in history where a dictator made their country permanently worse. Argentina was once among the wealthiest democracies in the world, until a dictator seized power in 1930 - it took 53 years to restore democratic governance and their economy still isn't back on track.
According to Wikipedia, “in 1929, Argentina was wealthy by world standards, but the prosperity ended after 1929 with the worldwide Great Depression.” It was presumably the collapsing economy which caused the military coup, not the other way around.
We as a species have come back from it, yes. But generally after millions of victims are killed, and what is left over is very different than what existed prior.
these types of moves wouldn't be possible in the first place if these institutions hadn't spent decades burning their own credibility. They even mention Alzheimer's research in this post, something that has literally wasted billions of taxpayer dollars due to an academic cartel shutting down anybody trying to expose the fact that they were completely wrong about amyloid plaques
> if these institutions hadn't spent decades burning their own credibility
They burned their credibility among those with whom they never needed it in the first place. Harvard as a taxpayer-funded institution is oxymoronic. Return it to an elite institution that the President can commend in private and mock at a rally in rural Kentucky or whatnot.
>They burned their credibility among those with whom they never needed it in the first place.
I think universities should probably be concerned with their credibility among democratically elected political representatives if they are going to be accepting public funds. If the university wants to forgo federal grants, then yes, they don't require any credibility with anyone but academia and their donors, and more power to them.
no, but there would be much more push back against this type of action if Harvard and other universities didn't alienate a large chunk of the population. Why should the taxpayers fund places that openly admit to decades of racial discrimination in admissions
the institutions have already failed their intended purpose, as shown by the research fraud. Propping them up with tax dollars because of nostalgia over the name brand is pointless
$9 billion dollars from the federal government to Harvard equates to nearly $30 per American, that is an ignorant amount of money for a single academic institution, surely the world isn't so black and white that we can have a conversation about how much money is leaking out of our tax dollars without it always coming back to "fascism"?
I would absolutely love to see my federal tax dollars doled out to schools and institutions where they would more directly benefit a wider set of people. If that was what was under discussion it would be great. The administration isn't proposing to redirect that money, simply rescind it, and they are very, extremely clearly attempting to use this to coerce institutions and punish people for their speech and associations.
If the entire budget was income taxes and everyone paid the same including babies then sure $30 dollars or it's 1/4 of the money the government gave to Musk over the last 20 years.
given my comment got railroaded instantly, this is clearly what everyone thinks, but let's at least have that conversation rather than blindly pumping money into academia while local schools can't even afford books
The dispute between Harvard and the Trump has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility. You can read the government letter and see for yourself, none of it is about Harvard spending research money irresponsibly. It is an attempt to assert deep government control over the institution's policies and ideologies. So your comment reads as an attempt to distract from the real issues at hand, which I (and I think many others here) consider existential for the survival of the rule of law in the U.S.
Maybe. Not sure. More explicitly the letter demands that tenured professors be given more decision making power than non academic activists.
The outright dismissal of the letter suggests that at least maybe non academic activists are calling the shots, and if that is true Harvard is destined to wither and die.
Let's have a conversation about leaking tax dollars. How do you feel about our tax dollars directly enriching the sitting president? How do you feel about our tax dollars leaking into a military parade to celebrate the president's birthday? If you don't address those leaks, how can we be expected to take people like you seriously when you defend authoritarian policy as fiscally responsible?
> that we can have a conversation about how much money is leaking out of our tax dollars
Of course. It's clear you didn't read the letter because Harvard addresses this specifically. The Trump admin is literally refusing to have a conversation. This is 100% politically motivated and it's obvious to anyone who is not in the Trump cult. This is particularly disgusting because their doing it under the guise of 'antisemitism', while Trump keeps friends with known white supremacists.
nope, just a random stranger trying to add some random noise into these often one sided conversations, I of course support public academic investment and Trump is bad for the country, but I worry we've fully mapped one to one trump and nazis, and it just doesn't resonate with me as much as it seems it does everyone else.
I'm from small town America, I know that the federal government doesn't care about my hometown, so when I hear things like Harvard gets billions while already having tens of billions in endowment, it's hard for me to not think that's crazy and why can't that money go to average americans, meanwhile here I am typing words into a screen connected to the internet so I fully acknowledge I've benefited from the institution
Yeah, his reasoning is suspect to a lot of folks, but I’m not sure why everyone is so comfortable with the consolidation of wealth at these elite institutions.
There's definitely a conversation we can have about the cost and accessibility of higher education in this country. I don't think that conversation should include an administration that is unilaterally and arbitrarily canceling international student visas, threatening to withhold research funding that was already allocated by congress, and turning back foreign scientists at the border for things they said in private conversation that the government only knows about after a warrantless search.
I found harvard’s letter a poor attempt to articulate just how authoritarian the demands are, and how they undermine the very idea of a university. How leaders of such a prestigious university refuse to place what’s going on in historical context is sad. But it’s educational: now I have a better understanding of how the nazis came to power.
not a perfect comparison, but a useful starting point.
Even if Harvard wanted to comply with the government letter, it's full of so many non-sequiturs and self-conflictions that it reads more like a piece of satire:
> The University must immediately shutter all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, offices, committees, positions, and initiatives, under whatever name, and stop all DEI-based policies, including DEI-based disciplinary or speech control policies, under whatever name
> Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity
> In particular, Harvard must end support and recognition of those student groups or clubs that engaged in anti-Semitic activity since October 7th, 2023
> Discipline at Harvard must include immediate intervention and stoppage of disruptions or deplatforming, including by the Harvard police when necessary to stop a disruption or deplatforming
The letter is a complete joke. Giving it any sort of compliance would be giving validation to a set of rules that are literally impossible to follow by design. There is literally nothing Harvard could do to not be in trouble later.
Also buried in the letter is this gem:
> Harvard must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious and immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension.
Keep in mind Harvard also runs a medical school!
This is Maoist-style social reform through and through.
Ah yes I've heard of that, it's one of the "Programs with Egregious Records of Antisemitism or Other Bias" which most fuels antisemitic harassment and reflects ideological capture!
It seems like the government has a soft Monopsony. There are many universities willing to sell research, but the government is the biggest buyer and controls the research grant market
Universities don't sell or do research. They provide facilities, equipment, services, and sometimes funding for research. The actual research is done by individuals, who are nominally employed by the university but largely independent from it. If a researcher doesn't like a particular university, they can usually take their funding and projects to another university.
When grants are revoked for political reasons, it affects individuals who happen to be affiliated with the university more than the university itself. And it particularly affects people doing STEM research, because humanities and social sciences receive much less external funding. If the decline in public funding is permanent, it makes humanities and social sciences relatively stronger within the university. They are more viable without public subsidies than the more expensive STEM fields.
Research is often (usually?) the property of the host university, though. Yeah labs are independently managed but the university is in at least one sense, and imo many more, still the institution both doing and selling the work
By default, research belongs to the researchers. That's an essential part of academic freedom. The main exceptions are research funded by grants and contracts that specify otherwise, and when you start looking for patents and other commercialization opportunities.
In other words, the university may have some property rights to your work if you deal too closely with for-profit businesses or national security interests. But if you are just doing normal research with normal grants, you'll probably never see those exceptions in your career.
This isn't close to a monopsony but it's more directionally correct than it is wrong. Keep in mind research institutes can be funded by private foundations, state and local governments, industry (e.g. pharma), venture, or even foreign governments. The federal government is undoubtedly the largest buyer though. I do think there are other motivations to rely primarily on federal grants beyond number of dollars. In particular, funding sources other than federal grant money is often looked down on from an academic prestige perspective. Until now federal money came with very few strings attached compared to the perceived loss of objectivity that could occur when receiving money from other sources. The current situation may alter or relax the prevailing view on which sources of research money are perceived of as potentially compromising.
It's not a very good analogy because federally-funded research is a public investment, a public good like roads. The research is supported by the public (the government) and becomes available for anyone to use, learn from, and build off of. And in fact most successful U.S. business are built on the backs of technological innovation that was originally funded by the government, or at the very least, innovation from PhD's whose educations were largely federally funded. (Disclaimer: federally funded researcher)
You couldn't replace that with a private company "buying" research and expect the same societal benefits.
Anyone whose research is profitable is free to work for a private entity. The government is a "monopsony" in "buying" unprofitable research the same way it's a "monopsony" subsidizing any industry that would otherwise fail in a free market. That is not typically how the concept of monopsony is meant.
Likely I'm very naive. But here goes... It seems that taxpayers fund a lot of research. This research is very valuable and lucrative. It finds its way into the hands of those who know how to profit from it. The taxpayer is again screwed paying exorbitant prices for said breakthroughs. Insulin is one area of interest to me and it very much seems to be the case in the diabetes world.
This was how NAFTA was sold. Move car manufacturing to Mexico and they will enjoy better living wages while we get more affordable cars. Except that I don't recall cars produced in Mexico ever getting more affordable. I'm sure corporate profits were great. Should probably look into this someday and see if my perception is correct.
I think a conversation about what the taxpayer should get back from university research funding is a good question, I personally don't like privatization of medical breakthroughs discovered with public money.
However, I am cautious to extend that argument to this situation. This is an attempt to use federal funding as a backdoor around the 1st amendment (from what I can tell). I'm not going to extend this administration any leeway when their bull in a china shop policies inadvertently break something I don't like. I don't want to improve taxpayer funding of research by losing the 1st amendment.
> Except that I don't recall cars produced in Mexico ever getting more affordable.
According to this site[0], new car prices were about 6% higher at the end of NAFTA in 2020 compared with at the start of NAFTA in 1994. Considering inflation on other things was on average much higher and also that more recent cars are significantly safer, more performant, and fuel-efficient—i.e. more provide more value—it does look like cars did effectively get cheaper.
Keep in mind labor is something like 10%-15% of the cost of a new car so even if you cut that down by 80%, including transport, and ignored recouping capital cost to actually move the production lines then you'd still need to move the production in less than 2 years to actually see the price decrease rather than "not move up as fast" at 3% car price inflation of the early 90s. Interestingly there was a dip in the price increase rate of cars at the end of the 90s https://www.in2013dollars.com/New-cars/price-inflation but it's too large to have been reasonably attributable to this trade change.
Between 1935 and today car price inflation is at 2.41% per year while general inflation is 3.56%. You may have not noticed. Since free trade it's been less than 2%.
It’ll be nice if an institution finally decides to oppose some of the recent government overreach.
It’s really shocking to see an institution in our country take action that is not in its immediate financial best interest (assuming this letter translates to an action)
and they've been painting political enemies as criminals. It's pretty much the same situation as Russia/Putin but at an earlier stage of its development, and people want to avoid being the tallest grass that gets mowed.
It's good that some institutions are standing up but I don't expect it to go well for them.
He also said Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor may have committed treason for criticizing him as president after signing an executive order to investigate them.
These people (not only MAGA) perverted the very meaning of antisemitism to the point that it means nothing today. I am saying that as someone who's lost a family member to Holocaust. When I hear someone mention antisemitism today, 90% of the time it is to punish someone's views critical of Israel.
Which is, of course, deeply antisemitic of the people claiming antisemitism when they are talking about only criticism of Israel, to equate all Jewish people with the Israeli state.
When I was active on the Politics Stack Exchange site years ago I was "reported to the ADL" for merging the [jews] and [judaism] tags. Right out of the gate after I casually mentioned it in another discussion: not even a big fight about it. But the same person outright ignored the Trump-supporting holocaust denying user who harrassed a Jewish user with antisemitic slurs such (e.g. [1]).
Sadly antisemitism obviously exists, and sadly some pro-Palestinian activists have veered off into antisemitism. But the selective outrage is hard to take serious.
Remember, Caesar subjugated Gaul and killed or enslaved about a quarter of all Gauls in the process, to "protect" them from invading Germanic tribes. "Top kek", as I believe the old Latin saying goes.
> Where are the pro-Palestinian activists who are standing up for the Gazans who have the courage to risk their lives by protesting against Hamas?
If you can find me a western government or institution they should be protesting for actively collaborating with Hamas then I'll grant you that hypocrisy. They don't need to because it's already a federal crime to materially support Hamas in any way whatsoever.
If the Palestinians are risking their lives to protest against Hamas in Gaza, why can't the alleged pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrate in support of this viewpoint?
> If you can find me a western government or institution they should be protesting for actively collaborating with Hamas
The BBC (which frequently quotes Hamas verbatim without attribution and which has employed many openly racist correspondents), and Associated Press (who rode with Hamas during the Oct 7 massacre). You should already be aware of this.
Governments have a monopoly on violence in exchange for protected and upholding our privileged rights. When any government start disregarding that contract, so too can the populous.
Can someone confirm that if Harvard turned down Pell Grants and Federal student support, they could admit whoever they want?
>Private clubs are generally exempt from anti-discrimination laws under certain conditions. For example, being genuinely private and not engaging in business with non-members. However, there are exceptions to these exemptions. For instance, when a club receives significant government benefits or operates as a commercial enterprise.
They could. Look up Bob Jones College or Hillsdale College, both of which operate without any federal funding. It appears that the elite universities are going to find out the same thing that the small Christian universities found out in the 1970s, which is that the federal government Can control you if they fund you. I believe Bob Jones in particular won a case in front of the Supreme Court giving them the right to racially discriminate in their admissions if they refuse to take any federal funding.
>It’s more like a patchwork of locked treasure chests, each with its own key and its own label: this one funds scholarships, that one supports cancer research, another pays for upkeep on a library.
Explain why direct donations cannot accomplish the same. I suspect that universities want endowment donations because they grow tax free.
My understanding is that a large part of endowments comes from large (really, huge) donations.
If I was to donate 9 (or 10) figures to an institution, I would want to make sure it is used to support what I want it to support (cancer research, scholarships, libraries, etc), rather than be used as a general slush fund.
It's not entirely about what the organization wants, but also what the donators/sponsors want.
>If I was to donate 9 (or 10) figures to an institution, I would want to make sure it is used to support what I want it to support (cancer research, scholarships, libraries, etc), rather than be used as a general slush fund.
You can make that restricted donation outside of the endowment. I thought endowments were for the support of students, not research.
They recently closed their Middle Eastern studies department. Absolutely insane tbh. Imagine closing a center of Asian or African studies because the president wants to make his Jewish daughter and some rich donors of his happy. How can we be okay with any of this. They caved there. The only reasoning for this response is it infringes on their sovereignty. But make no mistake, every institution rolled back DEI and other initiatives for this admin. Hoping Alan will do what is right. Reinstate that department. Double down on fighting the admin in court. America will not be held hostage by a wanna-be autocrat, a foreign power or those who swear allegiance to Isra-el over American ideals and education in these United States. Silencing dissent in institutions of learning is tyrannical.
> "Harvard must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious and immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension."
Wow. Imagine being sick with something serious like pneumonia and having to decide whether to get everyone around you sick, or risk being suspended from school.
While I am not a friend of a mask ban, universities should absolutely teach their students to stay home when sick. Going to work sick is an abomination that should be rooted out. And it is a nice liberal cause too.
If you're seriously ill, you should get treatment, not walk around hoping that a piece of cloth will save others from exposure to whatever it is you're coughing up.
What if they have pollen or other allergies that masks help mitigate? What if there’s a huge forest fire that’s polluting the outside air with acrid smoke?
There are so many possible scenarios. What if the campus is infested with face-huggers from the award-winning movie Alien? What if there are still Jewish students and faculty members who need to be harassed anonymously?
I'll leave those to people more familiar with the subject. And as for the pneumonia scenario, I reiterate that the only sane course of action is to seek treatment, not to walk around public spaces, masked or not.
As information, the current administration is doing similar demands to foreign universities, trying to impose the point of view of the world in a president we didn't vote for.
Here is an article about the Trump administration demands to our universities.
Wasn't Harvard's president a woman who wrote her PhD thesis on DEI? I vaguely remember the news about this (fraud or something). If this is what Harvard considers that the person for the job, I think the sense making apparatus of Harvard personnel is specifically tuned to not bend the knee in this case. The instrument would likely fail at the input validation step and not proceed to the sense making portion.
There really is no incentive to compromise with the Trump Admin on anything. Even if you cave, they just go for more. You need to act like a cornered animal and not expect honest negotiation.
OTOH if Trump admin WAS at all rational partners they could be extracting historic changes from these institutions. But they won’t.
This is a larger idea, just tangentially related to this particular case.
In 2011 there was Occupy Wall Street. It was a movement that argued that many of the financial problems we saw in 2008 were a result of a 1% of wealthy business people who were prioritizing their own wealth over the needs of the populations of the countries they operated within. I mean, they created a financial crisis by inventing obviously risky financial assets based on peoples housing. They knew it was a house of cards that would fall in time but they did it anyway with callous disregard to the inevitable human cost.
It was in the wake of that the "wokeness" became a buzzword, seemingly overnight. Suddenly, corporate policies were amended, management teams were upended, advertising campaigns were aligned to this new focus. Women, minorities and marginalized groups were championed and ushered in to key public positions. In a brief 14 years, then entire garbage dump of modern capitalism was placed like a hot potato into the hands of a new naively optimistic crew. This coincided with huge money printing and zero percent interest rate, the likes of which we haven't seen. That new elite grew in wealth, stature and public focus. They became the face of the "system" as if they had created it instead of inheriting it.
And now that the zero interest rates are done and suddenly everyone believes in the scary size of the deficit and the ballooning debt, the people sitting in power as we are about to actually feel the crash instead of just kicking it down the road yet again, those people are the target of public ire. I actually see people in these very comments acting as if the looming crash was caused by the DEI departments which formed just a little over a decade ago.
And guess who is coming back to claim they will save us from these DEI monsters? The people who created the actual mess in the first place. Yet now, instead of calling for their heads on spikes like the public was in 2011, we are literally begging them to save us from these DEI proponents.
Our anger has been redirected away from the wealthy and towards the minorities with such skill I almost admire it. The collective anger at DEI is at such a level that we are willing to cede core rights just to damage them.
This is spot on. The US has enjoyed enormous wealth and prosperity, but it's been mostly captured by the top 1% of private individuals. The GOP has done a masterful job redirecting the blame to China, DEI, immigration, etc... when the real problem is that we have not spread around the prosperity through programs like universal healthcare, free college, and heck, even UBI.
Ooh, I am jealous. A close family member has been branded egregious by various acting members of the current administration. I guess I am going to need to up my game if I want to be able to hold my head high at family gatherings.
> For three-quarters of a century, the federal government has awarded grants and contracts to Harvard and other universities
yep. stop doing that. your university is nearly half a millennium old, and everything from the last century will be a footnote. you are a networking ground for upper class society, not an upwards mobility machine for the plebians. just go back to your roots and you won't have any of these issues.
> These partnerships are among the most productive and beneficial in American history.
privately fund it now that its a proven method. this obviously won't be controversial in the future. if its economically impossible then it won't happen, the end.
My father works for a big pharma company, which means they have to listen to the federal government or risk being shut down by the FDA (which would be easy for Trump to do).
He uses this an excuse for the company's complacency, and by extension, his own. I'm glad to see some institutions take a stand.
I think the only way for the universities to escape this blackmail trap is to bind together in their response, refuting the Trump's claims that they're not doing enough to "stop antisemitism" (obviously a cover chosen by the WH because it immediately gathers public sympathy), and reject Trump's demands. If they cave in now, it will be used against them again.
Take the haircut and wait for either the next presidential elections, or maybe midterms if the GOP gets pummeled because of this and starts standing up to Trump. One thing we've seen about Trump is that he fairly easily reverses course when the right pressure is applied.
Granted Harvard's in an easier place than most, but I predict Columbia will come to seriously regret their decision.
The current administration have interrupted the pipeline of students to research - current research funded or partially funded by federal government is stopping or will be curtailed and future students will question whether is a rational decision to go into any sort of path that leads to research because it would only be stable for maybe two to three years, assuming a sane, science respecting House, Senate and President were in office and used the regular norms to pass bills and implement programs. I do not see a recovery path from this unless American public gets a similar thrashing like the Great Depression and decides to not elect nut jobs for 50 years. I keep seeing interviews with those who vote for Trump and are hurt by his tariffs or immigration changes and insisting they still support Trump. Those (mostly older) people are going to have to die of natural causes and be replaced by demographic shifts before things change, but the last election showing young men shifting to Trump and this administration trying to suppress the vote of women does not point to this.
What jumps out at me is the paragraph: "Governance and leadership reforms." in the original letter sent by the government to the university.
The other stuff is hard to make sense of, but this part is crystal clear: The authoritarian government is asking the university to restructure itself along more authoritarian lines. ...essentially Trump wants continuity of reporting lines ultimately leading up to him, and going down to the individual faculty member, student, and foreign collaborating partner. That sort of thing could come in handy for all kinds of things in the future, not just the silly demands of the present.
> As we do, we will also continue to comply with Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ruled that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act makes it unlawful for universities to make decisions “on the basis of race.”
This is already a shift on Harvard's part. When the ruling first came out, they announced they'd be finding ways around the ruling so they could keep doing what they'd been doing (i.e. discriminate against Asians by systematically scoring them low on "personality.")
I think it's also important to point out the auditing and spying the government is asking the universities to comply with including the whistle blower section and things like - "report all requested immigration and related
information to the United States Department of Homeland Security".
It appears that because it's easier to bully, punish and disappear individuals than an institution the Trump administration is doing everything it can to find out who these individuals are so they can be targeted.
General strike when >50% of those who voted wanted this? What world are you living in?
Edit: I stand corrected, 49.81%. It doesn't change the point much. Especially when that ~49% includes many "working class"[1] voters. Who's going to participate in this general strike? A bunch of office workers?
> Also, research tells us that it only takes 3.5% to overthrow a government.
You're describing a coup or revolution. Isn't that highly anti-democratic considering this president just won an election? Why should the 50% be under the thumb of the 3.5%?
The preponderance of academic and philosophical disingenuity — which could only be equally well explained by immensely subpar raw intellect (doubtful on HN) — in this very comment section perfectly illustrates why DJT was elected POTUS.
It's a weak response, in that it accepts the Trump Administration's position on antisemitism. This is tied to the broad definition of antisemitism which includes acts by the State of Israel.[1] That definition comes from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. There's a more balanced definition called the Jerusalem Declaration here.[2][3]
This will lead to a controversial discussion, so I'll stop here, with the comment that getting involved in religious wars of other countries hasn't gone well for the US. The US has constitutional freedom of religion partly because the drafters of the constitution knew how that had gone in Europe.
"Maybe they is not evil. Maybe they is just enemies." - Poul Anderson
It's bad rhetoric. Using stronger, more direct language would have been much more effective at making their point and having their point reach a broader audience. We need leaders who refuse to comply with an authoritarian government and do so with proud defiance. This message was meandering and weak.
Harvard has "fuck you money". They should go ahead and make it clear that they know they have this power and are expressing it (not necessarily with the vulgarity, yet)
This is welcome change, to they defend admisions discrimination on race, sex is beyond me.
They will fold, if federal funding is not enough, they will find other pressure points.
Much of that federal funding is for research, the same as any other R1 university. We all benefit from research findings. Endowments are used for other purposes.
There are a few colleges that take no federal funding in order to maintain total independence (mostly for religious reasons). But their research output is virtually zero.
> I'd guess bad-to-good ratio is at least 10 to 1. Should we fix that?
Should we fix... what? Your unsubstantiated claim? You didn't even bother to do napkin math about it, you just asked a bunch of leading questions and then claimed inaction by the masses.
The federal funds are for doing research that the government wants to fund, not keeping the university’s lights on. This is about terminating a productive partnership, not ending a subsidy handout to schools.
Yup, people really need to learn their history. The modern federally-funded research university system came about as a direct result of the US getting caught with their pants down after Sputnik. The government decided it's in its best strategic interests to maintain long-term investments in basic and applied research. Those aren't things you can just spin up on short notice, though it's easy to kill it.
Also, isn't a ton of the IP from federally funded research just handed over to US corporations for free or pennies on the dollar?
Something tells me this is more of the current administration threatening to completely wreck US prosperity if they don't get wins on their bigoted social war agenda.
It actually isn’t. Grants, as well as much of endowment funds are restricted. They legally must be accounted for separately and can only be used as specified. If you have a billion dollars in restricted endowment or grants towards scholarships and resources, you cannot use them to keep the lights on.
Research projects require grant funding because the schools do not have a business model to justify doing the research.
As a university professor, I agree with you. I think universities must cut the cord and be independent. The university faculty gave up the control to administrators and administrators, in turn, gave up the control to politicians.
I think this is the common-sense response. The push back I've heard is that endowments are apportioned to specific things. That is, it's not an open piggy bank. Nevertheless, $50B is a _lot_ even if the smallest allocation is 1% of the largest that is likely on the order of tens of millions.
It'd be an interesting strategy if you could split the organization based on departments that depend heavily on federal funds (i.e. perhaps STEM fields such as medicine and physics/hard sciences, etc.) and those that are not (and perhaps simultaneously requiring more freedom of thought).
Perhaps resurrect the Radcliffe College to support the more intellectual, free thought based departments. [1]
Do you have money in the bank? Do you have income? If so, you don't really need any help from the government. If you value your personal independence so much, then cut the cord.
Just consider the tax-exempt status as an indirect subsidy for research and education. I think its ROI is much higher than from any other way the government could use the uncollected amount.
Sure, that's the narrative to manufacture consent from the naive, but I don't buy it at all. Perhaps for very small fledgling universities that makes partial sense; even then I am skeptical. For Harvard, definitely not.
At very least, if your endowment is growing on an inflation-adjusted basis, it does not appear to me that you need further subsidies; your primary business is to be an hedge fund and the treasury of an empire, not education for the masses. Gains should be taxed like a hedge fund at that point.
If you want to subsidize education as a society, there are much better ways: fund research directly and cut through the indirect cost crap (which was popular among academics up until the moment the current administration started advocating for it).
> Harvard has a 50 billion endowment, what do they need federal funds for. If they value their intellectual independence so much, then cut the cord.
I agree. Gulf monarchies will probably come in a give even more billions to these institutions anyway to make up for the losses. No strings attached of course...
Harvard probably already secured some more funding from Qatar and what not.
So, many of these universities were taken over in positions of power by people promoting intersectionality which also promotes systematic discrimination (eg DEI) against specific groups. That's a highly-divisive philosophy with no proven benefits that's similar to Marxism which killed 50 million people and wrecked countries. They did this while describing themselves as open-minded institutions commited to everyone's success.
In the degree programs, they forced these beliefs on students in "diversity" classes, rewarded those on their side, and canceled or limited people with differing views. Those who make it through the process are more likely to force it on others in government and business, which they often do. Worse, being federally funded means taxpayers are paying for students' indoctrination in intersectionality and systematically discrimination it claimed to oppose.
Yeah, I want their funding cut entirely since theyre already rich as can be. I also would like to see those running it take it back to what it used to be. That's a Christian school balancing character and intellectual education. Also, one where many views can be represented with no cancel culture. That is worth federal funding.
On top of it, how about these schools with billions in endowments put their money where their mouth is on social issues and start funding high-quality, community colleges and trade schools and Udemy-like programs everywhere? Why do they talk so much and take in so much money but do so little? (Credit to MIT for EdX and Harvard for its open courses.)
> people promoting intersectionality which also promotes systematic discrimination (eg DEI) against specific groups. That's a highly-divisive philosophy with no proven benefits that's similar to Marxism which killed 50 million people and wrecked countries
Just like all people connecting to "Kevin Bacon", and all Wikipedia pages first links connecting to "Philosophy", every idea can be connected to mass murder if you're willing to manufacture enough links.
"Intersectionality" is a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, idea. It promotes nothing.
More like it's two philosophies with similar elements originating from places where both were taught. In both cases, those that believe in them try to force them on everyone in law, policy, etc. They've been doing that, too, so it isn't speculative.
There's also large groups pushing this stuff in businesses, forcing it on all employees, under the banner of ESG. That includes Blackrock and World Economic Forum. There's billions of dollars behind forcing thus stuff on America. Yet, we still see voters rebelling against it, like by electing Trump, because they don't want our country to keep being ruined.
> In both cases, those that believe in them try to force them on everyone in law, policy, etc. They've been doing that, too, so it isn't speculative.
I think it is speculative. I haven't seen this happen beyond a small number of isolated cases, that generally are met poorly within the organization where it happens.
To my observation the association between "believing that intersectionality accurately describes the world today" and "attempting to force others to believe similarly", is about as strong as the association between "frequently voting Republican in the US since 2016", and "attempting to carry out a mass shooting".
Could you describe what you believe "intersectionality" to mean, as a philosophy?
"Also, one where many views can be represented with no cancel culture."
...before "that is worth federal funding."
Such cherry picking in ways that misrepresent what is said, also common in liberal media, is one reason distrust in liberal politics is at an all-time high. Put the truth of what others said side by side with your own position, like I mentioned intersectionality with my counterpoint. See if your ideas stand up to scrutiny.
It's really not necessary since you had already invoked the notion that separation of Church and State isn't particularly important to your evaluation of what the government should fund. Everything else sort of falls by the wayside.
Trump is about making money for himself so he can boast. He doesn't care about this. I wonder who's really calling the shots, because, this is just the beginning.
At the same time, he feels he can (or he's testing) ignoring court orders. Where this meets in the middle will not be a good place.
The world should never forgive Americans for what they let the man they call their president get away with. Sending people to concentration camps, among many other despicable acts. "Wir haben es nicht gewußt".
Soooo you want freedom of speech but if you don't like what someone else is doing, you want to censor them?
And even the reps don't mind this?
How hypocratic do you have to be to want to get rid of the 'Wokeshit' which is freespeech while also advocating for free speech?
Btw. the real term for what type of speech radicals and nazis is abusive speech and yes there are good reasons why abusive speech should lead to consequences
> Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the “intellectual conditions” at Harvard.
So alongside antisemitism, The other demand is for changes in intellect. For some reason this reeks of Christian evangelical movement to purge wokism and anti-Zionism, both of which have run counter to evangelical dogma.
Except homeland has been Egypt before it was Palestine. And Jews lived in both places peacefully after the Arabs established peace.
Antisemitism is not what you want to make it out to be. It is as much a hatred against Arabs as it is against Jews, as Zionist Christians want to fill the land with Jews just so the end of the world is near, without any consideration for what happens to the Arab natives of the region.
Arabs never ‘established peace’ - historians largely agree that Islam was spread through conquest. Under Arab colonisation Jewish people either lived as Dhimmis, which are second class citizens, or were subject to outright violence (you can find many incidences of this before 1948), or both.
I guess that Harvard probably does not need the Feds as much as the Feds need Harvard but I'm glad they are standing up to the Fascists. I'm going to have to see what NYU is doing now.
The thing to remember is that these grants are their research budget. The endowment is largely earmarked for educational projects. Your average university professor is there because they want to do research, not because they want to teach - so the research budget is critical for educating as well.
I assume Harvard has a plan for dealing with this dynamic. They have some extremely smart people there, so I don't doubt they've found a way.
Its not clear what the effect no Harvard would be on those metrics. And all of those are necessarily in Harvards best interest to maintain too.
This is compared to a direct payment to sustain operations which the government is saying they may not be in favor of. But its not like Harvard would say ”it may not be in our interest to produce successful people anymore.”
Don't confuse the credential factory with the skills and quality of the underlying students. Harvard is little more than a toll booth for students who were already smart and over-achieving. It's not like the teaching is extraordinary.
Until recently, the US brand was where exceptional people wanted to go study and work. If you want to send the world's best and brightest to other countries that's fine, but it will have negative long term impacts on the US.
Most if not all of his cabinet (surprisingly) have an Ivy League background. Not sure if that's an endorsement on them, or an indictment on Ivy League schools
The GOP / Trump administration shows no real focus on employing experts, Trump shows no curiosity about anything. They're slashing research and science across the board department by department. They employ anti science people as heads of departments that require science.
I don't think the GOP & Trump thinks they need anything from Harvard other than agreeing to impose first amendment violations on others on behalf of the GOP and Trump.
Genuinely curious: what part of the federal government's letter to Harvard seems fascist to you?
Is the government asking a university to shift their bias away from skin color diversity to viewpoint diversity fascist?
Is there a historical parallel?
Or is it just the fact that the government is asking for reform, and any reform request would be considered fascist? If so, do you also consider the DEI reform requests fascist?
The section on "Student Discipline Reform and Accountability" is explicitly fascist. Harvard police must prevent/crush serious protests that cause disruption. Student groups must be vetted so that they don't violate orthodoxy. Masking (even for valid medical reasons) is banned. (This lets you know that this has nothing to do with facts or diversity of viewpoints and everything to do with the supremacy of theirs.) The "Whistleblower Reporting and Protections" section is basically a demand for a hotline, direct to the government, to inform on anyone not toeing the line. The "Transparency and Monitoring" section makes it clear the government intends to monitor foreign students at Harvard closely.
This isn't quite 1930's Germany yet, but it's getting there. The next step to watch for would be any laws passed that regulate who can serve as faculty in universities or attempts to impose different leadership on universities that don't comply with demands.
You made several good points. While I am struggling to validate "Student groups must be vetted so that they don't violate orthodoxy", it may be because I am unfamiliar with the actions of the student bodies listed at the end of the section, or maybe subtleties in the wording that I am missing that could be exploited later.
Also I find the mask-ban strange and alarming. That example alone was probably enough of a red flag for me to more carefully scrutinize the good-faith of the rest of the letter.
Thank you for taking the time to actually engage with me constructively. Unfortunately many others decided to just downvote my questions.
I find it so disappointing that on a forum like Hacker News I am being downvoted for asking a question in good faith in an attempt to better understand a complex and nuanced topic.
When I ask ChatGPT to explain Facism to me, two aspects it pointed out were:
- Suppression of political opposition, dissent, and individual freedoms.
- Use of state power to enforce conformity.
I can see how the letter from the government to Harvard would be considered use of state power to enforce conformity. As someone who is open minded trying to understand the truth, the letter on first pass reads like they are using state power to unwind enforced ideological conformity. This is confusing, because on its surface it seems anti-fascist, so when people label it fascist (with charged emotions), it's hard for me to take them at their word without further explanation.
When the people who are concerned about the current actions of the government attack me for asking questions in an effort to actually understand their concerns rather than just accepting them, it makes me more suspicious of their viewpoints, not less.
Also, ChatGPT's thorough explanation of Fascism indicated to me that both administrations have been showing signs of increasing fascism, almost complimenting each other in their policies as they rock the cultural and institutional trunk of the united states back and forth with ever increasing momentum until it tips over into catastrophe. If such is the case, then maybe the only hope is for people to engage in these thorny issues with curiosity and nuance, to carefully sift out the bad from the good instead of assuming that everything the other side is doing is evil.
I have no control over what other people do, all I have control over is my own actions. I don't see a good way out of this mess that doesn't involve curiosity, empathy, understanding and reconciliation. So I will continue engage in the conversation with these intentions, and if people attack me for that then I suppose to will just have to accept what's inevitable.
Let's set aside specific terms like "fascist" for now. Below is one of the demands from the government:
> the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for
viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually
viewpoint diverse.
Do you feel this is ok for the government to demand of an educational institution? This isn't about specific political ideologies. If the Biden administration had threatened to withhold funding from a university because, for example, their hiring policies weren't left-leaning enough or something, it would be equally outrageous.
Let me start by saying that I am not American and I am not your enemy. Also, I am genuinely trying to understand the truth about these matters, with an open mind to the possibility that it's messy and complicated and I might not be capable of understanding it. I hope that provides context for what follows.
Honestly, I am not sure if it's okay. It reminds me of the anti-racist movement, in that the action almost feels like it's anti-fascist. It's using a fascist action (use of state power to enforce conformity), to undo a fascist policy (suppression of political opposition and dissent). This reminds me of anti-racism, which uses one type of racism to compensate for a different type of past-racism.
What I find interesting is the very last statement in your post. I am not aware of anything Biden did, but it does seem like Obama did something very similar with the DEI policies forced on universities which came with funding implications for non-compliance. It was a different time, everyone was upset about the great financial crisis of 2008, and on their surface I am sure these policies sounded like a good thing. In the end though these policies were very much a form of facism in that it was a state sponsored effort to suppress political opposition. This probably sounds like I am defending the political views of racists, but really I am defending the political views of people who believe leadership roles should be filled based on the merit of the individual and their ability to take care of those in their charge, and not based on the color of their skin, their gender or sexual preferences.
As I have tried to unpack all this, the perspective that is growing for me is that for the last 20 or so years both administrations have been taking steps towards fascism while hiding their fascist actions behind intentions that sound anti-fascist. If this perspective is even partially correct, it would explain why so much of this has been so confusing for me.
We can debate about specific requests from the Trump administration, but it is pretty clear that Harvard has been horrible. The previous administrations completely failed to fix it.
- Harvard has been discriminating against Whites and Asians in admissions for decades.
- Harvard deliberately refused to protect Jewish students against intimidation and harassment. Students camped in school property for weeks against Harvard's official rules. They chanted that they would bring islamic terrorism to America ("intifada, intifada, coming to America"), established a self-appointed security system that monitored and recorded Jews, and remained there for almost a month while the school simply refused to remove them. [1]
- Harvard's president stated that calling for the genocide of Jews did not necessarily constitute harassment. This is particularly bizarre when contrasted to Harvard's approach to other groups, like when it considers "misgendering" of trans individuals to be harassment.
Being anti-Israel should not be conflated with being antisemitic. After all, the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for a reason.
Trump is using “antisemitism” as cover for the imposition of authoritarianism. This comes from Putin's playbook. Putin used denazification as an excuse for invading Ukraine.
Trump himself has espoused antisemitism from time to time, see below.
An order by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office resulted in a purge of books critical of racism but preserved volumes defending white power. Two copies of “Mein Kampf” are still on the shelves but “Memorializing the Holocaust” was removed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/us/politics/naval-academy...
If anything negative you can say about Israel is equated to antisemitism then Israel gets a free pass. Hamas engaged in terrorism, but Israel's response was out of proportion. Saying that aloud doesn't make one antisemitic. The ICC and UN are not antisemitic organizations for ordering arrest of Netanyahu and condemning Israel's use of excessive force.
What would have been a proportional response? Is it a numbers game? lets do 2x? 5x? 10x?
In the gilad shalit deal Palestinians established the proportion of 1 Israeli to 1027 Palestinians.
So on Oct 7 - 1,195 were murdered, by your standards Israel should have killed 1,227,265 Palestinians.
Certainly seems it ought not to be, but evidently the will to provide "the same protections" is lacking. The unavoidable conclusion is that antisemitism is policy even if it's not official and documented. That truly defies logic considering some of the university's brightest lights have been Jews who've made major contributions to their fields, the school and the country as a whole.
Harvard said most of the demands were not actually about antisemitism.
> Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the “intellectual conditions” at Harvard.
Israel is violent against Palestine and receive more guns, why don't these students received a few too?, they are doing the same, or the guns only come after a few thousands of killed innocents?
I've visited a handful of encampments. Super peaceful, mostly kids educating each other about colonialism and the history of Israel's occupation and apartheid.
If you're looking for violence, the attacks on the Palestine encampments at UCLA were by far the most horrific violence on campus of the last year, and that was funded by Jonathan Greenblatt (CEO of the ADL, which is a racist org)
A demand letter that said only "Harvard may not use race, gender, or national origin as criteria for admissions and hiring" would be a lot more defensible, and much harder to oppose.
But the government's list of demands includes all kinds of stuff that would be mildly insane even if offered in good faith. And we have seen enough already that any independent organization would be very irresponsible to assume good faith.
I would go so far as to say that any institution trying to make decisions based solely on merit is required to resist this kind of pressure very forcefully. There are many examples of the administration using "DEI" as a buzzword when firing meritorious women and minorities, all the while promoting totally meritless white men.
The federal government cannot attach conditions that limit free speech onto federal funding.
There is precedent for the federal government expanding into areas it has no direct constitutional authority over through conditions on funding. But e.g. 'regulating commerce within a state' is not something the constitution explicitly forbids. Whilst 'abridging the freedom of speech' is very much explicitly forbidden.
Importantly, the Civil Rights Act is a (well-litigated) law, not an ad hoc decree from the executive branch. If the current administration wants to strong arm universities, they should go through Congress.
As the Harvard letter says, "I encourage you to read the letter to gain a fuller understanding of the unprecedented demands being made by the federal government..." This goes far beyond a demand to follow existing civil rights law. It's a demand for a full-on, government-monitored cultural revolution that will punish Trump's enemies and bring in his supporters. It's also hilarously self-contradictory. The government demands an END to all DEI programs, yet in the same breath, "Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity..."
> The Federal government has always attached conditions in exchange for Federal funding and Federal contracts. This is not dictating.
It effectively is. Just look up the history of the drinking age - a classic example of the federal government using extortion tactics to override state rights.
I don't think most people would consider "You can't discriminate based on race", to be extortionary. Instead, its a well accepted principle in most of society.
>3. Testimony before Congress that equated opposition to war crimes to antisemitism [4].
Can you link to a specific line of testimony that supports this allegation? "war crimes" isn't even mentioned in the article. Far too often claims like this devolve into a game of strawman/motte-and-bailey, where each side tries to paint their position as maximally charitable, and accuse the other side of rejecting the maximally charitable position.
I initially engaged in these comments by asking questions in good faith in an attempt to better understand what was going on. I was trying to address my own ignorance by asking questions, and I was mostly attacked for it (mass downvoting).
I had more luck copying the scenario over to LLMs and asking them the questions.
It's disappointing to me, because I come to HN instead of other social media for intellectual discussion and nuanced perspectives. To be attacked for asking questions is frustrating and disheartening.
That said, after significant back and forth with the LLMs in an attempt to untangle several key issues, this is the summary I was left with. Somehow I suspect this will be downvoted like the rest of my comments, but I will share it here just in case it helps someone better understand why some right-leaning people may condone the governments letter and also why the letter is so concerning....
Good-Faith Policy Concerns Potentially Addressed in the Letter
Title VI Compliance:
Seeks to ensure that race, gender, or national origin are not used as explicit criteria in hiring, admissions, or funding decisions.
Merit-Based Standards:
Advocates for transparent and non-discriminatory evaluation of faculty and students (e.g. ending race-based preferences, enforcing plagiarism rules).
Viewpoint Diversity (In Theory):
Attempts to correct ideological homogeneity that may stifle academic freedom or lead to one-sided discourse.
Antisemitism Response:
Responds to documented or alleged incidents of antisemitic harassment post-October 7th, which could fall under Title VI protections if based on shared ethnicity or national origin.
Governance Reform:
Calls for clearer lines of authority and accountability in complex academic institutions, which is a reasonable administrative concern.
Key Issues and Overreaches in the Letter
State-Enforced Ideological Engineering:
Viewpoint diversity audits and mandated ideological balancing per department move into compelled intellectual conformity, which risks violating academic freedom and free speech.
Suspension of Institutional Autonomy:
Replaces university-led decision-making with federal oversight, annual audits, and direct hiring/admissions intervention—a level of control inconsistent with
traditional norms for private institutions.
Targeting of Specific Programs:
Selective audits of programs like Middle Eastern Studies or Human Rights centers signal ideological targeting, not neutral application of anti-discrimination principles.
Guilt by Association / Collective Punishment:
Calls for discipline and de-recognition of entire student groups (e.g., Palestine Solidarity Committee) based on political stances, even absent direct policy violations.
Mask Ban and Protest Crackdown:
Mandated suspension for mask-wearing and harsh punishments for past protests go beyond civil rights compliance and verge into authoritarian control of student expression.
Foreign Student Loyalty Screening:
Requiring ideological screening for “American values” and reporting foreign students to DHS raises civil liberties and due process concerns.
DEI Abolition Blanket Order:
Calls for total shutdown of all DEI offices and functions, regardless of their form or function, eliminating even neutral or inclusive programs not tied to race-based quotas.
Summary Judgment
The letter does address real legal and policy issues—especially around race- and gender-based preferences, antisemitism, and bureaucratic governance. But it leverages these issues to justify a comprehensive, ideologically driven restructuring of a university. The result is a state-imposed orthodoxy enforced through threats of defunding, loyalty tests, and discipline, extending well beyond what’s required for civil rights compliance.
Good. Trump is simply trying to see what he can get away with and the answer as it turns out is a lot. Everyone need to stop capitulating to this nonsense. People, universities, companies, all of them.
I'm a scientist and I've spent a lot of time at Harvard, including working there for years.
These demands seem on point to me. I see a lot of uninformed opposition in this thread, but I think most of you all don't have any idea how it actually is at elite universities.
- Political tests for employment, or continued employment. The UC system (a public system!) is one of the worst offenders here, but Harvard is really, really bad.
- Overt discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion (or lack thereof). The number of academics who aren't even aware that this sort of discrimination is illegal is mind-boggling. I would say 9 months ago it was 80% or more. The number of emails I've received either indicating a candidate isn't viable because of his genitalia or skin color, or telling me this is the reason I didn't get the job is crazy. They literally don't know and don't care.
- Compelled speech. This is a bright line we have so far, as a society, successfully succeeded in not crossing. Harvard and other elite universities were crossing it, and the Biden admin's Title IX rules overtly crossed it. A bad look, to put it mildly.
- Widespread censorship, to the point where we (social scientists) have developed code to talk about certain things "nurture a thriving culture of open inquiry on our campus" hahaha...dear lord.
And these aren't small effects. It's not 55% / 45% type scenarios. You have to view the Administration's requests in the light of: Harvard is 95+% Blue Team, and that's largely because they actively filter. There are plenty of people who aren't willing to bend the knee who don't have jobs because of it. Harvard has created an intellectual monoculture. They want "diversity" in the sense that they want people who look different on the outside, but who are all the same on the inside.
Asking for monitoring to make sure they're no longer illegally and immorally discriminating in hiring and admission is warranted, indeed it would be kind of crazy to not monitor. They'll just continue racist and sexist hiring otherwise.
What's in this letter is a reasonable set of asks in response to a situation that is so off the rails it's hard to describe.
Off topic, but _why_ is it good that the gov gives hundreds of billions of dollars [if you include grants] to higher ed.
I work in a startup where none of the programmers have been to college, and they seem to get along just fine.
I volunteer in a youth group that teaches "soft" sciences, and I am sure that groups like ours do a better job at that with a lot less funding.
Trade schools cater to the lower income, are much more effective dollar for dollar, and get a lot less federal funds. If that money were to be poured into trade schools instead of universities, it would help create a better middle class.
Why should Harvard be so entitled?
EDIT: IMO, The reason youth go to college is to have fun. The real reason the parents are willing to pay, is because their children will forge connections with other wealthy families that is worth the money. It may be good for the wealthy that the money stays in their circle, but IMO this is not something the Gov should subsidize.
Nearly everything you use on a daily basis came from university research. Heck, most of what we know about the universe comes from university research.
Every piece of technology is because of collaboration between taxpayer funding and universities. It is relatively rare nowadays for a private business to create anything truly new without some form of university support. Or it's built on top of university research.
If you like new knowledge you like these types of programs. They make modern life possible.
Universities provide staff, equipment and expertise while the government(and often private enterprise) provide the funding.
A lot of modern industry started as academic research. Things like semiconductors, EUV lithography, mRNA vaccines, or AI originate in government-funded academic research.
The health effects of smoking and leaded gas were established by academic research, allowing government programs to massively improve our collective health.
Climate change has been recognized, diagnosed, and its solutions invented mostly by academic researchers, an effort that may save all industrial civilization.
They are already are spending billions a year from their endowment, which covers nearly 40% of their operating revenue, which is around the maximum they can sustainably spend.
Sustainable spending is the whole point of an endowment.
Also endowments are created by a vast number of individual donations which often come with restrictions. For example someone leaves a bunch of money to university to support a professorship. That money and its earnings can only be used for that.
Generally the things that are funded by research grants from the government are things that cannot be funded from the endowment.
Whats the problem.. just get your pal Soros to give you the money instead..
With $36T debt, Federal Government cannot continue splashing out money like there is no tomorrow
Trump is increasing the debt tho and did in his first term.
Republicans only care about debt when it can be used to either bash Democrats or used as a talking point to eliminate something they don't like. Lookup "Starve The Beast".
Republicans do not care about the debt. They care that it can be used as a tool. That's it.
They run up the debt when they want and then turn around to blame Democrats for the debt they ran up.
Nobody is really concerned with the US debt outside of silly wanna-be patriots and the politicians who use it to scare them. Now, one way to make the US debt a much bigger deal is to cause a recession...hmm...wonder if anyone is trying to do that...
Almost every economist believes there is no serious and immediate problem with our current debt level (which is actually increasing under both Trump administrations, despite their fake expressions of concern). Why do you believe you are right and they are all collectively wrong?
Unless you're speaking about the high overhead rates, that's really the wrong framing. The public funds at issue are buying things like research, or hospital services.
One framework I like to use is, “If this thing didn’t exist today, and someone proposed it, how would people react to it?”
I think it’s fair to say that if none of this existed today, and someone proposed that the federal government simply give universities like Harvard seemingly endless billions, it would be laughed out of existence by republicans and democrats alike. All of this is the product of inertia at best, corruption at worst. It’s a different world today and we don’t need our tax dollars going to these places.
The law in the immigration act to disallow people who espouse support for terrorism is a good one.
We protect freedom of speech for citizens because we have to. They are part of our country.
I don’t believe this extends to foreigners. We should allow only immigrants who do not support terrorism and want to be productive members of society. This isn’t too much to ask.
This is not a right or left issue. This is a pro-America vs con-America issue.
"Congress shall make no law" is not unclear, nor is the idea from the declaration that " all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". There is no spot in the founding philosophy of this nation that makes a home for "rights of citizens" only, and there was copious space to fill that in if they wanted. You made that shit up.
What you're doing is scriptural prestidigitation. It's the equivalent of christians deciding that Satan and the serpent in the garden are the same entity, even though it's very clear that they aren't[1]. You're doing it because it makes your world view seem like less of an incoherent mess, not because it's true.
The US government has determined that the individual belonged to a gang. Also, the government of El Salvador confirmed this.
The fact that the lawyer for the person says "there's no evidence" doesn't mean there actually isn't any evidence. It just hasn't been revealed.
I believe that setting Teslas on fire is domestic terrorism. They were politically motivated to specifically target a political figure to intimidate other citizens. I think setting ballot boxes on fire is also domestic terrorism.
The evidence presented to the judge that allowed the deportation was that he specifically supported Hamas. He wasn't just pro-Palestinian. This is why he is being deported.
The government's list of requests is reasonable, moral and necessary. It's the taxpayers' prerogative to demand a merit based system that, in
conjunction, upholds the values and freedoms they hold dear.
The elitist and morally detached Harvard and its fellow privileged, largely useless, institutions can exercise their right to refuse the demands and the money.
The university, as a private institution, has every right to hold whatever views and enforce whatever policies it sees fit within itself.
The government, on the other hand, has every right to put conditions its counterparty should conform to in order to get money from the government.
It's best when the bargaining about such conditions happens with mutual respect and without overreach, but respect and sobriety are in very short supply in the current administration. Even better it is when a university does not need to receive the government money and can run off the gigantic endowment it already has, thus having no need to comply with any such conditions.
(It's additionally unfun how the antisemitism is barely mentioned as a problem, in a very muffed way, and any other kind of discrimination based on ethnicity, culture, or religion is not mentioned at all. Is fighting discrimination out of fashion now?..)
> The government, on the other hand, has every right to put conditions its counterparty should conform to in order to get money from the government.
It really doesn't. There are both normal laws and Constitutional restrictions on how the government can make decisions, and the reasons it can have for making those decisions.
I'm very much not an expert here, but this includes restrictions on viewpoint discrimination in funding.
I agree! The government is not entitled to set arbitrary conditions. But it's entitled to set some. I suspect that some acts of Congress require the government to set some conditions on providing governmental funding, as the Constitution prescribes: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46827
Do we really believe there is a rooted undercurrent of antisemitism at Harvard of all places? Or is this just anti-zionist expansion straw manning? I'm sorry but the continuously faithless positioning of the Trump administration right now makes me believe the antisemitic accusations are a pretext.
Because it's very obviously being used as a cover to exert control over universities which are deemed to be too "woke" (which has nothing to do with anti-semitism).
Yes, antisemitism exists, like many other social ills. But is it a major problem at Harvard and these elite institutions? No, it is not.
The government does not have all that right tho. First amendment and all.
I would invite you to read the government letter if you have not, but look at each demand and put yourself in the position of the recently affected but also try to see if you can hold a "controversial" view of the world that should be fine but would be put in danger by these demands: https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...
Civil rights, suffrage, they were all the controversial opinion at some point. Some people still argue that they are but anyone against those can go pound sand.
I don't think that the government's demands are all reasonable, or even permissible. Some things read like they were written in the height of the civil rights movement in 1960s:
> By August 2025, the University must adopt and implement
merit-based hiring policies, and cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or
national origin throughout its hiring, promotion, compensation, and related practices
Some though read as if they were written in an advent to a totalitarian dystopia:
> Harvard will immediately report to federal authorities, including the
Department of Homeland Security and State Department, any foreign student, including
those on visas and with green cards, who commits a conduct violation.
To my mind Harvard is right in bringing this to the public attention. It's also free to walk away from governmental financing programs that stipulate such conditions (if they are even found legitimate), and is even in a position to do so.
Harvard received the "worst score ever" clamped at 0.0 in 2023. By the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. The actual score was -10.69.
They were particularly oppressive on anyone espousing opinions on the political right...Both leaning toward Individual liberty & stateist inclined.
While I believe that freedom of speech is a right not to be infringed on. Their current stance is selective. They have a massive endowment. So Harvard doesn't need subsidies. Since their endowment benefits private parties, Harvard can be funded by private parties.
Related ongoing thread: Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684386
The aggregate demands of the administration are confusing and contradictory. They seem to be simultaneously asking for:
- an end to diversity initiatives
- a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view
- a new policy of not admitting international students with certain points of view
- ending speech-control policies
- auditing the speech of certain departments and programs
- ending discipline of students who violate policies related to inclusion
- disciplining particular students who violated policies related to inclusion
It is easier to understand their thinking when you combine each pair of demands: what they want is reversals, they've just split each into two steps because they think that will be more palatable. It makes it easier to sell to their own base certainly, because they can concentrate on whichever half has the most emotive effect in any given speech, and easier for their base to parrot: they just repeat the half they want and don't need to think about the other.
The end to current diversity policies and the start of others combined is a demand for u-turn: stop allowing the things we don't like, start allowing the things you were stopping.
Same for speech: stop auditing the speech we want to say, start auditing the speech you were previously allowing.
And so on.
In the minds of the administration it makes sense, because they think of each item separately where there is conflict and together where there is not. Such cognitive dissonance seems to be their natural state of mind, the seem to seek it.
Much like their cries of “but what about tolerance?!”¹ when you mention punching nazis. They want the complete about-turn: LBTQ out, racism/sexism/phobias in. You are supposed to tolerate what they want you to tolerate, and little or nothing else.
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[1] My answer there has often become “you didn't want tolerance, you specifically voted against continued tolerance, what you voted for won, intolerance is your democratically chosen desire, who am I to deny the will of your people?”.
The quotes seem to be from the famous book "1984" by George Orwell. We had it in English literature class in high school.
There are some other famous quotes from that book or one of his other famous books, "Animal Farm".
Writing from memory and googling, so may be wrong:
"Some people are more equal than others."
The society that Winston finds himself in puts forth the slogan, "War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength." The meaning of this phrase is to force confusion upon the members of the Party. It is a form of propaganda, or misleading information typically given by a political party.
According to the article, the original version with "2 + 2 = 5" suggests complete submission to the oppressive regime, with the protagonist's mind being irreversibly altered.
Technically part of the Ministry of Love, Room 101 is the most feared place in all of Oceania and Winston learns far too well that it is here that the …
What is the final message of 1984? … a warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and the ability of a repressive regime to manipulate and control individuals to the point where they betray ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
Animal Farm is even more creepy than 1984, going by my memory, which may be wrong, since it is quite some years since I read both those books.
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I am strongly reminded of my own governments (Sweden) attempts to introduce diversity programs into the school system, only to have each attempt ending in the court system that then finds the programs as discriminatory. In a few examples where they then went and tried to circumvent the anti-discriminatory laws, those attempts tend to favor the wrong demographic and get canceled shortly after. The very concept of favoring or hindering one demographic over an other in terms of grades or admissions are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which is the basis for those laws. It is somewhat understandable why politicians tries to work around laws that protect human rights, but the rulings of the courts are not surprising in the least. For now it seems that most those initiatives has died off with fewer attempts to challenge the courts on this issue.
Strong fundamental laws such as the European Convention on Human Rights exist for a good reason. It prevents political winds from undermining the very pillars that society is built on. It also forces those that want to create exceptions to design their ideas in general form, which has some nice side effects of illuminating contradictions and false premises. If political demonstration on university grounds are disrupting education, then it doesn't matter what political message they are shouting. Either you allow it all, or none of it. If you want to give women higher admission credits in programs where they are a minority, you got to give men higher admission credits in programs where they are a minority. If the consequences of such general rules are not fitting the political winds then the default is return back to the foundation that is human rights.
Sadly America was founded on principles that too 200 years to try and undo. And given the last year alone, they are still stripping rights as we speak. I don't know which fork we turned on that made us so reliable on racism and sexism to function and band together as a country that much of the EU seems to have navigated better. Maybe reconstruction should have had an actual Nuremburg trial instead of "forgiveness" (aka pushing the can down the street until someone could assassinate the one trying to compromise).
the main thing is that it's acceptable, meritorious even, to resent the privileged white male. But a jewish white male, that's racist. Also most white males in the ivies are jewish - the so-called privileged (non-jewish) white male is in fact underrepresented now vs. the general population.
Hello, 55 day old account that's definitely not a troll
Authoritarian governments are arbitrary governments, all decisions are made arbitrarily. Consistency is unnecessary. That's the trouble with choosing power as a guiding principle over reason or consent.
Consistency is undesirable, because if everyone is breaking a law, you apply the hammer of justice only if they aren't a friend.
It's one of the best ways to look good to certain people as well,because you can claim to be just following the law.
This comment and the parent’s are the best retorts I’ve seen yet to the “these people are just stupid” idea we hear all the time. These “rules” are not calculated and brilliant, and that’s the point. They’re controlling at any angle they want.
For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.
Is there any political tool to prevent rampant rule breaking and making the disliked rulebreaker specially vulnerable? Rule breaking is common and apocrypal form of strike involve following the rules to the letter and paralyzing the business. The prevailing principle is "you cant defend yourself by pointing to other rulebreakers" while reality is "its legal if a hundred businessmen do it".
The normative government continues to shrink while the prerogative government grows.
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It makes sense if you understand that they aren't focused on general principles. Diversity is bad when it involves non-whites, women, gay people or research involving these groups. Diversity is good when it involves "race realists." Free speech is bad when students are advocating for divestment initiatives. Free speech is good when a professor calls somebody the n-word online.
The goal is white supremacy and antifeminism.
The goal is power. Suppressing DEI, etc is just a simple way to find a group of people that have different values and eliminate them from the power structure.
An important part about targeting DEI and trans communities is that these two groups stand for immutable properties: I can’t change my race. I can’t stop being my gender identity.
When you “other” people based on immutable properties, it becomes very dangerous. If you can’t force someone to be white and straight, what do you do with them? The government stops funding programs to help these groups, they spread lies and fear about them, and then they sit back. When the people in power tell their supporters that the “other” are the enemy, what recourse is left for one’s safety other than violence. Authoritarian regimes always trend towards genocide, and they always target groups with immutable traits.
When these people use "freedom of speech" all they mean is they want to say their vile Nazi stuff without people complaining.
Also called freedom from consequences. Free speech makes sense in a free society, freedom from consequences does not. Yet that's what they're calling for.
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I'm not sure what "agree with the Palestinians" would mean. Like they are not happy with being genocided? I think that would be most people's feeling in that situation, though that doesn't show any proximity in belief, value or principle.
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> Diversity is bad when it involves Whites, men, straight people or research involving these groups.
If you think that's what the "other side" is saying, then you've completely misunderstood what the diversity idea is about. You can't compare one idea with the misrepresentation of the opposing idea. That's just making things up.
The problem is- they are not anti-racist honest. You are either nurture or nature, but if its all nurture, they refuse to discuss that part, compare those parts, work out the problematic parts and compose better societal models. They just idealise, bigott stay quiet and adverse engage only with those who respond civilized. Its all lies and damned lies and statistics.
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The demands of the administration are the demands of a bully who doesn't want your lunch money, he just wants you to know he can take it away at any time.
"Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."
Any organization is probably in violation of any number of rules and regulations due to the sheer number of them.
Just wait till the sniffling Marc Andreessen shows up to explain why this will save his small town brethren.
It’s a good strategy. Even if Harvard had attempted to satisfy every bullet point, the govt could still retort that their demands were not satisfied.
Like the whole initial excuse for the tariffs on imports from Canada "because of fentanyl" despite <1% of fentanyl coming into the US arriving via the Canadian border https://www.npr.org/2025/02/02/nx-s1-5283957/fentanyl-trump-...
If you don't measure you can just assume all valies are 0.
Hmmm, is this akin to what Russia means, when it says "we do not negotiate with terrorists"?
Typical mafia technique ensuring perpetual extorsion.
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They want to have the old system (deliberate bias and vehement denials of there being any "bias,") but working for them, and the way to demand that without describing it is to require all of the results and "forbid," by name only, the necessary methods.
It all makes sense with a fascist power logic. The goal isn't to implement consistent policy to reach rational targets. The goal is to wield power and slowly errode any opposition with divisive actions that support anybody that is loyal to you. Importantly being loyal doesn't guarantee you will be spared. In these goals consistency is irrelevant, in fact being inconsistent and acting with arbitrary despotism is a feature since it produces more fear.
If you ever find any fascist critique of their enemies you will quickly realize that all of which they accuse their enemies of doing, they will do themselves. Decry freedom of speech as no one is "allowed" to say sexist/racist things anymore? Be sure they will go in and ban books, political thoughts and literal words. Hillarys emails? We literally operate our foreign policy in signal groups.
Quite frankly I am a bit puzzled by the neutrality with which some Americans try to analyze this absolutely crazy political situation. It is like pondering over the gas mixture in the smoke while your house is on fire, absolutely unhinged.
I’d like to get out while I can, but to what country? Any suggestions?
By the way the answer to your question is simple: the American people are fascists, not just the president.
First I think people who recognize there are problems is what is needed now. You leaving makes things worse.
Then again, it is understandable not everybody has the luxury to be in circumstances that allow adequate forms of resistance.
If you ask about which country, I'd say it depends. It depends on who youaare, what your skills are, which climate zones and cultures you prefer, whether you're willing to learn a new language and so on.
Canada.
Nothing they do makes sense until you accept that hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug, for them and their base. They know that what they're asking for is impossible to meaningfully comply with...
because they can use as excuse to stop the funding nonetheless, it's impossible to 100% comply with contradictory requests
It could be a feature not a bug. Inventible violations can be used as leverage for future requests/mandates.
What the demand is, is institutional fealty to Donald Trump. Trying to interpret it as anything else is going to lead these institutions into poor decision making. Harvard is doing the right thing.
You see the establishment of separate, unwritten classes of things here, right? It will be a case-by-case basis which of these rules is invoked, that way no matter what happens they're "just following the rules we all agreed to" but they get to hand-select which thoughts are compulsory and which are forbidden.
and the irony at the beginning of the demanding government letter:
"But an investment is not an entitlement."
>>- a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view
I'm sure we both know what this one means though. Forcing the university to hire people who think the earth is flat and that climate change isn't real - for the sake of diversity of course.
But also diversity is banned.
On that point they mean anyone who isn't white, male, cis, straight, and currently able-bodied.
I don't think it's confusing. It's classic "my way or the highway" stance. "Free speech for everyone! (except for things I don't like...)".
It makes sense when you realize that their true position is "free speech for me but not for thee". The contradictions are about censoring speech they disagree with and promoting speech they like.
They go after their enemies (liberals, trans, pro palestinians, brown migrants) and help their friends (right wing white people).
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To the fascist regime, "diversity" means "hiring black or gay people". Likewise "diverse points of view" means "viewpoints that think it's okay for black and gay people to be hired and for transgender people to pee". And "speech control" means "kicking out people who shout Hitler did nothing wrong in the middle of the library". And "inclusion" means "letting black or gay people study". It's all newspeak.
The demands only seem inconsistent if you don't look at the actual principle underlying them. Political discourse tends to present opposing ideologies as being about principles like "free speech" or "free markets" - it's really all about power, who has it, and who wants it.
In this case its strengthening particular social and economic hierarchies - america vs the rest of the world, and white christians over non-whites or non-christian.
What's interesting is that this is not necessarily a struggle between the top of a hierarchy vs the bottom of one, but between two different hierarchies. The democrats support cultural non racial and economic hierarchies, while the republicans support racial international and the same economic hierarchies. So while they both support the rich over the working class, there is a struggle over whether to support racial and international hierarchies. Democrats tend to support globalization, i.e unifying of the power of the top of the economic hierarchy across international boundaries, while eliminating racial and sexual hierarchies as they are seen as "inefficient" from a neoliberal perspective. Republicans are more focused on the "national elite", the rich people that depend on america being a global hegemon specifically, energy industry, military industira-complex, etc..
Plenty of Democratic voters are on board with taxing the rich and flattening those economic hierarchies.
The problem has been that the Democratic party is the neoliberal wing of the establishment. Its purpose has been to create the illusion that economic progress is possible while working hard to maintain the economic status quo. Cultural diversity was the distraction and consolation prize.
Now the establishment wants full, unquestioned, totalitarian control now and no longer cares about maintaining the illusion of choice.
Ultimately it wants a country run on plantation lines with voting rights restricted to wealthy white male property owners, a "Christian" moral narrative (really just racism, greed, supremacism, and sexual opportunism dressed up in bible rags) and no independent sources of intellectual dissent.
Which means the bare minimum of public education, no science, no difficult or non-commercial art, no free thought in universities or academia, and as little free travel and contact with the outside world as possible.
The most comparable country is North Korea. So the likely end will be a heavily militarised and even more heavily propagandised country, run as a pampered inherited monarchy which tolerates a certain amount of education when it's useful, but is violently hostile to all dissent.
It's quite hard to get there from here. The shock-and-awe of the last few months were supposed to establish dominance, but it's not going to happen without resistance. Harvard is one example. There will be more.
Ultimately the military will be used to force compliance, and - absent a not entirely unexpected medical event - they'll decide which way this goes.
Cowards are now saying it was a mistake: "Trump Officials Blame Mistake for Setting Off Confrontation With Harvard" - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/business/trump-harvard-le...
it's pretty clear. it's twitter's policy. neo-Nazi rhetoric must be allowed, empathy must be banned.
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They're so "accepting of diverging viewpoints" they mandated Harvard to devote effort to monitoring the viewpoints of foreign students so they can be deported for wrongthink...
Weird how many people with "diverging viewpoints" are getting grabbed off the street by masked ICE agents then.
Zero? I’m a visa holder in the US and I’m aware that supporting terrorists and celebrating violence against Jewish people is probably not going to make the country keep me here.
Have you no hesitation, even at this late juncture? Read everyone elses comment above, and try to stretch your critical thinking ability just a bit.
Trump is our Caesar, we have ceased to be a constitutional republic, and you defend this with blithely pretending that 2 months of pure power-madness have not been occurring in plain view of the entire world?
I suspect that such discourse as we have will not be "permitted" indefinitely.
No, I have no hesitation. How are you not finding it obvious that the government are trying to end racially based admittance programs?
So long as they're their viewpoints.
You don't see letters going out to conservative institutions demanding they hire gender ideology professors or communists.
I’m not sure the government is funding many conservative institutions.
> it's fairly clear they mean
"It's fairly clear that Herr Hitler only means to instill properly virtuous German educational values."
No, we've seen more than enough to know exactly what kind of administration this is, and how it lies.
FFS it's just 3 months in and already they're kidnapping people from America into concentration camps for the rest of their lives (however short that might be) with no trial nor even the pretense of charges.
Come to think of it, what's The Hacker News policy on storing user information? Is it time for people who aren't fans of the current administration to make new accounts?
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I was brought up as an American to believe that most important American value inscribed in the constitution was that the government cannot control your speech. So regardless of what Harvard does or does not do that quote, coming from the government especially, is simply unAmerican on its face.
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Whether or not they should is irrelevant. What is relevant is the government cannot infringe on Harvard’s speech.
Also this has nothing to do with immigration. It would be the same situation if everyone at Harvard were 10th generation Americans.
Harvard's admittance policy should not be up to the government outside of preventing discrimination along protected classes. If Harvard admits students that are bad consistently, and they turn out to be bad hires/professional connections, then Harvard the institution will lose its competitiveness with other schools for the best talent and previous alumni will pressure/complain that recent admittance policies are devaluing their degrees.
> Do you think Harvard should admit students that are, "hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence
I'm not sure you thought this through—if Harvard stopped accepting Republicans like you're suggesting, I'm not sure how many people would be left.
> Do you think Harvard should admit students that are, "hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence
Sure, why not? Everything should be open to criticism at our institutions of higher learning. If not there, where? That which is above criticism is dogma.
> including students supportive of terrorism and anti-Semitism
In Trump administration code, this means "has ever said anything positive about the Palestinian people." So yes, them too.
There are 2 issues here. The first is that it's not consistent with ending speech control policies.
The second is that hostility to American values is actually pretty subjective. For instance, the January 6 insurrectionists were very hostile to American values and used violent terroristic tactics to try to destroy the constitutionally mandated transfer of power. But Trump pardoned them all because it improves his ability to wield violence against America in the future.
It's impossible to take any of this document seriously in that light.
1. First off, yes they should.
2. We both know and understand that's not what's actually happening. When you have people peacefully protesting for the genocide in Palestine to end and they get disappeared by the state, then the situation is different. Please, at least try to be honest.
that's an odd take, given how the orangefuhrer treats the C constitution.
The demands are simple and not confusing at all.
- Stop promoting Democrats' agendas as the ultimate truth; stop bullying people for non-Democratic views - Allow Republicans' agendas to be equally represented
Is it really so difficult to understand?
Out of many bad things Trump has done, this isn't really bad for anyone except core Democrats voters.
The US academia has become hostile to anyone except one particular culture. This should stop.
Conservatives should start their own universities, if they aren't happy with the existing ones. The federal government has no business enforcing conformity to certain ideological demands in private institutions. It's right there in the very first amendment.
If the university was founded by the government, it should represent Americans. All of them. Half of Americans are conservative. Approx. half of academia should be conservative.
Harvard is older than both parties. There is no good reason why it should cater to only one half of Americans.
Conservatives have started their own Universities. No one likes going to those schools, and they end up bankrupt, with students who are functionally uneducated.
So the existing ones don't need government money, then, right?
Stanford for example.
> Conservatives should start their own universities
They did. Remember Trump University? It got shut down for fraud.
With their endowment above $50 billion, combined with Federal plus Non-Federal sponsored revenue at 16% of operating budget, it makes sense to me they just forgo Federal funds and operate independently.
If all 16% is canceled, then they'd need to draw an additional $1 billion per year from endowment at current budget levels.
That would put them above 7% draw so potentially unsustainable for perpetuity, historically they've averaged 11% returns though, so if past performance is a predictor of future, they can cover 100% of Federal gap and still grow the endowment annually with no new donations.
Republicans Are Floating Plans To Raise the Endowment Tax. Here’s What You Need To Know : https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/2/11/increasing-endo...
Proposed College Endowment Tax Hike: What to Know : https://thecollegeinvestor.com/52851/proposed-college-endowm...
Other article: When hacking the government rules is used against you.>A new proposal seeks to increase the endowment tax rate to 14%
That would be great that Harvard pays %14 on investment income on its 50 billion fund, considering I pay a minimum of 20% on my 'way less than $50 billion' in taxable investments, which was funded by my already taxed earnings, where as Harvard gets much of its endowment funds gifted to it.
But I don't understand why 14%? It should be the same as you, 20%.
Same goes for religious organizations, but it would be extremely hard to enforce, as they might say "government is interfering us practicing our religion", as practicing religions helps to not pay taxes and protected by the Constitution.
if your argument is "but they're not getting screwed equally" then its a completely flawed argument benefiting the government
you should be questioning why you are getting screwed at all. it doesn't solve the government's revenue problems or even make a dent.
People already paid their taxes on all of the principal before they donated it to fund education. You and I are not chartered as an educational endowment; things like Roth IRAs exist for us.
holy shit dog, you make over $533,000???
"funded by my already taxed earnings"
Why did you even try that? Blew your whole argument.
Eh, colleges were originally religious institutions. (Harvard was founded to train clergy [1].)
Converting the Corporation to Harvard Church is about the least shenanigany thing I could think of in this tale.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_University
This is genius. Next up, Apple could easily convert into a church with its many disciples.
If they become a church they will have to buy private jets for the faculty.
No skin in the game, but curious to know why any Republican would want to raise taxes. Is this some sort of power play like the tariffs? Feels like they’re ghost riding the economy for the lulz.
They don't care about taxes - they are happy to implement regressive taxes that disproportionately burden the middle class and poor, such as sales taxes, Social Security, etc. They just don't want to pay taxes themselves.
It's about punishing their enemies.
> Feels like they’re ghost riding the economy for the lulz
Yes. The abstract of "the economy" doesn't matter. The priorities are "owning the libs" on Twitter and other media, and their own personal bank accounts which can benefit from insider trading the tariffs, state-sponsored memecoins and so on.
Easy, Harvard is essentially a training center for their ideological enemies on top of providing an actual education. They're just putting the boot down and saying stick to teaching instead of implementing and advancing a specific ideology. If taxes are the tools, so be it.
LoL - why it makes any sense to do this for universities and not billionaires is beyond me, but I'm sure half the country can explain it to me like I'm 5.
The current admin is openly anti-intellectual.
Edit:
"We need to attack the universities in this country"
"The professors are the enemy"
Specific clip https://www.reddit.com/r/ABoringDystopia/comments/1ichg58/ya...
If you want the full speech it's on YT so if you reply with "context" you should back that up
if you hate universities it makes obvious sense
I’m not half the country, but I can explain it to you. Billionaires already pay tax on investment income. Universities are exempt but now the proposal is that they pay as well, just like individuals (including billionaires) and other profit-making groups.
… or churches
Politics of resentment where elite colleges and universities are unjust scams and billionaires are just the pinnacle of self actualization.
Doesn't this tax only apply to "net investment income"/realized gains? Billionaires technically already have to pay it at a higher rate. And well they generally do? I mean when they personally actually sell stock and or receive dividends and interest.
Why do you expect a billionaire to steal from billionaires? a portion of non-essential stealing comes from respct, and of course these billionaires are all a part of the same club.
The other lens is simple as well: big fish don't go after the other big fish. That just ends in two hurt fish and no food. Trump thought he was going after a small fry and underestimated the response. just because Columbia folded doesn't mean all universities will.
lens #3: this clip explains it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLbWnJGlyMU
He's a bully but if everyone realizes they outnumber (and outmatch him) he loses his power).
Billionaires do pay income tax on investment income.
Billionaires do not get a tax exemption
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>> College endowments are typically tax-exempt, but a 2017 law imposed a 1.4% tax on investment income for a small group of wealthy private universities.
> LoL - why it makes any sense to do this for universities and not billionaires is beyond me, but I'm sure half the country can explain it to me like I'm 5.
Because they already do it for billionaires: unlike university endowments, billionaire investment income is not tax-exempt by default, it's already subject to income tax [1].
[1] At least theoretically, ignoring the loopholes and tax-dodges billionaires can take advantage of with literal armies of accountants.
Billionaires pay 37% or 20% on their investment gains, can't really explain it to a 5 year old because congress and the IRS make it complex.
I think the 9 billion is very misleading. More than half goes to hospitals affiliated with Harvard. I am not sure but I don't think they get anything from the endowment. The impact of loosing this money would be very uneven across different parts of the university and hospitals affiliated with it.
The faculty of arts and science would be fine. Yes, some cuts, a hiring freeze etc. The med school and public health school would feel a big impact. They employ so many people on "soft money" through grants including many faculty members.
The hospitals are a different story and I am not sure why they are even lumped together.
Yeah this isn't purely a question of Harvard's P&L being dependent on subsidies. The money in question is grants attached to specific practices or research. The money isn't just gratuity for Harvard being so great, it's awarded for specific objectives that Harvard was deemed capable of delivering. Cutting off the money isn't going to hurt Harvard, it's going to stop all the programs the grants were funding.
Stopping those research programs is a choice. They could also choose to pay for them out of the endowment.
People here have little idea about how Harvard works. Harvard is financially vulnerable. It is currently running on a deficiency considering the endowment. And Harvard can't freely use most endowment for personnels anyway. If the government takes away funding, Harvard will have a financial crisis. I guess the leadership made the decision in hope someone could stop the government before bad things happen but when bad things do happen, you will probably see mass layoffs of researchers in particular in life sciences and biomedical research.
I mean, we literally just saw what happened at JHU when their USAID funding vanished. Everybody on that soft money got laid off.
That’s what makes stands like this hard for admin: you’re risking massive layoffs in the programs that are often the least political to defend the academic freedom of the programs that are often the most political. Columbia made one decision. Harvard is making another. You could make Lord Farquaad jokes here, but if it alone loses its federal funding in these expensive research areas, it will lose its preeminence in those areas for a long time.
I guess Harvard saw the decision at Columbia made the situation worse [1], so they decided to make a different one.
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-freezes-all-rese...
Some universities should make sacrifices for academic freedom, yes. That's what they are there for!
With $50B in the endowment, how are they financially vulnerable? Honest question.
Much of the endowment is earmarked towards specific ends. It is not a slush fund for discretionary spending.
This might be true for Harvard, but I don’t think free speech should only be for those who can afford it. I know my school couldn’t if the government came knocking.
Harvard is free to say whatever it wants and operate without government funds. A shocking idea may be for a school to actually use the tuition paid by students to educate them.
This is forced speech for all those of us who disagree with Harvard's politics and yet have our tax dollars sent to support it anyways.
That’s a very odd perspective.
Could you explain how government research funding constitutes forced speech?
If an individual who receives a government tax credit (say EITC) speaks out contrary to your politics, is the government allowed to withhold that credit too?
1st Amendment is more important than you not liking a specific spending of government funds.
Somehow I doubt you would apply these same principles to someone who doesn't believe in police and objects to their taxes being used to fund them.
I posted this deep in another part of this discussion - but the majority of the money being discussed here isn’t really for Harvard or educating its students - the largest portion are for NIH grants funding to Boston area hospitals, most of which have affiliations with Harvard Medical School.
> The Crimson analyzed the proposed Trump administration funding cuts and estimated that the five hospitals’ multi-year commitment from the NIH is over $6.2 billion and the University’s multi-year federal research funding exceeds $2.7 billion.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/4/funding-review-h...
I’m sure that you have legitimate issues with politics at Harvard, but penalizing a number of independent non-profits that serve the community because they associate with a University that the administration disagrees with also seems to be forcing speech.
Just watch what happens when they exercise their Constiutional right to "say whatever it wants."
Stephen Miller made it clear this morning: "Under this country, under this administration, under President Trump, people who hate America, who threaten our citizens, who rape, who murder, and who support those who rape and murder are going to be ejected from this country."
If the government decides you "hate America" or your business supports some hypothetical rapist/murderer they imagined, you're going to end up ejected from this country without due process.
That's just how government works, buddy. I disagree with my tax dollars being spent to shoot wild horses and fund Lockheed-Martin, but here we are. It's not forced speech, because you have representatives who (in a working system) you could ask to fight against tax dollars being spent on something you dislike. You have a voice, you just don't get to have the only voice.
i disagree with you but i still think you should be allowed to drive on public roads and access publicly-funded health care that are funded by my tax dollars.
Okay, disband all of CBP and then we can talk.
They could also possibly fire some administrators. Not every vice-provost out there is strictly necessary.
Just a few years ago, Harvard Crimson carried an op-ed complaining about the bloat:
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/11/29/anderson-burea...
Cannot edit my original comment, because I wrote it 16 hours ago, but I am somewhat surprised by the fluctuating up/downvote count, going from 0 to 6 and back.
It seems that the very idea that some employees in academia might be superfluous is very disagreeable for some HNers.
Why? Institutional bloat is a well known problem, it happens in private sector, public sector, churches, military, wherever you can think of. It probably already happened in Ur and Nineveh. Why should academia be somehow immune from this problem?
And if it is not immune, shouldn't it try to do something with it?
There was a massive increase in tuition in the last generation or so. How much of that extra money goes to the core mission of the universities, and how much is spent on "nice to have extras", starting with opulent campuses and ending with "Standing Committees on Visual Culture and Signage"?
Everyone has to trim the fat down a bit from time to time. Even Google and Meta. Why not Harvard.
People are reflexive. In a different context, driven by someone else, many of the people currently defending Harvard would instead be pointing out that Harvard and the other elite institutions are part of "the problem". In general this year, it's been interesting to me to see Republicans become protectionists and Democrats become neoliberal free traders, both parties flipping their talking points to either align or disagree with Trump.
This article lists out why it's not good of an idea as you think.
>Universities’ endowments are not as much help as their billion-dollar valuations would suggest. For a start, much of the money is reserved for a particular purpose, funding a specific professorship or research centre, say. Legal covenants often prevent it from being diverted for other purposes. In any case, the income from an endowment is typically used to fund a big share of a university’s operating costs. Eat into the principal and you eat into that revenue stream.
>What is more, eating into the principal is difficult. Many endowments, in search of higher income, have invested heavily in illiquid assets, such as private equity, property and venture capital. That is a reasonable strategy for institutions that plan to be around for centuries, but makes it far harder to sell assets to cover a sudden budgetary shortfall. And with markets in turmoil, prices of liquid assets such as stocks and government bonds have gyrated in recent days. Endowments that “decapitalise” now would risk crystallising big losses.
More worrying is the fact that the federal government can inflict even more harm aside from cutting off federal funding:
>the Trump administration has many other ways to inflict financial pain on universities apart from withholding research funding. It could make it harder for students to tap the government’s financial-aid programmes. It could issue fewer visas to foreign students, who tend to pay full tuition. With Congress’s help, it could amend tax laws in ways that would hurt universities.
https://archive.is/siUqm
if a $50,000,000,000 endowment can not be used to smooth things over in times of need or turbulence then the endowment managers need to make changes.
You can not possibly convince me that Harvard’s endowment doesn’t trivially have one year of liquidity in it.
I’m sure it’s not structured to handle a 7% annual draw down for the next 30 years. But it’s got plenty of time to restructure if needed.
The point is, it's eating your seed corn.
Spending a billion of it is not just spending a billion. It's spending the many billions it was meant to provide, in interest, over the next decades.
It's extraordinarily expensive to spend it directly, as opposed to spending the income it generates.
You can certainly do it, in a true emergency. But you certainly don't want to make a habit of it.
To some degree it already has been. After the economic genius Larry Summers paid for the Allston campus expansion with some dodgy loans that blew up in their faces during the 2008-9 financial crisis, there was some attempt to reform the endowment, back off some risky investments, and build up more of a free-cash emergency fund. This actually paid off during the Covid lockdowns, which the university was able to weather without too much disruption.
The other oddity of Harvard's endowment is that each school at the university basically has it's own fund--so that for instance, the Business school and the Law school don't have to worry about money the same way that FAS (the main undergraduate school) does.
Not to mention all those legal covenants have another party to them - they're not written in stone. I'm sure a good number of them would be willing to considering loosening legal restrictions if it would really help.
They made a big fuss a few years ago about what I read imo as over investing in foreign farm land, esp south America and Africa. Which seems to have completely flopped, if not yet realized.
At this point, you really do have to question whether each university hire was merit based or not, including the fund managers.
>...much of the money is reserved for a particular purpose
I would assume that a tax on an endowment would be like a capital gains tax, i.e., taxed on the investment growth. Is the growth 'reserved for a particular purpose'?
It's reserved because the donation was earmarked for a specific purpose (eg. a business program or whatever), not because they reserved 30% on tax owing.
>Is the growth 'reserved for a particular purpose'?
It's probably safe to assume donors are competent enough that such glaring loopholes don't exist. After all, the concept of endowments being used as long term savings, rather than spent immediately, isn't exactly a new concept. Failing to take this into account would mean any earmarks are void after a few decades.
It’s never a guarantee when it comes to government funding. It can come and go at any time. Take the politics out of it, Harvard has been operating at risk with this funding source for some time.
He's not gonna be happy they can operate financially without his assent
He still controls the congress, the white house and the supreme court. So he could potentially pull a completely illegal fast one and freeze their accounts. Since rule of law seems on fairly shaky ground right now in any case.
He may issue an EO against them similar to the ones he's successfully used to bring major law firms he doesn't like to heel: ban consideration of former Harvard employees (... maybe also graduates?) for Federal jobs, revoke clearances held by anyone employed by Harvard, and ban them from Federal property. Maybe with some other creative terms thrown in to mess with universities in particular.
> he could potentially pull a completely illegal fast one and freeze their accounts
Harvard (and most institutions and powerful individuals) would be smart to maintain liquid assets and a bank account outside America’s control.
I mean, it turns out the fed has the power to pull any money from any account they wish, at any time, like they recently did with NYC.
This is about lots more than money. Sure, Harvard can go without federal funds. Then comes federal tax breaks. Then Harvard's ability to recruit foreign students (no visas, no foreign students/professors). After that comes the really draconian stuff like the fed revoking clearances or not hiring/doing business with Harvard grads. Such things were once thought illegal but are now very much on the table. That is why Harvard needs to win the money fight no matter the numbers.
Right, money is just the first and most obvious cudgel. Does Harvard have any biomedical labs that require federal approval to handle hazardous materials? That could be delayed or revoked. Do they file taxes? They could face an audit. There's no shortage of painpoints an organization that large has exposed to an unethical government.
Harvard affiliated hospitals are dependent on NIH funding for survival. Wonder if they are included in the scope of this.
NIH falls under HHS, and the HHS acting general counsel was a signatory on the original letter.
That said, affiliated hospitals are not owned or operated by Harvard.
The affiliates could be pushed to drop their affiliation if NIH wanted to play hardball with Harvard.
According to NYT, “ of the $9 billion in federal funding that Harvard receives, with $7 billion going to the university’s 11 affiliated hospitals in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., including Massachusetts General, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.”
80% of the endowment funds are heavily restricted as per donor requests and cannot be used unconditionally.
Could you give us some of these restrictions? This seems like a BS excuse to not support the students.
If I give a school 20 million yearly to research a specific form of cancer, and I find out that they instead used that money to upgrade the plumbing in their dormitories and spent nothing on cancer research, I would not give them 20 million ever again.
Sure, due to funding cuts students will suffer with slowly degrading infrastructure and will need to do plumbing fixes at some point. But that doesn't mean people who give them money for one purpose are happy with it being used for another purpose.
This is absolutely par for the course for university endowments. They're not big pots of money, they're thousands of small pots of money with various restrictions on their investment, disbursement, etc.
Harvard has sat on $53B tax free leveraged 40% into private equity and now might have to panic sell because their VIP status got clipped? Color me surprised.
those endowments, especially for the Ivy League schools, aren't liquid at all. They'd take a massive haircut if they had to start pulling funds from it
Presumably they could go to a large bank and make a deal so that they only have to take a relatively small haircut by getting a loan to be paid back from endowment interest.
If this is the case then they really are not for the benefit of students?
Harvard is probably thinking they just need to draw the $1 billion extra for another 4 years. Unless, Trump runs for a 3rd time which he has floated. If that happens then I think everyone's just screwed.
With an overbearingly powerful executive like the federal US executive you can come up with so many ways to fuck with companies or institutions like this one beyond not giving them money.
It's very dangerous to assume "oh, this will only last four years". The rights currently being eroded (free speech, habeas corpus and voting rights themselves) are required for free and fair elections. Even if the term of the current Shitstain In Chief ends when it's supposed to, his replacement will be from the same cloth.
I'm sure he's got plans to issue an executive order declaring all of the votes against him null and void because they weren't cast and counted within 4 hours of each other on election day.
I agree. Also, the quality and independence of the research will improve when it is funded outside of government influence.
Which is, of course, why the internet is a spectacular failure and SpaceX is our best chance to ever put a man on the moon, and polio is still ravaging the country. Great point.
From the United States government letter to Harvard: "Harvard must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious and immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension."
So if a student has, say, an immunodeficiency syndrome and wears a mask to protect their health during the riskier seasons of the year, they would face dismissal from the university? (Or worse - whatever that is - according to the letter.)
This is how we know that the Republican party has no interest in freedom as the word is conventionally defined.
They want freedom for themselves. They're free to impose their will on others without judgement. That's the purpose.
I wrote this on another thread recently, reposting here:
Things started to make more sense to me once I realized that by nature, human beings hate freedom and love tyranny. Once you accept this, it all falls in place. Deporting citizens to foreign prisons? Sounds great. Incoherent foreign and economic policy? Love it. Freedom of the press? Who needs it! Destruction of democracy? Own the libs! Legalize bribery of foreign officials? Even the playing field! And finally, words don’t need to mean anything because they are simply evocations intended to stir up certain emotions. They are more akin to a hunter’s duck call. The hunter doesn’t speak duck and doesn’t care whether that sounds he’s making have any meaning, he simply makes noise and looks for a result. Not getting the desired result? Just change the noise a little.
This is why democracy will eventually fail and autocracy will rise in its place. And no one will ever learn.
Seems like this could also be explained by short memories. Most westerners, me included, have never lived through true tyranny, we don't know the signs and probably are just too comfortable coasting along, thinking what we have now won't suddenly disappear [1].
We can read history, but it's nothing compared to actually living through it. And I think most American voters don't know their history, and don't bother to inform themselves either, which makes things much worse.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_effect
Autocracy, or some form of it, has been the dominant form of governance throughout the history of human civilization. That's not gonna change just because we got Apple watches. Democracy was a really nice experiment, but it's over now.
The current regime in Washington is clearly fascist, there is nothing democratic at all about them. They want to banish Americans to foreign concentration camps for torture, he said that just before his interview with the El Salvador President who is hosting at least one of said concentration camps. Yet the media says little.
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Do you have a source? You can have mine: https://www.phc.ox.ac.uk/news/comprehensive-review-confirms-...
Dumbass
A "comprehensive mask ban" would presumably include exceptions for people who are immunocompromised, actively sick with an upper-respiratory infection, etc.
Steelman, don't straw man.
"presumably" is carrying a lot of water here. For instance women are bleeding out in Texas parking lots because doctors are afraid to give abortions even on women who could potentially die from complications because it's not a sure thing. This is the MAGA mentality
Let's be realistic: how many doctors have ever been held accountable for performing abortions to avoid complications? How do you even imagine a trial against such a doctor? Women are bleeding out in Texas parking lots because doctors wants them to bleed out to make a political stunt.
That's open to interpretation. That's the problem. We've seen how Republicans treat anything that deals with nuance.
I mean...the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is really clear, and the Democrats have weaponized it to help the constituencies they're pursuing. Whether that's morally correct or not is beside the point, because that's not why the party machine is doing it. They've institutionalized racism and sexism at a scale we haven't seen since the civil rights movement brought merit ("...by the content of their character.") to the fore.
It's just words, obviously contradicted by many of Harvard's recent actions, but all I can think is what a fucking lay-up. If only Columbia's administration had half a spine they would have responded similarly.
Columbia's administration obviously has no issues silencing free speech and dissent based on their actions though.
Seems like it could mean death for Columbia as a desirable college honestly
Probably not, they'll just pump up international student numbers to recoup and basically gut the domestic student experience. There's near infinite demand for American universities overseas even now.
they probably don't have a $50 billion endowment to weather Dump's petulance.
> all I can think is what a fucking lay-up
I am nervous about the US right now. So many cases are going to end up at the Supreme Court that is controlled by conservatives. It may not be the lay-up you think it is.
Also what happens if Trump just decides to ignore a court loss as he did with the recent deportation of Kilmar Garcia?
I don’t agree with Roberts but he isn’t a hack. For what it’s worth, he also went to Harvard.
I think conservative Harvard graduates are among the most eager to impose their will on Harvard. Look at Harvard grad Elise Stefanik, for example.
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It will take a majority of states, and their military backing, forcefully overthrowing Trump.
I really hate to be alarmist, but it does feel more and more that we're headed to massive, coordinated state against state violence.
Believing that something is inevitable is the first step towards it becoming inevitable. But there feels like there is a momentum in people, and in society as a whole that only ends one way, and we need to release and explore. I don't know if once society gets the "bug" to tear it all down there's any going back.
I feel like we're destroying our societies and getting into wars out of curiosity, and because we've forgotten how it hurts more than anything else.
Or you could find illegal conduct for congress people, have them sued in criminal courts, and then hold elections to elect people (republican or democrat) who will make congress function as it is meant to.
Perhaps someone can provide security services to republican congress people who are threatened with violence if they dont toe the line, so that they are safe enough to stand up to trump. (This is an actual reason given for their cowardice)
Perhaps. The Courts and the Legislature have yet to defend their powers, but the crunch point to do so is approaching. When we get past the stage that they have fully capitulated to Trump then it'll get truly ugly.
From a geographic standpoint, the conflict isn’t state vs. state this time around, though, it’s rural vs. urban. Blue cities in red states. Red counties in blue states. Not very conducive to conventional military conflict.
The biggest irony here is that after Roberts, the justices Trump appointed are the conservatives most likely to do the right thing. Gorsuch and Barrett are fine justices (even if they have opposing views to mine), Kavanaugh could be worse. Hopefully he doesn't get to choose another one or we'll get another Alito or Thomas.
So first they demand "Merit-Based Hiring Reform" and "Merit-Based Admissions Reform", and then it continues to demand "Viewpoint Diversity in Admissions and Hiring".
I can't even engage with these levels of cognitive dissonance. Or bad faith. Or whatever it is.
Never mistake a man's rhetoric for his principles.
If you genuinely cannot distinguish the two then that's about equally as bad as cognitive dissonance:
Phenotype diversity != Viewpoint diversity
The former is what current academia and DEI focus on, the latter is what the administration demands.
Does this simple logic need to be expressed in Rust for HN folks to wrap their mind around it?
the contradiction is that "viewpoint hiring" =/= "merit based hiring".
I think you should give better faith to the community instead of breaking the guidelines here trying to prove a point.
I have never been a "woke" person, but Trump really makes me doubt the meritocracy argument. If Trump was a black woman he would never get away with half the things he is doing now.
> If Trump was a black woman he would never get away with half the things he is doing now
If Trump were a black woman (or man), he would have never survived the release of the Hollywood Access tape and therefore would have never gotten elected.
Yes a black man can only (politically) get away with something less risque like smoking crack cocaine on video during an FBI sting:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/local/fbi-video-of-unde...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Barry
As others have pointed out to you, "woke" is just from AAVE, meaning to be awake to the racial prejudices and social injustices of the world. Leadbelly used it at the end of his "Scottsboro Boys" [1] in 1938, and it likely was in use many years before that. Erykah Badu's "Master Teacher" also uses it prominently, which probably helped bring it out of AAVE into more mainstream use [2].
Anyway, that's all to say I find it sad and funny that people are all up in arms about being "woke" these days. It's like stating "I'd prefer to be ignorant".
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrXfkPViFIE&t=249s
[2] whole song is great, but I forgot about this second section of the song: https://youtu.be/Dieo6bp4zQw?si=fCPJpWIbQV_g5yx3&t=203
> "woke" is just from AAVE, meaning to be awake to the racial prejudices and social injustices of the world.
Yes, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a democracy that serves the people of Korea.
Sometimes expressions have meaning beyond what advocates for the related concepts claim. For example, as I’m sure you are aware, ‘woke’ viewpoints repeatedly advocate for racial discrimination in American universities.
You have come to the realization that systemic racism exists, and it grants privileges to the dominant socioeconomic groups. Congratulations, you are now "woke"!
That's what the term originally meant, before it was turned into a strawman for "anything I don't like" by the conservative media machine and weaponized to divide people.
> If Trump was a black woman he would never get away with half the things he is doing now.
It sounds like you're aware of the present reality of race and how it impacts how one is treated in America just for being who they are.
> I have never been a "woke" person
I have news for you!
Edit: to be clear, I'm certain you don't match the the adversarially bastardized caricature of what a "woke person" is, but it sounds like match the original, well-meaning definition.
It's not cognitive dissonance, or bad faith. Of course.
If you let Harvard do "merit-based hiring", they'll move a little in the direction of actually complying with employment law, but not much. If you institute a regime such as the one that existed for race and sex for decades (i.e., if you don't have "enough" black people, you need to show how your recruitment pipeline means that's necessarily the case, like not enough get the required type of degree), you'll get much better compliance.
>If you institute a regime such as the one that existed for race and sex for decades
Do you really think this administration is doing anything close to that?
Frankly no. I don't think they actually care in the way that equal outcomes was baked into what it meant to be Blue Team for a while, and the bureaucracy ("deep state") is against them, especially in Massachusetts, and I don't think they're competent enough.
Harvard admitted it needs to "...broaden the intellectual and viewpoint diversity within our community..."
This is a no-brainer considering only 2.3% of their faculty identifies as conservative.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/5/22/faculty-survey-...
How is this a no brainer? How many of their faculty identity as believers in a flat earth? Are we concerned about that viewpoint being underrepresented as well?
Well, 2.3% of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. I would bet that, say, the business school has a slightly different makeup…
We're talking about going from 2.3% to maybe 13%. And this isn't a reflection of attitudes among people who are potentially employed there, it's a reflection of overt, rigid filtering on the basis of political beliefs.
And I bet that the % of their faculty that identify as flat earthers is even more egregious!
So pick one or the other: having a broad representation from many walks of life is important or it's not. You can't mix or match depending on which group you like.
And that is what I'm commenting on. I'm not a fan of Trump's "war on DEI" but if it was applied with some consistency I could take it as a genuine difference in viewpoints. That would be okay. But the movement is railing hard and vitriolic against anything with even a whiff of "DEI" while applying wildly different standards to themselves. This is hard to take as a genuine difference in viewpoints.
Conservatives will make observations such as "the most educated people are almost never conservative" and they will conclude that it's not their ideology that may be on shaky grounds, but rather the concept of education itself.
"Most American academia" !== "most educated people" (much less so if taken globally).
Many Americans would be seriously surprised by the balance of left and right at continental European universities. It is nowhere near as one-sided. And Asian universities are a completely different world.
Generalizing from the extremely lopsided ratios in academia of the Anglosphere to the global educated class is somewhat unreliable.
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> This is a no-brainer considering only 2.3% of their faculty identifies as conservative.
That's true now. It wasn't always true. From: https://www.aei.org/articles/are-colleges-and-universities-t...
- In 1989-1990, when HERI first fielded this survey, 42% of faculty identified as being on the left, 40% were moderate, and another 18% were on the right.
- in 2016-2017, HERI found that 60% of the faculty identified as either far left or liberal compared to just 12% being conservative or far right
Now you say it's 2.3% conservative.
The universities argue they haven't changed, it's the politics of the right. I'd say they are correct as the right now to disavows and ridicules the output of universities on things like climate change, tariffs, vaccines, health, voter fraud in US elections ... well it's a long list. It wasn't like that 30 years ago.
The universities are supposed to be intellectual power houses fearlessly seeking out fundamental truths and relationships, regardless of what the people in power might think of their discoveries. Both sides of politics once celebrated that. Now one side wants to control what types of thought the universities allow, demanding they monitor, snitch, report, and police the on ideas the conservative base don't like. That's directly opposed to how Universities operate. They allow and encourage all types of thought, but insist they be exposed to a torrent of opposing thoughts so only the soundest survive.
Frankly, I'm amazed 2.3% still identify with a mob that clearly wants to undermine that. I'm guessing it will drop to near 0% now.
> Now one side wants to control what types of thought the universities allow, demanding they monitor, snitch, report, and police the on ideas the conservative base don't like. That's directly opposed to how Universities operate.
Seriously?
American conservatives are increasingly not grounded in facts and reality. This isn’t partisan, it’s just an observation of reality. I used to identify as a conservative, but they have become less and less grounded as a party.
that’s the faculty of arts and sciences—is this administration going to mandate university economics and business schools —which likely lean heavily capitalist—demand ideological diversity and bring in more communists?
Are conservatives a protected class now? We need DEI to make sure we hire enough conservatives in our company so we look super diverse
You make it sound like modern conservatives possess the intellectual rigor and career achievements required to meet Harvard’s hiring bar.
I am against admissions discrimination so I disagree. Conservatives should get into schools based on merit.
Do they ask for your political ideology on the Harvard application?
Yeah what Harvard definitely needs is more faculty who will defend sending people to Salvadoran prisons without due process. /s
The wildest thing I read was:
> Harvard will immediately report to federal authorities, including the Department of Homeland Security and State Department, any foreign student, including those on visas and with green cards, who commits a conduct violation.
Conduct violations at Universities are a pretty broad set of rules at universities and don't necessarily line up with what's legal or not but more with the university's cultural and social norms.
Another good one, "Reforming Programs with Egregious Records of Antisemitism or Other Bias .. The programs, schools, and centers of concern include:"
> Harvard Divinity School
> Graduate School of Education
> School of Public Health
> Medical School
> Carr Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School
> Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic
(partial list)
I must have missed the time when the Medical School racked up a record of egregious antisematism.
The Crimson, among others, have reported on the allegations.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/8/hms-investigatio...
Some of those international students with their visas revoked apparently only had traffic violations according to what I read in the Texas Tribune. They are going after any level of law breaking in order to match their stated goal of kicking out criminals, since they are having trouble reaching the numbers promised in campaign speeches.
> only had traffic violations according to what I read in the Texas Tribune
I don't think that is true. Do you have any examples?
I misremembered - it was in the source for a sentence in the Texas Tribune article six days ago: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/educatio...
Those are just the ones where they think they have an answer about why. ICE just refused to respond to requests for specifics otherwise.
The article: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/04/09/texas-universities-i...
From the feds documents they describe the federal government as thought police:
>Viewpoint Diversity in Admissions and Hiring. By August 2025, the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.
Even ICE had a deleted tweet that makes it clear the thought police are active:
https://i0.wp.com/www.techdirt.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/0...
I prefer these thought police to the thought police we had previously.
The "diversity" thought police had very strong views about what the only acceptable thoughts were. These people are like, "if we could get it up to 30% that would be a huge victory". Actual diversity in thought at top American universities would be a boon.
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Merit-based admission sounds good to me. Harvard is vigorously defending its "right" to continue to deny admissions to highly qualified Asian applicants out of nothing but pure racism, and somehow they are the good guys?
Merit is not easily definable.
Standardized tests are bullshit, IQ tests are phrenology, class rankings are not comparable across school districts. Someone who was president of every club at school may be less able than a kid who had to flip burgers in the evenings to help make rent.
Merit to a university may mean "someone whose charisma and social connections will bring great repute to the institution" more than "a child prodigy who will burn out at 27 and end up fixing typewriters in his parent's garage because they actually had an undiagnosed mental illness growing up".
Merit may mean "a middling student smart enough to pass who will stick around working as a post-doc temporarily forever because they have no ambition beyond performing slave wage labor in exchange for the cold comfort of the known and familiar".
Any definition of merit is going to be irredeemably faulty. Like recruiting sporting talent based solely on stats without considering if the talent is an asshole who will destroy the atmosphere in the clubhouse and immediately get arrested for DUI after being signed.
I thought we wanted to let the market decide?
The government funding aspect is irrelevant. Nearly every business in the country receives some form of government funding either direct or indirect and they hire based on a wide variety of criteria. I was once hired to a position I would need time to be a productive in because I am a ham radio guy and my boss wanted someone to talk radios with.
Standardized test reliably predict academic success. IQ tests similarly.
Here in Sweden, if you do well enough on the entrance exam, we simply let you in, even to the best universities. This means that people other than hoop-jumpers have a chance.
Academic success isn’t what Harvard cares about. They want leaders, not kids who are great at “school”.
Put it this way they’d much rather have Roberts or Obama as alumni than your typical 1600 SAT quant.
Whats the best metric to find the people they are looking to educate?
> Standardized test reliably predict academic success. IQ tests similarly.
So do home addresses. And skin colour. And parent's money. There are issues with all of those for different reasons. People saying IQ is problematic don't mean there's no correlation at all. Just that they can be culture / approach / etc. specific and we shouldn't treat them as an objective measure.
If you think that Ivy League cares about academic success, you're out of touch of how US universities work.
Y'all have a lot of inner city neighborhoods that have been systematically destroyed over decades due to redlining, Jim Crow laws, lynching their inhabitants or just outright burning them to the ground, or is “but we do it in Europe” maybe frequently as stupid a comment as “but we do it in America” and is best kept to one’s self, if one doesn’t actually understand how it might be applicable?
Also, bullshit on IQ tests. They do reliably predict a number of socioeconomic factors, so I suppose they’re a great way to keep the poors out. How very “enlightened” of you.
I fail to see how the lack of a perfect quantifiable metric of merit logically flows down to "stop admitting Asians because we have too many"? Whatever the university's method of determining merit is, it should be applied to everyone equally, and racially discriminating because one group historically performs well is indefensible imo
It’s also not what they’re doing. Seems like you’re arguing against a strawman.
Both standardized tests and IQ highly correlate with success in higher education and career over a lifetime. Harvard's performance and reputation have tanked as a result of its anti-meritocratic policies, and the market is indeed responding, slowly but surely. You are making things up and conjuring nonsensical hypotheticals to deny the evidence that's right in front of our eyes.
> Harvard's performance and reputation have tanked as a result of its anti-meritocratic policies
Do you have data to back this up?
> Harvard's performance and reputation have tanked as a result of its anti-meritocratic policies
[Citation needed]
Yeah, it's like how when they wanted to put in a Jewish quota at the university it was struck down and then they found that the same percentage of Jewish applicants were well-rounded coincidentally so they just stuck to determining if they were well-rounded. Today's folk may call it anti-semitism but really it was just that Jews Were Square.
Sounds fine, test for those things and admit the best. Or do a random lottery.
Just dont pick and choose students to disqualify based on race.
> I thought we wanted to let the market decide?
That sounds like an excellent reason to remove government funds.
"Standardized tests are bullshit, IQ tests are phrenology"
Asians don't believe this because our society is much more homogeneous than western societies. Correlation is often causation.
“Merit definitions can be faulty, so completely abandon any attempt to measure merit and admit people based on vibes.”
This is why Harvard students now need remedial algebra classes.
When the "other side" is pretty much evil, yeah, you are the good guys. Like, by default. I would even go so far to say Harvard could do much, much worse and they would still be the good guys.
On a closely related note, you are legitimately out of touch with reality if you believe any part of this is done with the intention of "merit". This is done to strengthen allegiance to MAGA and conservative ideology.
Does that sound a bit scary and fascist-like? You decide. But it's explicitly stated as the goal of this constriction on higher education in Project 2025. So, take it up with them, not me.
Merit as defined by an administration whose cabinet is composed of Fox News personalities, DUI hires, and some of the least qualified people for the jobs they were given.
This administration has ZERO credibility to define what "merit" is.
> Merit as defined by an administration whose cabinet is composed of Fox News personalities, DUI hires, and some of the least qualified people for the jobs they were given.
Are you referring to the defense secretary Pete Hegseth? He also attended Harvard so clearly there's some intersection in how both Harvard and the Trump administration evaluate candidates.
Merit is what allowed women and non whites to attend university.
I don't believe for one second that conservatives care much for it.
because the answer for the racism against admissions from asians is deny admission and deport everyone that isn't us-american
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Or maybe there are better applicants than your highly qualified asian applicants. But sure, an Asian canadian came over here, helped kill AA, and nothing's changed. Well done Asian community. You fucked over a tiny fucking minority for nothing.
Do you seriously believe MAGA has any interest in fair access to education? Or are you just saying that as a disingenuous talking point?
If the Trump admin could directly control admission, I truly believe future classes would consist of close to 100% far right leaning ("anti-woke") WASP types.
It really isn't. Harvard used to be a special cultural institution now it's just another research institute. Whoopee, nothing can be special, everything has to all be the same gray sludge cause otherwise it isn't """fair"""
Harvard just earned some reputation with me. It was already a place with great research. But now, it is also in institution with actual moral fiber.
While I agree with this, if you read the letter of demands from the administration I don't think Harvard had any choice. I think the letter was much more egregious than what the Columbia demands were (at least from what I read about the Colombia demands). I think if Harvard had acquiesed it wouldn't have much reason to exist anymore, and I say this as a Harvard alum who took plenty of issue with the direction of the university in recent years.
In contrast, most of the demands I read for Columbia, except for the one about putting the Middle Eastern studies department under some sort of "conservatorship", seemed relatively reasonable to me if they hadn't come from the barrel of a gun and from an administration who has clearly defined any criticism of Israel and any support for Palestinians as anti-Semitism.
> Harvard just earned some reputation with me. It was already a place with great research. But now, it is also in institution with actual moral fiber.
I'm not so sure. The Harvard endowment is huge. I might not be so much "moral fiber" as having enough fuck you money that risks don't matter as much as they do to others.
No. This fight will be much bigger than money. It’s true they have money, but this will be a literal fight of academic freedom against authoritarianism.
I guess the nice thing is, the bad guys picked a fight against Harvard Fucking Law.
More of that! When a mountain of old money is suddenly put at risk, it can easily be mistaken as moral fiber. We will see if Harvard suddenly decides to defend others, or just fend for itself.
> actual moral fiber.
Maybe? Or maybe they realize that they will lose all future credibility with students, government and NGO's if they bow to the conservative & Christian right?
There are two outcomes for the the current American government situation - a slide in to authoritarianism (it's right there in Project 2025), or these wackjobs get voted out because they are destroying global financial stability.
If it's the former, Harvard eventually has to cave because literal Nazi's.
If it's the latter, Harvard is screwed if they capitulate.
The thing is there's really no choice. The version of Harvard we get if they cave is the same as burning it all down. It would be dead as an educational institution and would only serve to foster the same kind of insane doublethink that leads people to ask for "diversity in viewpoints" at the same time they ask for the removal of the viewpoints they disagree with.
Edited:
Yes, I doubt they're cool with the ideas in the letter like the federal government auditing everyone's "viewpoint diversity" and mandating staffing changes to fit what the federal government wants.
I think.... you're agreeing with me?
I don't know, is it moral to give legitimacy and a platform to someone like J. Mark Ramseyer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Mark_Ramseyer)? Less clear example would be keeping around Roland Fryer.
I find that very few people and even fewer institutions are consistently always on the right side of things morally, even in very clear-cut cases (never mind that what exactly the "moral thing" is, is a whole discussion in itself). It's probably better to look at the overall pattern rather than a incidents (either good or bad).
I have no opinion on Harvard myself by the way; I don't know enough about it. I'm just saying this is not an especially good criticism.
This is the only correct response, but I don't think I'm being overly cynical in thinking they're being opportunistic either.
They're quite happy to turn a blind eye to unfashionable political views being silenced, so there's a pinch of hypocrisy in making such a show of standing for openness.
All in all though, I'm happy to see this.
It's my understanding that the issue is not that they're "espousing the right views" but rather that they have the constitutional right as a private institution to espouse whatever views their students and faculty want under the first amendment.
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right, freedom of speech is free as long as it agrees with the viewpoint of who's in power. similar to how history is written by victors but this part is conveniently ignored. it's just facts in the open marketplace of ideas yay!
I mean, while this is the only correct response, it could still cost Harvard around $9 billion, which isn't chump change, even for Harvard.
And while I agree and have been disgusted with Harvard's slow slide to demanding ideological conformity over the past decade plus (e.g. https://www.thefire.org/news/harvard-gets-worst-score-ever-f...), I believe they have made some belated changes in the right direction over the past year.
The Federal government making funding to a university contingent on them "reforming" specifically named departments whose foreign policy views the executive branch disagrees with (Israel/Palestine policy) seems like a clear violation of the First Amendment.
They are deporting permanent residents for op-eds.
One permanent resident was sent to a concentration camp in El Salvator without due process, none over speech yet that I know of but his was for being spuriously labeled a terrorist.
My understanding is that racial discrimination is forbidden under title nine at least.
Good. I think Harvard has faltered a bit recently with academic integrity scandals, but they are still well-respected overall. Them standing up for students is an important signal to other less high-profile schools that they can do the same.
We are well past the point where in a future history class a student will raise their hand and ask 'Why didn't anyone stop them?' followed by 'Why were so many people members of that party?'
All of the information is saved, it's going to be interesting to study, the first "class" of people to leave are the ones from tech, you know, the backbone of USA services, it's going to be interesting, it's going to be an economy fall that didn't happen in Nazi Germany
No mention of anti-Asian discrimination? It made big rounds in all the American media circles a few years back, and if memory serves, MAGA boarded that train too.
MAGA loves to say how universities screw over poor hard-working Asian students, and then they turn around and defund universities and fire researchers. Their pity on Asians is not sincere, because they detest higher education in the first place.
And I'm saying this as an Asian father whose kid is going to a US college this year.
> then they turn around and defund universities
Harvard was one of the universities "screw[ing] over poor, hard-working Asian students", so I'm not sure the criticism holds, especially when the government's letter is asking for merit based admissions reform.
Are there other universities that weren't discriminating against Asians that the government has or has moved to defund?
And exactly how were they "screw[ing] over poor, hard-working Asian students
Bruh, have you been sleeping under the rock throughout the whole Trump-defunding-NIH saga.
These "values" are not sincerely held, but tactical. Once they got the SCOTUS win and affirmative action was toast, they quickly moved on from fighting anti-Asian hate to a new fig-leaf/tool to useful for fighting the next ideological battle, which was prominent protests against government policy, which happened to be pro-Palestine, so this is the best tool for the job.
The messaging is very similar too, conflating pro-diversity with anti-whiteness, or anti-asian when needed, and now redefining being pro-Palestine as anti-Semitic or pro-Hamas. It's dumb, lacks nuance, but effective when the Fifth estate is pliant, co-opted or otherwise ineffective.
> "These "values" are not sincerely held, but tactical."
By MAGA, yes. Asians themselves haven't forgotten about it nor will they forgive anytime soon.
Asians are not a uniform block. They forget, often, just like every other ethnicity. Or they convince themselves that the values are actually still being held.
Good points. But they did open themselves up to this by blatantly discriminating against Asian students. I mean, "you have an ulterior motive in arguing against our hugely racist policies" is not a great defense.
The page acknowledges that Harvard lost that case and will comply with the ruling.
> MAGA boarded that train too
More like they found some useful idiots
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Harvard, as an institution capable of sustaining itself without relying on federal funding, bears a heightened responsibility to champion academic freedom and intellectual independence. Its financial independence positions it to defend these principles more vigorously than universities with fewer resources, which may face similar pressures but lack comparable institutional stability to resist government overreach.
"Zaporozhian Cossacks write to the Sultan of Turkey" by Ilya Repin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporozhian_Cossacks#/media/Fi...
I predict a surge of alumni donations in the weeks and months to come, not just at Harvard but also at other institutions that are showing their willingness to stand up against the creeping fascism of the current administration.
I think people who value education, academic freedom, and understand the economic and societal role that universities play, were hoping to see one or more of the major institutions stand up for these principles.
But they’re not standing up for freedom. They are admitting and hiring people based on a monoculture.
the irony of the evil being perpetrated around the world in the name of "antisemitism" is mind boggling
In the name of "fighting antisemitism"?
It's true, though. It's a convenient tool. "What do you mean you don't want to cede control to us? Don't you want to fight antisemitism?!"
Smells awfully like Putin's trumped up (ayy) play in Ukraine to "de-nazify".
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Why is it any more necessary to fight "leftists and muslims" than it is to fight righties and MAGAs?
That's the question that the Trump people never seem to acknowledge that the rest of America is asking itself?
What's the difference between muslims bombing whatever and MAGAs shooting up or torching a black church? The rest of us are finding it hard to see the distinction.
In fact, recent events have served to crystalize the dangers posed to the republic by ill considered MAGA policies. And to concentrate minds on the problem of how to extricate ourselves from the crises they have gotten us into in as efficient a manner as possible.
If efficiency is even possible at this point? Maybe "in as minimally painful a manner as possible" is a better way to say it?
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What organised group of leftists has attacked a group of people based on their ethnicity? Do you have a link you could share?
Source or don’t post assertions like this. Come on.
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Good. More organizations that have the resources should be putting their foot down.
Funny how a foreign country got America to compromise on its core value of free speech that we used to lecture Europeans on.
If you've read history, this rhymes with certain acts that have happened before under certain regimes. Under a non-authoritarian Government, this type of showboating can be dismissed, but when habeas corpus and the right to due process is suspended — such actions take on a very different cast indeed.
It's good that Harvard is fighting this. The more people accede, the more they will accelerate down a path where there is no coming back from.
Habeas corpus - still in effect unless you're already in El Salvador.
Just say "oops, sorry, that was a mistake but we can't get that person back" every time you want to disappear someone, and somehow you'll have people claiming that habeas corpus is still alive and well while people get disappeared.
Unless you're Stephen Miller, who insists that no mistake was made: https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmrobxubic23
And, more recently, Bukele and Trump insisted that they would not return a "terrorist" to the United States: https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmrwrrkbnf2e
It's clear that the administration does not consider collateral damage a bug, but a feature; it confirms that as long as they insist that they will not do anything, then nothing will be done.
If they can decide someone is a migrant and deport them without due process and no recourse, they can decide anyone is a migrant and deport them without due process.
If a class of people don't have habeas corpus, no one does.
Although the president was caught on mic musing about deporting American citizens.
He didn't get caught doing anything; he said it, openly, during an interview: https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmrx6b2gxy2f
> Although the president was caught on mic musing about deporting American citizens
The canaries in our coal mine are permanent residents. Anything that can legally be done to a permanent resident can basically be done to a "bad" citizen. Trump is trying to run roughshod over permanent residents' habeus corpus rights. Courts are currently pushing back; I expect he will defy them. That, for me, will be the line at which I'll start helping with civil disruption.
Not caught, he held a press conference and announced that he was going to try to do it.
It's not.
The rubicon has already been crossed. If you asked some of the framers of the US constitution - beyond all other factors, unelected powers etc - what was the one defining trait of the government structure they wished to avoid; they'd have replied with arbitrary imprisonment and the suspension of due process.
Please don't take my word for it, hear it from the Prosecutor's Prosecutor. The SCOTUS justice, former AG and former USSG who led the American prosecution against the Nazis at Nuremberg, Robert H. Jackson,
There is a reason why citizenship was not a requirement for receiving due process under the law. Citizenships are bestowed by the government. They can be taken away by the government. The framers held certain rights to be unalienable from human beings - something that no government can take away, and that was the right to not be unjustly detained for your beliefs, your behavior, your dress, your religion or composure.Suspending due process for anyone is fundamentally un-American. But we have crossed that threshold. What comes next is fairly inevitable - if the process isn't stopped now.
The more fundamental corollary is that the US government does not grant any rights. We have them by default and cede limited power for the benefit of an orderly society. Within such a framework, it should be impossible to disenfranchise people by denying them due process.
> The rubicon has already been crossed
So when would you consider the US crossed this threshold? Guantanamo Bay? The internment of ethnic Japanese in WW2? The Trail of Tears? Or is there something about the excesses of this particular administration that makes this an unprecedented and irreversible step, if I understand your metaphor correctly?
> The framers held certain rights to be unalienable from human beings - something that no government can take away
Unless, of course, the government considers you to be 2/3 of a person
the judge you are quoting literally worked in FDR's admin when they were deporting millions of Mexicans, regardless of whether they were born in the US. They didn't get due process
Perhaps but "the framers of the US constitution" are almost always over idealized. It was the very early stages of democracy (even if you can call it that). When elected to office they regularly used they official powers to supress political opponents, partisan enmity was endemic and the levels of corruption were pretty extreme (of course there was only so much money to go around due to very low taxes). Trump is unhinged of course but some of the founders or early US politicians weren't too far off...
The constitution was more of an aspirational ideal than a binding document back then since there were very limited ways too enforce it (e.g. the only way to repeal the Alien and Sedition Acts was by electing a new president/congress). The First Amendment was also interpreted and viewed extremely different that it is now before the 1900s...
What's your take on the government drone striking American citizens without any sort of trial?
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the timeline of the first plane clearly shows that that is not the case (plane departed after the judge's stay). it would be helpful if people didn't cavalierly pronounce these kinds of things.
Habeas corpus doesn't seem to be working for Rümeysa Öztürk right now.
It's starting to like authoritarian is the wrong word.
Totalitarian? not yet, but....
So you acknowledge that it’s a race for the government to get permanent residents on flights as fast as they can to El Salvador before a petition is able to be filed?
Uh yeah, why wouldn't I?
I mean I don't know that it's their policy but it sure looks that way.
FYI habeas corpus has been under attack by GOP administrations for nearly a quarter of a century - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_St...
It was very depressing (if financially understandable) to see other institutions immediately caving in.
What institutions other than Columbia are caving in?
A long list of extremely large, well-heeled law firms
They will once the administration revokes the visas of half their grad students and shit-can all the international undergrad tuition income.
Every law firm.
The point of no return is Trump getting a third term. The parallels are strong there.
I was just thinking this morning that we very much needed the USA's help fighting Nazi Germany, but who will we turn to when we're fighting fascists coming from the East _and_ West? (Russia and the USA)
The point of no return was January 6th 2021!
Once Americans pardoned an attempt by the sitting president to overthrow US democracy the game's over.
America desperately needs a huge revision to the powers conceded to individuals and should instead mature to a slower, maybe less effective at times, but stronger democracy that nurtures parliamentary debate and discourse.
It could have been water under the bridge if we simply did not re-elect him. But now we have a second term emboldened by de facto total immunity.
> Once Americans pardoned an attempt by the sitting president to overthrow US democracy it's over already
By this logic it was “over already” at the end of the Civil War. Suspending habeus corpus, ignoring the courts and then meeting with public indifference will be the point of no return. Trump’s third term would just be the canary passing out.
> who will we turn to when we're fighting fascists coming from the East _and_ West? (Russia and the USA)
Like a heart attack can be good for your health,perhaps this USA withdrawal will be good for Europe. (If Europe is what you mean)
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there's no need to defend any good things the nazis did to germany
> At least the Nazi party created a strong economy in Germany
This is a myth. Wages of Destruction [1] details the Nazis’ autarkic economic incompetence.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wages_of_Destruction
It didn't even do that. The Nazi economy was a debt fuelled spending spree that needed war in an attempt to sustain itself.
Nope, it didn't. The Nazis started a war economy almost immediately and yes, they hiked employment, but the Nazi economy was boom or bust. They couldn't sustain it long term without the war.
The nazis just robbed minorities and used slave Labour to prop up their economy and rich certain people/ethnicities
Which, again, is a parallel to Trump. If the peoll,e he deports to El Salavdor start to have their assets taken by the state/their neighbours/the people that dobbed them in, good luck.
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There is no evidence Trump has dementia. That is something his detracted unfairly say as if it is true, but there is no reason to think it is.
I don't like him either, but that doesn't mean I will say unfair things about him.
What is your definition of "fascists"?
Edit to explain my point, because I'm getting downvoted (which I don't care about, but I _do_ care if people don't understand my point): fascism was a specific ideology/movement in the 20th century that, other than being right-wing and authoritarian, doesn't bear much resemblance to right-wing authoritarianism today: they have different goals, different motives, promote different policies, etc.
It seems people just use "fascism" as a synonym for "destructive right-wing populism" or even just "bad". And I agree that things like the MAGA movement, or AfD in Germany, ARE bad, and one could even argue that they are just as bad as historical fascism.
But I don't think we should use "fascism" in this way, because it gives ammo to your opponents: the supporters of these right-wing movements can point out that indeed, they are not the same as historical fascism and make you look silly.
The opening passage of the Wikipedia article:
Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right [checks box], authoritarian [ignoring courts decisions, sending people to prisons without any due process; check], and ultranationalist [MAGA, american exceptionalism, etc; check] political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader [do I really need to explain; check], centralized autocracy [feckless GOP congress, EOs left and right; check], militarism, forcible suppression of opposition [J6, anyone? also see Maine and TFA and the law firms being blacklisted and more; check], belief in a natural social hierarchy [pro-life, shrouded in "traditional family values", anti-gay, anti-trans, etc; check], subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race [tariffs, massive deportations without due process, etc; check], and strong regimentation of society and the economy [bathroom bills, tariff policies with exceptions for those who bribe him with million dollar dinner purchases, etc; check].
Tell me how this doesn't fit?
I feel like most people that are using the term deliberately, are doing so based on reasoning close to Umberto Eco's "Ur-fascism" essay: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fasci...
If you want something more modern, someone made a tracker: https://www.realtimefascism.com/
The tracker uses "the 14 characteristics of fascism identified by Dr. Lawrence Britt" (which is slightly different): https://osbcontent.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/PC-00466.pdf
I get what you mean, and I understand the frustration. We should be more careful with words for exactly the reason you say at the end.
Having said that, the reason I chose to use it here was because I felt it was time, i.e. it has finally become earned. I could defend the usage with anyone who brought that up (and someone's done a thorough job in one of the replies).
> historical fascism
I mean.. Mussolini's Italy or 30s Austria weren't exactly Nazi Germany. So while there still might be some way to go the comparison is not that extreme.
Equating Trump with Hitler is of course a stretch. Mussolini however? Well..
The point of no return is Trump getting a third term
That's a little alarmist. It's not going to happen.
Things are close to going off the rails and people are understandably troubled with the direction in which the US government is headed. I am as well. But we all need to start turning down the temperature a bit.
How did that work the last 10 times we said the things trump wants to do aren't gonna happen. He's saying he will so we should believe him
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/04/trump-t...
https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-going-run-third-term-ste...
None of the rest of the stuff happening was going to happen either, I’m sure.
Legal residents are being kidnapped and disappeared into foreign gulags but let’s turn down the temperature, right?
People keep saying this about everything the admin does before they do it. Pretending it won't happen won't stop it happening.
The real question is, who is left to stop it? The man is saying he's not joking about it. It's in line with his previous actions. They have actively refused to comply with court orders. They actively tried to reject the results of an election.
Why is it alarmist to say they may do the thing they want to do, and can do?
The number of times I've read people say "That's alarmist and will never happen", just to see that exact thing happen, is a lot.
If there was no track record of Trump doing things off the rails, we could turn down the temps. However, he very much does not, and quite the opposite. Him admitting they are "looking into it" on how to achieve a third term is quite unsettling. Especially with congress acquiescing to any whim he has as well as SCOTUS giving him permission to do whatevs. None of this instills confidence that there will be any push back.
The same people that came up with Project 2025 are the very people that would come up with plans for giving a third term. Those plans might seem ridiculous to some, but so did the alternate electors and the other things Trump has already tried before. The fact that no negative outcome came from any of those previous attempts just emboldens even further attempts.
It will definitely happen if everyone is as complacent as that. At this point this attitude is extremely hard to take serious: you're either not paying attention or you're not engaging in good faith.
> That's a little alarmist. It's not going to happen.
Serious question, when someone tells you what they want, why don't want you believe them?
It's openly being discussed and you think it's alarmist? No, we need to turn the temperature up and start taking people at their word.
We need to start turning the temperature up or this country will be completely lost
Steve Bannon went on Bill Maher recently saying they are working on finding a way to make it happen. He was not joking. When challenged, Bannon's response was that Trump was already flooding the courts with cases.
> That's a little alarmist. It's not going to happen.
For context, this is exactly what was said of _literally everything_ that has happened in Trump's current term.
Is it alarmist, or is it just alarming? And, if it is alarming, shouldn't we be taking it seriously, instead of hand-waving it away?
This is where I was at, but am believing less and less as the parallels stack up.
I used to tell people to look at Russia if they wanted to see the Nazi script play out, and that this could never happen in the USA. Now I'm reminded of others that weren't taken seriously early enough.
Why do you consider it alarmist? Trump has repeatedly said he would do it, and that he's "not joking" about it.
I have had to listen to people like you for almost 10 years talk about things Trump said that were never going to happen. At what point do you just accept the evidence of your eyes and ears?
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If you really believe that then I don't know what to tell you. You've been successfully brainwashed. I hope one day you're able to hold a 5 minutes conversation with an actual student and clear that bullshit out of your head.
Yeah, I must be hallucinating with "bullshit in my head".
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00240-9
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/black-lives-ma...
https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/70845
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I agree, each UK citizen is infused with the original sin of being a colonizer and their opinion should be discarded until they purge this sin from their bodies through appropriate cleansing rituals.
Perhaps some form of self-flagelation or bloodletting?
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So you're fine with them arresting dissenters as long as you disagree with the dissenters? That's fairly antithetical to the ideas expressed in the US constitution.
I'm fine with stopping the flow of federal money to people who hate me in particular and who take a salary to convince others to do so too. Those who defend the conduct of universities need to pause and consider that the public has noticed the radicalization of academia, despises it, and will support state action to reverse it.
Yes we all know what good defenders of truth and knowledge the Trump administration is. Surely the same people who seem to have made a habit of causing constitutional crises and have directly challenged the 1st, 5th and 14th amendment have our best interest at heart.
Did you read the letter sent from the government to Harvard?
I did; it explicitly demanding an audit of employees and students political views, the forced hiring of more professors who are sympathetic to the current administration's politics.
That doesn't sound authoritarian to you? Can you imagine if Obama had demanded that any university do an ideological purge of its conservative staff and students?
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Yes it does sound authoritarian. Thank you for answering my question in good faith.
I am noticing a pattern; whenever I ask clarifying questions on hacker news threads regarding politically charged topics, most people assume least-respectful interpretation of my questions and heavily downvote them. As someone who is curious and genuinely trying to understand what's going on (I am here instead of other social media because I am looking for nuance, analysis, details, etc), it's really frustrating and disappointing when I am attacked for asking questions.
So thank you, again, for engaging in my question constructively.
> Can you imagine if Obama had demanded that any university do an ideological purge of its conservative staff and students?
Obama didn't need to demand it, the Universities went ahead and did it on their own.
https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/the-last-four-years-wer...
Harvard can do whatever they want. They can also not get taxpayer funding for it.
> the more they will accelerate down a path where there is no coming back from.
Why do you say this? At practically every point in history where a government or dictator goes too far, we've come back from it.
> At practically every point in history where a government or dictator goes too far, we've come back from it.
Not everyone.
There are many points in history where a dictator made their country permanently worse. Argentina was once among the wealthiest democracies in the world, until a dictator seized power in 1930 - it took 53 years to restore democratic governance and their economy still isn't back on track.
This rings true for much of South America at one point or another. Lots of African nations. Several in SE Asia as well.
Heck, just in the last few years we've seen several countries regress by a decade or more because of military coups or similar.
Really, if you look at many countries that haven't been a world power, this has happened once or twice in recent memory.
According to Wikipedia, “in 1929, Argentina was wealthy by world standards, but the prosperity ended after 1929 with the worldwide Great Depression.” It was presumably the collapsing economy which caused the military coup, not the other way around.
Do you have a better example? Or is that it?
It can take a good long time though. It's Juche Year 114 in North Korea and the Kim dynasty remains firmly in control.
Everyone except those who died in the camps.
And under the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Everyone recovers from a sickness. Until they don't.
Sure... As a different government.
I assume parent is talking about the functional end of this iteration of the United States as a political entity.
> we've come back from it
We as a species have come back from it, yes. But generally after millions of victims are killed, and what is left over is very different than what existed prior.
these types of moves wouldn't be possible in the first place if these institutions hadn't spent decades burning their own credibility. They even mention Alzheimer's research in this post, something that has literally wasted billions of taxpayer dollars due to an academic cartel shutting down anybody trying to expose the fact that they were completely wrong about amyloid plaques
> if these institutions hadn't spent decades burning their own credibility
They burned their credibility among those with whom they never needed it in the first place. Harvard as a taxpayer-funded institution is oxymoronic. Return it to an elite institution that the President can commend in private and mock at a rally in rural Kentucky or whatnot.
>They burned their credibility among those with whom they never needed it in the first place.
I think universities should probably be concerned with their credibility among democratically elected political representatives if they are going to be accepting public funds. If the university wants to forgo federal grants, then yes, they don't require any credibility with anyone but academia and their donors, and more power to them.
> wrong about amyloid plaques
Sorry... you think that Trump is doing this because of suppression of dissent about amyloid plaques?
no, but there would be much more push back against this type of action if Harvard and other universities didn't alienate a large chunk of the population. Why should the taxpayers fund places that openly admit to decades of racial discrimination in admissions
the institutions have already failed their intended purpose, as shown by the research fraud. Propping them up with tax dollars because of nostalgia over the name brand is pointless
$9 billion dollars from the federal government to Harvard equates to nearly $30 per American, that is an ignorant amount of money for a single academic institution, surely the world isn't so black and white that we can have a conversation about how much money is leaking out of our tax dollars without it always coming back to "fascism"?
I would absolutely love to see my federal tax dollars doled out to schools and institutions where they would more directly benefit a wider set of people. If that was what was under discussion it would be great. The administration isn't proposing to redirect that money, simply rescind it, and they are very, extremely clearly attempting to use this to coerce institutions and punish people for their speech and associations.
If the entire budget was income taxes and everyone paid the same including babies then sure $30 dollars or it's 1/4 of the money the government gave to Musk over the last 20 years.
The 9 billion isn’t specifically just for Harvard “the university”.
The lion’s share of it appears to be NIH programs for area hospitals - all of which are associated with Harvard.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/4/funding-review-h...
We all benefit from that research.
> $9 billion dollars from the federal government to Harvard equates to nearly $30 per American…
Now do what it gets them.
given my comment got railroaded instantly, this is clearly what everyone thinks, but let's at least have that conversation rather than blindly pumping money into academia while local schools can't even afford books
The dispute between Harvard and the Trump has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility. You can read the government letter and see for yourself, none of it is about Harvard spending research money irresponsibly. It is an attempt to assert deep government control over the institution's policies and ideologies. So your comment reads as an attempt to distract from the real issues at hand, which I (and I think many others here) consider existential for the survival of the rule of law in the U.S.
Maybe. Not sure. More explicitly the letter demands that tenured professors be given more decision making power than non academic activists.
The outright dismissal of the letter suggests that at least maybe non academic activists are calling the shots, and if that is true Harvard is destined to wither and die.
Maybe there’s a conversation to be had about that but this isn’t it, this is attempted coercion, and yes, it is fascism.
Let's have a conversation about leaking tax dollars. How do you feel about our tax dollars directly enriching the sitting president? How do you feel about our tax dollars leaking into a military parade to celebrate the president's birthday? If you don't address those leaks, how can we be expected to take people like you seriously when you defend authoritarian policy as fiscally responsible?
You forgot the cost of his golf excursions. (there are a surprising number of Trump golf trackers LOL)
https://didtrumpgolftoday.com/
"Est. cost to taxpayers for golf since returning to office: $32,200,000"
> that we can have a conversation about how much money is leaking out of our tax dollars
Of course. It's clear you didn't read the letter because Harvard addresses this specifically. The Trump admin is literally refusing to have a conversation. This is 100% politically motivated and it's obvious to anyone who is not in the Trump cult. This is particularly disgusting because their doing it under the guise of 'antisemitism', while Trump keeps friends with known white supremacists.
nope, just a random stranger trying to add some random noise into these often one sided conversations, I of course support public academic investment and Trump is bad for the country, but I worry we've fully mapped one to one trump and nazis, and it just doesn't resonate with me as much as it seems it does everyone else.
I'm from small town America, I know that the federal government doesn't care about my hometown, so when I hear things like Harvard gets billions while already having tens of billions in endowment, it's hard for me to not think that's crazy and why can't that money go to average americans, meanwhile here I am typing words into a screen connected to the internet so I fully acknowledge I've benefited from the institution
Instead it will go straight to military contractors, yay!
Yeah, his reasoning is suspect to a lot of folks, but I’m not sure why everyone is so comfortable with the consolidation of wealth at these elite institutions.
There's definitely a conversation we can have about the cost and accessibility of higher education in this country. I don't think that conversation should include an administration that is unilaterally and arbitrarily canceling international student visas, threatening to withhold research funding that was already allocated by congress, and turning back foreign scientists at the border for things they said in private conversation that the government only knows about after a warrantless search.
I found harvard’s letter a poor attempt to articulate just how authoritarian the demands are, and how they undermine the very idea of a university. How leaders of such a prestigious university refuse to place what’s going on in historical context is sad. But it’s educational: now I have a better understanding of how the nazis came to power.
not a perfect comparison, but a useful starting point.
Even if Harvard wanted to comply with the government letter, it's full of so many non-sequiturs and self-conflictions that it reads more like a piece of satire:
> The University must immediately shutter all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, offices, committees, positions, and initiatives, under whatever name, and stop all DEI-based policies, including DEI-based disciplinary or speech control policies, under whatever name
> Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity
> In particular, Harvard must end support and recognition of those student groups or clubs that engaged in anti-Semitic activity since October 7th, 2023
> Discipline at Harvard must include immediate intervention and stoppage of disruptions or deplatforming, including by the Harvard police when necessary to stop a disruption or deplatforming
The letter is a complete joke. Giving it any sort of compliance would be giving validation to a set of rules that are literally impossible to follow by design. There is literally nothing Harvard could do to not be in trouble later.
Also buried in the letter is this gem:
> Harvard must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious and immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension.
Keep in mind Harvard also runs a medical school!
This is Maoist-style social reform through and through.
> Keep in mind Harvard also runs a medical school!
Aseptic surgical procedures may soon go the way of vaccines.
Harvard Medical School?
Ah yes I've heard of that, it's one of the "Programs with Egregious Records of Antisemitism or Other Bias" which most fuels antisemitic harassment and reflects ideological capture!
It seems like the government has a soft Monopsony. There are many universities willing to sell research, but the government is the biggest buyer and controls the research grant market
Universities don't sell or do research. They provide facilities, equipment, services, and sometimes funding for research. The actual research is done by individuals, who are nominally employed by the university but largely independent from it. If a researcher doesn't like a particular university, they can usually take their funding and projects to another university.
When grants are revoked for political reasons, it affects individuals who happen to be affiliated with the university more than the university itself. And it particularly affects people doing STEM research, because humanities and social sciences receive much less external funding. If the decline in public funding is permanent, it makes humanities and social sciences relatively stronger within the university. They are more viable without public subsidies than the more expensive STEM fields.
Research is often (usually?) the property of the host university, though. Yeah labs are independently managed but the university is in at least one sense, and imo many more, still the institution both doing and selling the work
By default, research belongs to the researchers. That's an essential part of academic freedom. The main exceptions are research funded by grants and contracts that specify otherwise, and when you start looking for patents and other commercialization opportunities.
In other words, the university may have some property rights to your work if you deal too closely with for-profit businesses or national security interests. But if you are just doing normal research with normal grants, you'll probably never see those exceptions in your career.
This isn't close to a monopsony but it's more directionally correct than it is wrong. Keep in mind research institutes can be funded by private foundations, state and local governments, industry (e.g. pharma), venture, or even foreign governments. The federal government is undoubtedly the largest buyer though. I do think there are other motivations to rely primarily on federal grants beyond number of dollars. In particular, funding sources other than federal grant money is often looked down on from an academic prestige perspective. Until now federal money came with very few strings attached compared to the perceived loss of objectivity that could occur when receiving money from other sources. The current situation may alter or relax the prevailing view on which sources of research money are perceived of as potentially compromising.
It's not a very good analogy because federally-funded research is a public investment, a public good like roads. The research is supported by the public (the government) and becomes available for anyone to use, learn from, and build off of. And in fact most successful U.S. business are built on the backs of technological innovation that was originally funded by the government, or at the very least, innovation from PhD's whose educations were largely federally funded. (Disclaimer: federally funded researcher)
You couldn't replace that with a private company "buying" research and expect the same societal benefits.
Anyone whose research is profitable is free to work for a private entity. The government is a "monopsony" in "buying" unprofitable research the same way it's a "monopsony" subsidizing any industry that would otherwise fail in a free market. That is not typically how the concept of monopsony is meant.
We are silently watching "Country of the Free" falling at max velocity to the deepest of the darkest pits of fascism, teocrasy, and dictatorship.
America is starting to seem like the world depicted in V for Vendetta.
Likely I'm very naive. But here goes... It seems that taxpayers fund a lot of research. This research is very valuable and lucrative. It finds its way into the hands of those who know how to profit from it. The taxpayer is again screwed paying exorbitant prices for said breakthroughs. Insulin is one area of interest to me and it very much seems to be the case in the diabetes world.
This was how NAFTA was sold. Move car manufacturing to Mexico and they will enjoy better living wages while we get more affordable cars. Except that I don't recall cars produced in Mexico ever getting more affordable. I'm sure corporate profits were great. Should probably look into this someday and see if my perception is correct.
I think a conversation about what the taxpayer should get back from university research funding is a good question, I personally don't like privatization of medical breakthroughs discovered with public money.
However, I am cautious to extend that argument to this situation. This is an attempt to use federal funding as a backdoor around the 1st amendment (from what I can tell). I'm not going to extend this administration any leeway when their bull in a china shop policies inadvertently break something I don't like. I don't want to improve taxpayer funding of research by losing the 1st amendment.
> Except that I don't recall cars produced in Mexico ever getting more affordable.
According to this site[0], new car prices were about 6% higher at the end of NAFTA in 2020 compared with at the start of NAFTA in 1994. Considering inflation on other things was on average much higher and also that more recent cars are significantly safer, more performant, and fuel-efficient—i.e. more provide more value—it does look like cars did effectively get cheaper.
[0] https://www.in2013dollars.com/New-cars/price-inflation
Keep in mind labor is something like 10%-15% of the cost of a new car so even if you cut that down by 80%, including transport, and ignored recouping capital cost to actually move the production lines then you'd still need to move the production in less than 2 years to actually see the price decrease rather than "not move up as fast" at 3% car price inflation of the early 90s. Interestingly there was a dip in the price increase rate of cars at the end of the 90s https://www.in2013dollars.com/New-cars/price-inflation but it's too large to have been reasonably attributable to this trade change.
Between 1935 and today car price inflation is at 2.41% per year while general inflation is 3.56%. You may have not noticed. Since free trade it's been less than 2%.
You may not have noticed but it happened.
Much like outbreaks that never turn into pandemics, no one remembers the efficiency measures that prevent price increases.
Part of nafta was to slow the increasing costs of production, not lower them.
When looking over time it definitely worked in many regards. Things didn't get as expensive as they would have otherwise.
I don't think your concept her is bad at all.
But I also don't think your concept has anything to do with the situation at Harvard.
It’ll be nice if an institution finally decides to oppose some of the recent government overreach.
It’s really shocking to see an institution in our country take action that is not in its immediate financial best interest (assuming this letter translates to an action)
It's not just about finances. Trump just announced (possibly accidentally) that he's going to start deporting American citizens to El Salvador gulags: https://news.sky.com/story/donald-trump-says-the-us-could-de...
and they've been painting political enemies as criminals. It's pretty much the same situation as Russia/Putin but at an earlier stage of its development, and people want to avoid being the tallest grass that gets mowed.
It's good that some institutions are standing up but I don't expect it to go well for them.
He also said Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor may have committed treason for criticizing him as president after signing an executive order to investigate them.
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These people (not only MAGA) perverted the very meaning of antisemitism to the point that it means nothing today. I am saying that as someone who's lost a family member to Holocaust. When I hear someone mention antisemitism today, 90% of the time it is to punish someone's views critical of Israel.
Which is, of course, deeply antisemitic of the people claiming antisemitism when they are talking about only criticism of Israel, to equate all Jewish people with the Israeli state.
Same, having descended from Holocaust survivors, what is happening in the U.S. and Palestine right now is chilling to me in its similarity.
When I was active on the Politics Stack Exchange site years ago I was "reported to the ADL" for merging the [jews] and [judaism] tags. Right out of the gate after I casually mentioned it in another discussion: not even a big fight about it. But the same person outright ignored the Trump-supporting holocaust denying user who harrassed a Jewish user with antisemitic slurs such (e.g. [1]).
Sadly antisemitism obviously exists, and sadly some pro-Palestinian activists have veered off into antisemitism. But the selective outrage is hard to take serious.
Remember, Caesar subjugated Gaul and killed or enslaved about a quarter of all Gauls in the process, to "protect" them from invading Germanic tribes. "Top kek", as I believe the old Latin saying goes.
[1]: https://politics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3596 – I am the author of that, I deleted my account since in large party due to all of this
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> Where are the pro-Palestinian activists who are standing up for the Gazans who have the courage to risk their lives by protesting against Hamas?
If you can find me a western government or institution they should be protesting for actively collaborating with Hamas then I'll grant you that hypocrisy. They don't need to because it's already a federal crime to materially support Hamas in any way whatsoever.
If the Palestinians are risking their lives to protest against Hamas in Gaza, why can't the alleged pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrate in support of this viewpoint?
> If you can find me a western government or institution they should be protesting for actively collaborating with Hamas
The BBC (which frequently quotes Hamas verbatim without attribution and which has employed many openly racist correspondents), and Associated Press (who rode with Hamas during the Oct 7 massacre). You should already be aware of this.
Governments have a monopoly on violence in exchange for protected and upholding our privileged rights. When any government start disregarding that contract, so too can the populous.
Scathing, and wonderfully so.
Can someone confirm that if Harvard turned down Pell Grants and Federal student support, they could admit whoever they want?
>Private clubs are generally exempt from anti-discrimination laws under certain conditions. For example, being genuinely private and not engaging in business with non-members. However, there are exceptions to these exemptions. For instance, when a club receives significant government benefits or operates as a commercial enterprise.
They could. Look up Bob Jones College or Hillsdale College, both of which operate without any federal funding. It appears that the elite universities are going to find out the same thing that the small Christian universities found out in the 1970s, which is that the federal government Can control you if they fund you. I believe Bob Jones in particular won a case in front of the Supreme Court giving them the right to racially discriminate in their admissions if they refuse to take any federal funding.
ty
Re: endowments, really good post on why universities can't just tap into endowments for budget shortfalls:
https://medium.com/@myassa_62896/why-you-cant-just-use-the-e...
>It’s more like a patchwork of locked treasure chests, each with its own key and its own label: this one funds scholarships, that one supports cancer research, another pays for upkeep on a library.
Explain why direct donations cannot accomplish the same. I suspect that universities want endowment donations because they grow tax free.
My understanding is that a large part of endowments comes from large (really, huge) donations.
If I was to donate 9 (or 10) figures to an institution, I would want to make sure it is used to support what I want it to support (cancer research, scholarships, libraries, etc), rather than be used as a general slush fund.
It's not entirely about what the organization wants, but also what the donators/sponsors want.
>If I was to donate 9 (or 10) figures to an institution, I would want to make sure it is used to support what I want it to support (cancer research, scholarships, libraries, etc), rather than be used as a general slush fund.
You can make that restricted donation outside of the endowment. I thought endowments were for the support of students, not research.
They recently closed their Middle Eastern studies department. Absolutely insane tbh. Imagine closing a center of Asian or African studies because the president wants to make his Jewish daughter and some rich donors of his happy. How can we be okay with any of this. They caved there. The only reasoning for this response is it infringes on their sovereignty. But make no mistake, every institution rolled back DEI and other initiatives for this admin. Hoping Alan will do what is right. Reinstate that department. Double down on fighting the admin in court. America will not be held hostage by a wanna-be autocrat, a foreign power or those who swear allegiance to Isra-el over American ideals and education in these United States. Silencing dissent in institutions of learning is tyrannical.
> "Harvard must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious and immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension."
Wow. Imagine being sick with something serious like pneumonia and having to decide whether to get everyone around you sick, or risk being suspended from school.
While I am not a friend of a mask ban, universities should absolutely teach their students to stay home when sick. Going to work sick is an abomination that should be rooted out. And it is a nice liberal cause too.
I think you mean jailed, tortured and deported.
If you're seriously ill, you should get treatment, not walk around hoping that a piece of cloth will save others from exposure to whatever it is you're coughing up.
Except that masks do statistically work in preventing the spread of contagion.
Even if it's just 10% it's still worth doing.
There are also tons of legit reasons to wear a mask besides being contagious.
Anyone defending a mask ban is doing it to support ideology, not practicality. Just say that instead of using really dumb click bait fox news quips.
What if they have pollen or other allergies that masks help mitigate? What if there’s a huge forest fire that’s polluting the outside air with acrid smoke?
There are so many possible scenarios. What if the campus is infested with face-huggers from the award-winning movie Alien? What if there are still Jewish students and faculty members who need to be harassed anonymously?
I'll leave those to people more familiar with the subject. And as for the pneumonia scenario, I reiterate that the only sane course of action is to seek treatment, not to walk around public spaces, masked or not.
As information, the current administration is doing similar demands to foreign universities, trying to impose the point of view of the world in a president we didn't vote for.
Here is an article about the Trump administration demands to our universities.
https://www-publico-pt.translate.goog/2025/04/11/ciencia/not...
Thank you for that link. I knew about letters to parts of the European industry but not to universities. 7. 12. 14. and 15. are mind blowing.
Wasn't Harvard's president a woman who wrote her PhD thesis on DEI? I vaguely remember the news about this (fraud or something). If this is what Harvard considers that the person for the job, I think the sense making apparatus of Harvard personnel is specifically tuned to not bend the knee in this case. The instrument would likely fail at the input validation step and not proceed to the sense making portion.
NieI am not able to work 24 hours a day, and in addition on several devices
I do believe the universities have a lot to change for better, but sadly this government is the worst to ask for.
There really is no incentive to compromise with the Trump Admin on anything. Even if you cave, they just go for more. You need to act like a cornered animal and not expect honest negotiation.
OTOH if Trump admin WAS at all rational partners they could be extracting historic changes from these institutions. But they won’t.
This is a larger idea, just tangentially related to this particular case.
In 2011 there was Occupy Wall Street. It was a movement that argued that many of the financial problems we saw in 2008 were a result of a 1% of wealthy business people who were prioritizing their own wealth over the needs of the populations of the countries they operated within. I mean, they created a financial crisis by inventing obviously risky financial assets based on peoples housing. They knew it was a house of cards that would fall in time but they did it anyway with callous disregard to the inevitable human cost.
It was in the wake of that the "wokeness" became a buzzword, seemingly overnight. Suddenly, corporate policies were amended, management teams were upended, advertising campaigns were aligned to this new focus. Women, minorities and marginalized groups were championed and ushered in to key public positions. In a brief 14 years, then entire garbage dump of modern capitalism was placed like a hot potato into the hands of a new naively optimistic crew. This coincided with huge money printing and zero percent interest rate, the likes of which we haven't seen. That new elite grew in wealth, stature and public focus. They became the face of the "system" as if they had created it instead of inheriting it.
And now that the zero interest rates are done and suddenly everyone believes in the scary size of the deficit and the ballooning debt, the people sitting in power as we are about to actually feel the crash instead of just kicking it down the road yet again, those people are the target of public ire. I actually see people in these very comments acting as if the looming crash was caused by the DEI departments which formed just a little over a decade ago.
And guess who is coming back to claim they will save us from these DEI monsters? The people who created the actual mess in the first place. Yet now, instead of calling for their heads on spikes like the public was in 2011, we are literally begging them to save us from these DEI proponents.
Our anger has been redirected away from the wealthy and towards the minorities with such skill I almost admire it. The collective anger at DEI is at such a level that we are willing to cede core rights just to damage them.
This is spot on. The US has enjoyed enormous wealth and prosperity, but it's been mostly captured by the top 1% of private individuals. The GOP has done a masterful job redirecting the blame to China, DEI, immigration, etc... when the real problem is that we have not spread around the prosperity through programs like universal healthcare, free college, and heck, even UBI.
Ooh, I am jealous. A close family member has been branded egregious by various acting members of the current administration. I guess I am going to need to up my game if I want to be able to hold my head high at family gatherings.
> For three-quarters of a century, the federal government has awarded grants and contracts to Harvard and other universities
yep. stop doing that. your university is nearly half a millennium old, and everything from the last century will be a footnote. you are a networking ground for upper class society, not an upwards mobility machine for the plebians. just go back to your roots and you won't have any of these issues.
> These partnerships are among the most productive and beneficial in American history.
privately fund it now that its a proven method. this obviously won't be controversial in the future. if its economically impossible then it won't happen, the end.
My father works for a big pharma company, which means they have to listen to the federal government or risk being shut down by the FDA (which would be easy for Trump to do).
He uses this an excuse for the company's complacency, and by extension, his own. I'm glad to see some institutions take a stand.
I think the only way for the universities to escape this blackmail trap is to bind together in their response, refuting the Trump's claims that they're not doing enough to "stop antisemitism" (obviously a cover chosen by the WH because it immediately gathers public sympathy), and reject Trump's demands. If they cave in now, it will be used against them again.
Take the haircut and wait for either the next presidential elections, or maybe midterms if the GOP gets pummeled because of this and starts standing up to Trump. One thing we've seen about Trump is that he fairly easily reverses course when the right pressure is applied.
Granted Harvard's in an easier place than most, but I predict Columbia will come to seriously regret their decision.
If a president flaps his arms on one side of the planet does this cause a hurricane of chaos on the other side of the world? And everywhere else.
Do they stand a good chance of clawing back any of that funding by suing the government (which they seem to be hinting at doing)?
Presidents and their policies come and go; knowledge stays and grows.
As long as educators aren’t selling themselves short, I remain optimistic about the future.
Einstein essentially gave up his professorship at the University of Berlin. How far into the future are you looking?
https://www.nytimes.com/1932/10/18/archives/einstein-would-q...
The current administration have interrupted the pipeline of students to research - current research funded or partially funded by federal government is stopping or will be curtailed and future students will question whether is a rational decision to go into any sort of path that leads to research because it would only be stable for maybe two to three years, assuming a sane, science respecting House, Senate and President were in office and used the regular norms to pass bills and implement programs. I do not see a recovery path from this unless American public gets a similar thrashing like the Great Depression and decides to not elect nut jobs for 50 years. I keep seeing interviews with those who vote for Trump and are hurt by his tariffs or immigration changes and insisting they still support Trump. Those (mostly older) people are going to have to die of natural causes and be replaced by demographic shifts before things change, but the last election showing young men shifting to Trump and this administration trying to suppress the vote of women does not point to this.
What jumps out at me is the paragraph: "Governance and leadership reforms." in the original letter sent by the government to the university.
The other stuff is hard to make sense of, but this part is crystal clear: The authoritarian government is asking the university to restructure itself along more authoritarian lines. ...essentially Trump wants continuity of reporting lines ultimately leading up to him, and going down to the individual faculty member, student, and foreign collaborating partner. That sort of thing could come in handy for all kinds of things in the future, not just the silly demands of the present.
> As we do, we will also continue to comply with Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ruled that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act makes it unlawful for universities to make decisions “on the basis of race.”
This is already a shift on Harvard's part. When the ruling first came out, they announced they'd be finding ways around the ruling so they could keep doing what they'd been doing (i.e. discriminate against Asians by systematically scoring them low on "personality.")
There is no such thing as free speech under the Bourgeois State.
When you criticise of the last Western colonies, bourgeois goons disappear you.
When you criticise racial and apartheid laws in your home country, bourgeois goons disappeared you.
When you resist their power and establish a parallel people's, bourgeois goons WILL disappear you.
It's a shame we have forgotten that WE, workers, can be authoritarian too, if only we can organise, educate and militarise ourselves.
I think it's also important to point out the auditing and spying the government is asking the universities to comply with including the whistle blower section and things like - "report all requested immigration and related information to the United States Department of Homeland Security".
It appears that because it's easier to bully, punish and disappear individuals than an institution the Trump administration is doing everything it can to find out who these individuals are so they can be targeted.
I hope everyone is ready for a general strike because that time is coming up at us rapidly.
General strike when >50% of those who voted wanted this? What world are you living in?
Edit: I stand corrected, 49.81%. It doesn't change the point much. Especially when that ~49% includes many "working class"[1] voters. Who's going to participate in this general strike? A bunch of office workers?
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-return-power-fueled-...
I suspect much less than 50% actually wanted legal residents of the United States disappeared to El Salvador.
Also, research tells us that it only takes 3.5% to overthrow a government.
> Also, research tells us that it only takes 3.5% to overthrow a government.
You're describing a coup or revolution. Isn't that highly anti-democratic considering this president just won an election? Why should the 50% be under the thumb of the 3.5%?
49.81% of the people who voted did so for Trump.
The preponderance of academic and philosophical disingenuity — which could only be equally well explained by immensely subpar raw intellect (doubtful on HN) — in this very comment section perfectly illustrates why DJT was elected POTUS.
Let me just repeat the basic point:
Phenotype diversity != Viewpoint diversity
Can someone say tyrant? Or is that a thought crime for citizens too now?
It's a weak response, in that it accepts the Trump Administration's position on antisemitism. This is tied to the broad definition of antisemitism which includes acts by the State of Israel.[1] That definition comes from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. There's a more balanced definition called the Jerusalem Declaration here.[2][3]
This will lead to a controversial discussion, so I'll stop here, with the comment that getting involved in religious wars of other countries hasn't gone well for the US. The US has constitutional freedom of religion partly because the drafters of the constitution knew how that had gone in Europe.
"Maybe they is not evil. Maybe they is just enemies." - Poul Anderson
[1] https://www.state.gov/defining-antisemitism/
[2] https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_Declaration_on_Antis...
Why did the response have to include it? It’s not tactically useful.
I would have preferred a much more concise refusal.
I’m not sure if you wanted it shorter for tonal reasons rather than simply for length of time to read, but I think it was pretty concise.
It's bad rhetoric. Using stronger, more direct language would have been much more effective at making their point and having their point reach a broader audience. We need leaders who refuse to comply with an authoritarian government and do so with proud defiance. This message was meandering and weak.
Harvard has "fuck you money". They should go ahead and make it clear that they know they have this power and are expressing it (not necessarily with the vulgarity, yet)
How quickly we forget "Dear Colleague."
This is welcome change, to they defend admisions discrimination on race, sex is beyond me. They will fold, if federal funding is not enough, they will find other pressure points.
Harvard has a 50 billion endowment, what do they need federal funds for. If they value their intellectual independence so much, then cut the cord.
Much of that federal funding is for research, the same as any other R1 university. We all benefit from research findings. Endowments are used for other purposes.
There are a few colleges that take no federal funding in order to maintain total independence (mostly for religious reasons). But their research output is virtually zero.
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> I'd guess bad-to-good ratio is at least 10 to 1. Should we fix that?
Should we fix... what? Your unsubstantiated claim? You didn't even bother to do napkin math about it, you just asked a bunch of leading questions and then claimed inaction by the masses.
These are important questions, but your skepticism has no roots in firmer grounds. How are you arriving at a ratio of 10:1? Bad faith actor.
You do seem expert in all research fields. You can do on your own.
The federal funds are for doing research that the government wants to fund, not keeping the university’s lights on. This is about terminating a productive partnership, not ending a subsidy handout to schools.
Yup, people really need to learn their history. The modern federally-funded research university system came about as a direct result of the US getting caught with their pants down after Sputnik. The government decided it's in its best strategic interests to maintain long-term investments in basic and applied research. Those aren't things you can just spin up on short notice, though it's easy to kill it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_crisis#Response
Also, isn't a ton of the IP from federally funded research just handed over to US corporations for free or pennies on the dollar?
Something tells me this is more of the current administration threatening to completely wreck US prosperity if they don't get wins on their bigoted social war agenda.
Yeah but money is fungible.
It actually isn’t. Grants, as well as much of endowment funds are restricted. They legally must be accounted for separately and can only be used as specified. If you have a billion dollars in restricted endowment or grants towards scholarships and resources, you cannot use them to keep the lights on.
Research projects require grant funding because the schools do not have a business model to justify doing the research.
As a university professor, I agree with you. I think universities must cut the cord and be independent. The university faculty gave up the control to administrators and administrators, in turn, gave up the control to politicians.
The government letter demands giving control back to tenured academics (from students, activists, and administrators).
I think this is the common-sense response. The push back I've heard is that endowments are apportioned to specific things. That is, it's not an open piggy bank. Nevertheless, $50B is a _lot_ even if the smallest allocation is 1% of the largest that is likely on the order of tens of millions.
It'd be an interesting strategy if you could split the organization based on departments that depend heavily on federal funds (i.e. perhaps STEM fields such as medicine and physics/hard sciences, etc.) and those that are not (and perhaps simultaneously requiring more freedom of thought).
Perhaps resurrect the Radcliffe College to support the more intellectual, free thought based departments. [1]
[1] https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/about-the-institute/histor...
Do you have money in the bank? Do you have income? If so, you don't really need any help from the government. If you value your personal independence so much, then cut the cord.
I think that's what they're saying.
They don't. This is the federal government threatening to withhold payment for research they commissioned.
Next step: taxing that endowment (which is a good idea irrespective of the other demands: universities are government-subsidized tax-free hedge funds)
Just consider the tax-exempt status as an indirect subsidy for research and education. I think its ROI is much higher than from any other way the government could use the uncollected amount.
Sure, that's the narrative to manufacture consent from the naive, but I don't buy it at all. Perhaps for very small fledgling universities that makes partial sense; even then I am skeptical. For Harvard, definitely not.
At very least, if your endowment is growing on an inflation-adjusted basis, it does not appear to me that you need further subsidies; your primary business is to be an hedge fund and the treasury of an empire, not education for the masses. Gains should be taxed like a hedge fund at that point.
If you want to subsidize education as a society, there are much better ways: fund research directly and cut through the indirect cost crap (which was popular among academics up until the moment the current administration started advocating for it).
> Harvard has a 50 billion endowment, what do they need federal funds for. If they value their intellectual independence so much, then cut the cord.
I agree. Gulf monarchies will probably come in a give even more billions to these institutions anyway to make up for the losses. No strings attached of course...
Harvard probably already secured some more funding from Qatar and what not.
So, many of these universities were taken over in positions of power by people promoting intersectionality which also promotes systematic discrimination (eg DEI) against specific groups. That's a highly-divisive philosophy with no proven benefits that's similar to Marxism which killed 50 million people and wrecked countries. They did this while describing themselves as open-minded institutions commited to everyone's success.
In the degree programs, they forced these beliefs on students in "diversity" classes, rewarded those on their side, and canceled or limited people with differing views. Those who make it through the process are more likely to force it on others in government and business, which they often do. Worse, being federally funded means taxpayers are paying for students' indoctrination in intersectionality and systematically discrimination it claimed to oppose.
Yeah, I want their funding cut entirely since theyre already rich as can be. I also would like to see those running it take it back to what it used to be. That's a Christian school balancing character and intellectual education. Also, one where many views can be represented with no cancel culture. That is worth federal funding.
On top of it, how about these schools with billions in endowments put their money where their mouth is on social issues and start funding high-quality, community colleges and trade schools and Udemy-like programs everywhere? Why do they talk so much and take in so much money but do so little? (Credit to MIT for EdX and Harvard for its open courses.)
> people promoting intersectionality which also promotes systematic discrimination (eg DEI) against specific groups. That's a highly-divisive philosophy with no proven benefits that's similar to Marxism which killed 50 million people and wrecked countries
Just like all people connecting to "Kevin Bacon", and all Wikipedia pages first links connecting to "Philosophy", every idea can be connected to mass murder if you're willing to manufacture enough links.
"Intersectionality" is a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, idea. It promotes nothing.
More like it's two philosophies with similar elements originating from places where both were taught. In both cases, those that believe in them try to force them on everyone in law, policy, etc. They've been doing that, too, so it isn't speculative.
There's also large groups pushing this stuff in businesses, forcing it on all employees, under the banner of ESG. That includes Blackrock and World Economic Forum. There's billions of dollars behind forcing thus stuff on America. Yet, we still see voters rebelling against it, like by electing Trump, because they don't want our country to keep being ruined.
> In both cases, those that believe in them try to force them on everyone in law, policy, etc. They've been doing that, too, so it isn't speculative.
I think it is speculative. I haven't seen this happen beyond a small number of isolated cases, that generally are met poorly within the organization where it happens.
To my observation the association between "believing that intersectionality accurately describes the world today" and "attempting to force others to believe similarly", is about as strong as the association between "frequently voting Republican in the US since 2016", and "attempting to carry out a mass shooting".
Could you describe what you believe "intersectionality" to mean, as a philosophy?
> That's a Christian school
> That is worth federal funding.
... interesting.
You left off...
"Also, one where many views can be represented with no cancel culture."
...before "that is worth federal funding."
Such cherry picking in ways that misrepresent what is said, also common in liberal media, is one reason distrust in liberal politics is at an all-time high. Put the truth of what others said side by side with your own position, like I mentioned intersectionality with my counterpoint. See if your ideas stand up to scrutiny.
It's really not necessary since you had already invoked the notion that separation of Church and State isn't particularly important to your evaluation of what the government should fund. Everything else sort of falls by the wayside.
Trump is about making money for himself so he can boast. He doesn't care about this. I wonder who's really calling the shots, because, this is just the beginning. At the same time, he feels he can (or he's testing) ignoring court orders. Where this meets in the middle will not be a good place.
I don’t think the administration seriously thinks Harvard will accept these terms. This will just be used as more fodder against “liberal elites”.
Conservative media will then headline with “Harvard rejects Trumps reforms on DEI” or “Harvard says no to ending anti-semitism”.
The world should never forgive Americans for what they let the man they call their president get away with. Sending people to concentration camps, among many other despicable acts. "Wir haben es nicht gewußt".
Or, you know, they could follow the bullet points in the government's letter:
- foster scholarship over activism
- hire based on merit, and review potential employees for plagiarism issues
- admit students based on the merit of the candidate
- not admit foreign students hostile to values in the U.S. Constitution, openly espousing anti-semitism, or supporting terrorism
- abolish ideological litmus tests for faculty, provide a diversity of viewpoints to students
- adopt policies for student discipline that disrupt scholarship and normal campus activities including allowing campus police to enforce these rules
- implement whistleblower protections
- disclose foreign funding
Taxpayer money comes with strings attached. Be good enough to deserve it.
Not sure about the mask ban... Is that about mask wearing during protests?
https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...
W government
They have more than enough money in their coffers to tell Trump to fk off for a few years.
Good for Harvard. As idiotic as many of its policies are, this is clearly government infringement of freedom and speech.
That's right. Infringement of freedom and speech should be left in the hands of government funded institutions like Harvard.
Soooo you want freedom of speech but if you don't like what someone else is doing, you want to censor them?
And even the reps don't mind this?
How hypocratic do you have to be to want to get rid of the 'Wokeshit' which is freespeech while also advocating for free speech?
Btw. the real term for what type of speech radicals and nazis is abusive speech and yes there are good reasons why abusive speech should lead to consequences
> Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the “intellectual conditions” at Harvard.
So alongside antisemitism, The other demand is for changes in intellect. For some reason this reeks of Christian evangelical movement to purge wokism and anti-Zionism, both of which have run counter to evangelical dogma.
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Except homeland has been Egypt before it was Palestine. And Jews lived in both places peacefully after the Arabs established peace.
Antisemitism is not what you want to make it out to be. It is as much a hatred against Arabs as it is against Jews, as Zionist Christians want to fill the land with Jews just so the end of the world is near, without any consideration for what happens to the Arab natives of the region.
Arabs never ‘established peace’ - historians largely agree that Islam was spread through conquest. Under Arab colonisation Jewish people either lived as Dhimmis, which are second class citizens, or were subject to outright violence (you can find many incidences of this before 1948), or both.
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I guess that Harvard probably does not need the Feds as much as the Feds need Harvard but I'm glad they are standing up to the Fascists. I'm going to have to see what NYU is doing now.
The thing to remember is that these grants are their research budget. The endowment is largely earmarked for educational projects. Your average university professor is there because they want to do research, not because they want to teach - so the research budget is critical for educating as well.
I assume Harvard has a plan for dealing with this dynamic. They have some extremely smart people there, so I don't doubt they've found a way.
What does the Federal Gov need Harvard for? Harvard gets 16% of its funding from them - what outweighs that on the aide of the Federal government?
The tax revenues from the $1.3T company that arose from their online yearbook?
Lawyers? Doctors? Medical research? Thousands of highly educated graduates annually? 161 Nobel prize winners?
Its not clear what the effect no Harvard would be on those metrics. And all of those are necessarily in Harvards best interest to maintain too.
This is compared to a direct payment to sustain operations which the government is saying they may not be in favor of. But its not like Harvard would say ”it may not be in our interest to produce successful people anymore.”
Don't confuse the credential factory with the skills and quality of the underlying students. Harvard is little more than a toll booth for students who were already smart and over-achieving. It's not like the teaching is extraordinary.
One may expect that the funding is paying for research, such that the government finds the trade to have positive expected value.
Until recently, the US brand was where exceptional people wanted to go study and work. If you want to send the world's best and brightest to other countries that's fine, but it will have negative long term impacts on the US.
I wonder how many Harvard graduates work for either Trump or the federal government.
Most if not all of his cabinet (surprisingly) have an Ivy League background. Not sure if that's an endorsement on them, or an indictment on Ivy League schools
The GOP / Trump administration shows no real focus on employing experts, Trump shows no curiosity about anything. They're slashing research and science across the board department by department. They employ anti science people as heads of departments that require science.
I don't think the GOP & Trump thinks they need anything from Harvard other than agreeing to impose first amendment violations on others on behalf of the GOP and Trump.
> I'm glad they are standing up to the Fascists
Today I learned that demanding an end to racial discrimination makes you a fascist. I swear this word becomes more meaningless by the day.
Genuinely curious: what part of the federal government's letter to Harvard seems fascist to you?
Is the government asking a university to shift their bias away from skin color diversity to viewpoint diversity fascist?
Is there a historical parallel?
Or is it just the fact that the government is asking for reform, and any reform request would be considered fascist? If so, do you also consider the DEI reform requests fascist?
The section on "Student Discipline Reform and Accountability" is explicitly fascist. Harvard police must prevent/crush serious protests that cause disruption. Student groups must be vetted so that they don't violate orthodoxy. Masking (even for valid medical reasons) is banned. (This lets you know that this has nothing to do with facts or diversity of viewpoints and everything to do with the supremacy of theirs.) The "Whistleblower Reporting and Protections" section is basically a demand for a hotline, direct to the government, to inform on anyone not toeing the line. The "Transparency and Monitoring" section makes it clear the government intends to monitor foreign students at Harvard closely.
This isn't quite 1930's Germany yet, but it's getting there. The next step to watch for would be any laws passed that regulate who can serve as faculty in universities or attempts to impose different leadership on universities that don't comply with demands.
You made several good points. While I am struggling to validate "Student groups must be vetted so that they don't violate orthodoxy", it may be because I am unfamiliar with the actions of the student bodies listed at the end of the section, or maybe subtleties in the wording that I am missing that could be exploited later.
Also I find the mask-ban strange and alarming. That example alone was probably enough of a red flag for me to more carefully scrutinize the good-faith of the rest of the letter.
Thank you for taking the time to actually engage with me constructively. Unfortunately many others decided to just downvote my questions.
I find it so disappointing that on a forum like Hacker News I am being downvoted for asking a question in good faith in an attempt to better understand a complex and nuanced topic.
When I ask ChatGPT to explain Facism to me, two aspects it pointed out were: - Suppression of political opposition, dissent, and individual freedoms. - Use of state power to enforce conformity.
I can see how the letter from the government to Harvard would be considered use of state power to enforce conformity. As someone who is open minded trying to understand the truth, the letter on first pass reads like they are using state power to unwind enforced ideological conformity. This is confusing, because on its surface it seems anti-fascist, so when people label it fascist (with charged emotions), it's hard for me to take them at their word without further explanation.
When the people who are concerned about the current actions of the government attack me for asking questions in an effort to actually understand their concerns rather than just accepting them, it makes me more suspicious of their viewpoints, not less.
Also, ChatGPT's thorough explanation of Fascism indicated to me that both administrations have been showing signs of increasing fascism, almost complimenting each other in their policies as they rock the cultural and institutional trunk of the united states back and forth with ever increasing momentum until it tips over into catastrophe. If such is the case, then maybe the only hope is for people to engage in these thorny issues with curiosity and nuance, to carefully sift out the bad from the good instead of assuming that everything the other side is doing is evil.
I have no control over what other people do, all I have control over is my own actions. I don't see a good way out of this mess that doesn't involve curiosity, empathy, understanding and reconciliation. So I will continue engage in the conversation with these intentions, and if people attack me for that then I suppose to will just have to accept what's inevitable.
Let's set aside specific terms like "fascist" for now. Below is one of the demands from the government:
> the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.
Do you feel this is ok for the government to demand of an educational institution? This isn't about specific political ideologies. If the Biden administration had threatened to withhold funding from a university because, for example, their hiring policies weren't left-leaning enough or something, it would be equally outrageous.
Thank you,
Let me start by saying that I am not American and I am not your enemy. Also, I am genuinely trying to understand the truth about these matters, with an open mind to the possibility that it's messy and complicated and I might not be capable of understanding it. I hope that provides context for what follows.
Honestly, I am not sure if it's okay. It reminds me of the anti-racist movement, in that the action almost feels like it's anti-fascist. It's using a fascist action (use of state power to enforce conformity), to undo a fascist policy (suppression of political opposition and dissent). This reminds me of anti-racism, which uses one type of racism to compensate for a different type of past-racism.
What I find interesting is the very last statement in your post. I am not aware of anything Biden did, but it does seem like Obama did something very similar with the DEI policies forced on universities which came with funding implications for non-compliance. It was a different time, everyone was upset about the great financial crisis of 2008, and on their surface I am sure these policies sounded like a good thing. In the end though these policies were very much a form of facism in that it was a state sponsored effort to suppress political opposition. This probably sounds like I am defending the political views of racists, but really I am defending the political views of people who believe leadership roles should be filled based on the merit of the individual and their ability to take care of those in their charge, and not based on the color of their skin, their gender or sexual preferences.
As I have tried to unpack all this, the perspective that is growing for me is that for the last 20 or so years both administrations have been taking steps towards fascism while hiding their fascist actions behind intentions that sound anti-fascist. If this perspective is even partially correct, it would explain why so much of this has been so confusing for me.
This is massive. In Europe, we know what real Resistance looks like. And what Harvard just did? That is Resistance, plain and simple.
It breaks my heart to see my country backing the fascist side of history again. But just like before, we won’t stay silent.
hats off to Harvard, did they generate the response with chatgdp? so many em dashes lmfao
We can debate about specific requests from the Trump administration, but it is pretty clear that Harvard has been horrible. The previous administrations completely failed to fix it.
- Harvard has been discriminating against Whites and Asians in admissions for decades.
- Harvard deliberately refused to protect Jewish students against intimidation and harassment. Students camped in school property for weeks against Harvard's official rules. They chanted that they would bring islamic terrorism to America ("intifada, intifada, coming to America"), established a self-appointed security system that monitored and recorded Jews, and remained there for almost a month while the school simply refused to remove them. [1]
- Harvard's president stated that calling for the genocide of Jews did not necessarily constitute harassment. This is particularly bizarre when contrasted to Harvard's approach to other groups, like when it considers "misgendering" of trans individuals to be harassment.
[1] https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/harvard-jew...
For the people downvoting: can you actually provide arguments for why you think these points are incorrect?
If you are downvoting simply because you disagree politically with what I commented, you are going against the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
problem will only last another 3 years or so
Being anti-Israel should not be conflated with being antisemitic. After all, the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for a reason.
Trump is using “antisemitism” as cover for the imposition of authoritarianism. This comes from Putin's playbook. Putin used denazification as an excuse for invading Ukraine.
Trump himself has espoused antisemitism from time to time, see below.
John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, reiterated his assertion that Trump said, “Hitler did some good things, too,” in a story published Tuesday in The New York Times. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-said-hitler-did-...
Donald Trump dabbles in Nazi allusions too often for it to be a coincidence. https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/21/politics/trump-nazi-allusions...
Trump's re-election campaign that featured a symbol used in Nazi Germany. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53098439
Trump’s latest flirtation with Nazi symbolism draws criticism https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4677700-trumps-latest-...
Trump campaign accused of T-shirt design with similarity to Nazi eagle https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/11/fac...
Donald Trump's 'Star of David' Tweet About Hillary Clinton Posted Weeks Earlier on Racist Feed https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-...
An order by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office resulted in a purge of books critical of racism but preserved volumes defending white power. Two copies of “Mein Kampf” are still on the shelves but “Memorializing the Holocaust” was removed. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/us/politics/naval-academy...
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If anything negative you can say about Israel is equated to antisemitism then Israel gets a free pass. Hamas engaged in terrorism, but Israel's response was out of proportion. Saying that aloud doesn't make one antisemitic. The ICC and UN are not antisemitic organizations for ordering arrest of Netanyahu and condemning Israel's use of excessive force.
What would have been a proportional response? Is it a numbers game? lets do 2x? 5x? 10x? In the gilad shalit deal Palestinians established the proportion of 1 Israeli to 1027 Palestinians. So on Oct 7 - 1,195 were murdered, by your standards Israel should have killed 1,227,265 Palestinians.
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TLDR:Harvard will continue to drive towards a modern edukayshun at all costs
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM
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Certainly seems it ought not to be, but evidently the will to provide "the same protections" is lacking. The unavoidable conclusion is that antisemitism is policy even if it's not official and documented. That truly defies logic considering some of the university's brightest lights have been Jews who've made major contributions to their fields, the school and the country as a whole.
Harvard said most of the demands were not actually about antisemitism.
> Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the “intellectual conditions” at Harvard.
> afford Jewish students the same protections as other minorities
I’m not really familiar with this dispute. How have they failed to do this?
You want to send them to El Salvador?
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Hyperbole doesn't help at all.
Police the violence, not the speech.
Israel is violent against Palestine and receive more guns, why don't these students received a few too?, they are doing the same, or the guns only come after a few thousands of killed innocents?
I've visited a handful of encampments. Super peaceful, mostly kids educating each other about colonialism and the history of Israel's occupation and apartheid.
If you're looking for violence, the attacks on the Palestine encampments at UCLA were by far the most horrific violence on campus of the last year, and that was funded by Jonathan Greenblatt (CEO of the ADL, which is a racist org)
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A demand letter that said only "Harvard may not use race, gender, or national origin as criteria for admissions and hiring" would be a lot more defensible, and much harder to oppose.
But the government's list of demands includes all kinds of stuff that would be mildly insane even if offered in good faith. And we have seen enough already that any independent organization would be very irresponsible to assume good faith.
I would go so far as to say that any institution trying to make decisions based solely on merit is required to resist this kind of pressure very forcefully. There are many examples of the administration using "DEI" as a buzzword when firing meritorious women and minorities, all the while promoting totally meritless white men.
-JD '08
> the government's list of demands includes all kinds of stuff that would be mildly insane even if offered in good faith
And their demands are so insane you couldn't name one. I've gone through it and it all seems incredibly reasonable
https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...
The federal government cannot attach conditions that limit free speech onto federal funding. There is precedent for the federal government expanding into areas it has no direct constitutional authority over through conditions on funding. But e.g. 'regulating commerce within a state' is not something the constitution explicitly forbids. Whilst 'abridging the freedom of speech' is very much explicitly forbidden.
There are regular legal battles about what public schools can and cannot teach in the schools.
Consider also the Equal Time rule and the Fairness Doctrine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule
As I am not a lawyer, I suppose we'll have to see what the courts have to say about it.
Importantly, the Civil Rights Act is a (well-litigated) law, not an ad hoc decree from the executive branch. If the current administration wants to strong arm universities, they should go through Congress.
If they want to abridge freedom of speech, they also need 2/3s of US states.
> Importantly, the Civil Rights Act is a (well-litigated) law, not an ad hoc decree from the executive branch
That's right. And it's the function of the executive branch to enforce those laws.
As the Harvard letter says, "I encourage you to read the letter to gain a fuller understanding of the unprecedented demands being made by the federal government..." This goes far beyond a demand to follow existing civil rights law. It's a demand for a full-on, government-monitored cultural revolution that will punish Trump's enemies and bring in his supporters. It's also hilarously self-contradictory. The government demands an END to all DEI programs, yet in the same breath, "Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity..."
> The Federal government has always attached conditions in exchange for Federal funding and Federal contracts. This is not dictating.
It effectively is. Just look up the history of the drinking age - a classic example of the federal government using extortion tactics to override state rights.
Which was also a law passed by Congress. Congress passes laws.
Should we also say that the president can strike down unconstitutional state laws because the Supreme Court is in the federal government?
I meant this in the form of the Federal government handing out contracts and funding to private businesses, not state government.
I don't think most people would consider "You can't discriminate based on race", to be extortionary. Instead, its a well accepted principle in most of society.
Same with speed limits.
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>3. Testimony before Congress that equated opposition to war crimes to antisemitism [4].
Can you link to a specific line of testimony that supports this allegation? "war crimes" isn't even mentioned in the article. Far too often claims like this devolve into a game of strawman/motte-and-bailey, where each side tries to paint their position as maximally charitable, and accuse the other side of rejecting the maximally charitable position.
I initially engaged in these comments by asking questions in good faith in an attempt to better understand what was going on. I was trying to address my own ignorance by asking questions, and I was mostly attacked for it (mass downvoting).
I had more luck copying the scenario over to LLMs and asking them the questions.
It's disappointing to me, because I come to HN instead of other social media for intellectual discussion and nuanced perspectives. To be attacked for asking questions is frustrating and disheartening.
That said, after significant back and forth with the LLMs in an attempt to untangle several key issues, this is the summary I was left with. Somehow I suspect this will be downvoted like the rest of my comments, but I will share it here just in case it helps someone better understand why some right-leaning people may condone the governments letter and also why the letter is so concerning....
Good-Faith Policy Concerns Potentially Addressed in the Letter
Title VI Compliance:
Seeks to ensure that race, gender, or national origin are not used as explicit criteria in hiring, admissions, or funding decisions.
Merit-Based Standards:
Advocates for transparent and non-discriminatory evaluation of faculty and students (e.g. ending race-based preferences, enforcing plagiarism rules).
Viewpoint Diversity (In Theory):
Attempts to correct ideological homogeneity that may stifle academic freedom or lead to one-sided discourse.
Antisemitism Response:
Responds to documented or alleged incidents of antisemitic harassment post-October 7th, which could fall under Title VI protections if based on shared ethnicity or national origin.
Governance Reform:
Calls for clearer lines of authority and accountability in complex academic institutions, which is a reasonable administrative concern.
Key Issues and Overreaches in the Letter
State-Enforced Ideological Engineering:
Viewpoint diversity audits and mandated ideological balancing per department move into compelled intellectual conformity, which risks violating academic freedom and free speech.
Suspension of Institutional Autonomy:
Replaces university-led decision-making with federal oversight, annual audits, and direct hiring/admissions intervention—a level of control inconsistent with traditional norms for private institutions.
Targeting of Specific Programs:
Selective audits of programs like Middle Eastern Studies or Human Rights centers signal ideological targeting, not neutral application of anti-discrimination principles.
Guilt by Association / Collective Punishment:
Calls for discipline and de-recognition of entire student groups (e.g., Palestine Solidarity Committee) based on political stances, even absent direct policy violations.
Mask Ban and Protest Crackdown:
Mandated suspension for mask-wearing and harsh punishments for past protests go beyond civil rights compliance and verge into authoritarian control of student expression.
Foreign Student Loyalty Screening:
Requiring ideological screening for “American values” and reporting foreign students to DHS raises civil liberties and due process concerns.
DEI Abolition Blanket Order:
Calls for total shutdown of all DEI offices and functions, regardless of their form or function, eliminating even neutral or inclusive programs not tied to race-based quotas.
Summary Judgment
The letter does address real legal and policy issues—especially around race- and gender-based preferences, antisemitism, and bureaucratic governance. But it leverages these issues to justify a comprehensive, ideologically driven restructuring of a university. The result is a state-imposed orthodoxy enforced through threats of defunding, loyalty tests, and discipline, extending well beyond what’s required for civil rights compliance.
Good. Trump is simply trying to see what he can get away with and the answer as it turns out is a lot. Everyone need to stop capitulating to this nonsense. People, universities, companies, all of them.
I'm a scientist and I've spent a lot of time at Harvard, including working there for years.
These demands seem on point to me. I see a lot of uninformed opposition in this thread, but I think most of you all don't have any idea how it actually is at elite universities.
- Political tests for employment, or continued employment. The UC system (a public system!) is one of the worst offenders here, but Harvard is really, really bad.
- Overt discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion (or lack thereof). The number of academics who aren't even aware that this sort of discrimination is illegal is mind-boggling. I would say 9 months ago it was 80% or more. The number of emails I've received either indicating a candidate isn't viable because of his genitalia or skin color, or telling me this is the reason I didn't get the job is crazy. They literally don't know and don't care.
- Compelled speech. This is a bright line we have so far, as a society, successfully succeeded in not crossing. Harvard and other elite universities were crossing it, and the Biden admin's Title IX rules overtly crossed it. A bad look, to put it mildly.
- Widespread censorship, to the point where we (social scientists) have developed code to talk about certain things "nurture a thriving culture of open inquiry on our campus" hahaha...dear lord.
And these aren't small effects. It's not 55% / 45% type scenarios. You have to view the Administration's requests in the light of: Harvard is 95+% Blue Team, and that's largely because they actively filter. There are plenty of people who aren't willing to bend the knee who don't have jobs because of it. Harvard has created an intellectual monoculture. They want "diversity" in the sense that they want people who look different on the outside, but who are all the same on the inside.
Asking for monitoring to make sure they're no longer illegally and immorally discriminating in hiring and admission is warranted, indeed it would be kind of crazy to not monitor. They'll just continue racist and sexist hiring otherwise.
What's in this letter is a reasonable set of asks in response to a situation that is so off the rails it's hard to describe.
Off topic, but _why_ is it good that the gov gives hundreds of billions of dollars [if you include grants] to higher ed.
I work in a startup where none of the programmers have been to college, and they seem to get along just fine.
I volunteer in a youth group that teaches "soft" sciences, and I am sure that groups like ours do a better job at that with a lot less funding.
Trade schools cater to the lower income, are much more effective dollar for dollar, and get a lot less federal funds. If that money were to be poured into trade schools instead of universities, it would help create a better middle class.
Why should Harvard be so entitled?
EDIT: IMO, The reason youth go to college is to have fun. The real reason the parents are willing to pay, is because their children will forge connections with other wealthy families that is worth the money. It may be good for the wealthy that the money stays in their circle, but IMO this is not something the Gov should subsidize.
Nearly everything you use on a daily basis came from university research. Heck, most of what we know about the universe comes from university research.
Every piece of technology is because of collaboration between taxpayer funding and universities. It is relatively rare nowadays for a private business to create anything truly new without some form of university support. Or it's built on top of university research.
If you like new knowledge you like these types of programs. They make modern life possible.
Universities provide staff, equipment and expertise while the government(and often private enterprise) provide the funding.
the money is for research not education.
A lot of modern industry started as academic research. Things like semiconductors, EUV lithography, mRNA vaccines, or AI originate in government-funded academic research.
The health effects of smoking and leaded gas were established by academic research, allowing government programs to massively improve our collective health.
Climate change has been recognized, diagnosed, and its solutions invented mostly by academic researchers, an effort that may save all industrial civilization.
What an outrageous and incoherent letter
So much for academic freedom
Awesome response from Alan Garber
With their large untaxed endowment, they should be fine without federal funding. Make it so.
They are already are spending billions a year from their endowment, which covers nearly 40% of their operating revenue, which is around the maximum they can sustainably spend.
Sustainable spending is the whole point of an endowment.
Also endowments are created by a vast number of individual donations which often come with restrictions. For example someone leaves a bunch of money to university to support a professorship. That money and its earnings can only be used for that.
Generally the things that are funded by research grants from the government are things that cannot be funded from the endowment.
Whats the problem.. just get your pal Soros to give you the money instead.. With $36T debt, Federal Government cannot continue splashing out money like there is no tomorrow
If they were concerned with spending, they’d just cut the spending.
They’re making the spending conditional on Harvard following their ideological instructions.
Trump is increasing the debt tho and did in his first term.
Republicans only care about debt when it can be used to either bash Democrats or used as a talking point to eliminate something they don't like. Lookup "Starve The Beast".
Republicans do not care about the debt. They care that it can be used as a tool. That's it.
They run up the debt when they want and then turn around to blame Democrats for the debt they ran up.
Nobody is really concerned with the US debt outside of silly wanna-be patriots and the politicians who use it to scare them. Now, one way to make the US debt a much bigger deal is to cause a recession...hmm...wonder if anyone is trying to do that...
Almost every economist believes there is no serious and immediate problem with our current debt level (which is actually increasing under both Trump administrations, despite their fake expressions of concern). Why do you believe you are right and they are all collectively wrong?
Lot of bluster from Harvard. Harvard is free to not do what the gov't is requesting, they just don't get the fed money.
Public funds should not be subsidizing wealthy private universities. The end.
Unless you're speaking about the high overhead rates, that's really the wrong framing. The public funds at issue are buying things like research, or hospital services.
One framework I like to use is, “If this thing didn’t exist today, and someone proposed it, how would people react to it?”
I think it’s fair to say that if none of this existed today, and someone proposed that the federal government simply give universities like Harvard seemingly endless billions, it would be laughed out of existence by republicans and democrats alike. All of this is the product of inertia at best, corruption at worst. It’s a different world today and we don’t need our tax dollars going to these places.
"If thing doesn't exist, gets proposed, gets laughed out of the room, good idea" is your framework? It doesn't sound like a good framework.
Wait till you hear of countries where university education is 100% tax funded. And you get money from the government while you're a full-time student.
The law in the immigration act to disallow people who espouse support for terrorism is a good one.
We protect freedom of speech for citizens because we have to. They are part of our country.
I don’t believe this extends to foreigners. We should allow only immigrants who do not support terrorism and want to be productive members of society. This isn’t too much to ask.
This is not a right or left issue. This is a pro-America vs con-America issue.
"Congress shall make no law" is not unclear, nor is the idea from the declaration that " all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". There is no spot in the founding philosophy of this nation that makes a home for "rights of citizens" only, and there was copious space to fill that in if they wanted. You made that shit up.
What you're doing is scriptural prestidigitation. It's the equivalent of christians deciding that Satan and the serpent in the garden are the same entity, even though it's very clear that they aren't[1]. You're doing it because it makes your world view seem like less of an incoherent mess, not because it's true.
Define “terrorism.”
The administration, for example, freely uses the word to describe someone with no criminal record and no proven gang affiliations: https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmrwrrkbnf2e
They also use the word to describe Tesla vandals: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/25/us/fbi-task-force-tesla-a...
The US government has determined that the individual belonged to a gang. Also, the government of El Salvador confirmed this.
The fact that the lawyer for the person says "there's no evidence" doesn't mean there actually isn't any evidence. It just hasn't been revealed.
I believe that setting Teslas on fire is domestic terrorism. They were politically motivated to specifically target a political figure to intimidate other citizens. I think setting ballot boxes on fire is also domestic terrorism.
Assumption: everything critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza is supporting terrorism. That’s quite the take.
The evidence presented to the judge that allowed the deportation was that he specifically supported Hamas. He wasn't just pro-Palestinian. This is why he is being deported.
The government's list of requests is reasonable, moral and necessary. It's the taxpayers' prerogative to demand a merit based system that, in conjunction, upholds the values and freedoms they hold dear.
The elitist and morally detached Harvard and its fellow privileged, largely useless, institutions can exercise their right to refuse the demands and the money.
No need to complicate it further.
The university, as a private institution, has every right to hold whatever views and enforce whatever policies it sees fit within itself.
The government, on the other hand, has every right to put conditions its counterparty should conform to in order to get money from the government.
It's best when the bargaining about such conditions happens with mutual respect and without overreach, but respect and sobriety are in very short supply in the current administration. Even better it is when a university does not need to receive the government money and can run off the gigantic endowment it already has, thus having no need to comply with any such conditions.
(It's additionally unfun how the antisemitism is barely mentioned as a problem, in a very muffed way, and any other kind of discrimination based on ethnicity, culture, or religion is not mentioned at all. Is fighting discrimination out of fashion now?..)
> The government, on the other hand, has every right to put conditions its counterparty should conform to in order to get money from the government.
It really doesn't. There are both normal laws and Constitutional restrictions on how the government can make decisions, and the reasons it can have for making those decisions.
I'm very much not an expert here, but this includes restrictions on viewpoint discrimination in funding.
I agree! The government is not entitled to set arbitrary conditions. But it's entitled to set some. I suspect that some acts of Congress require the government to set some conditions on providing governmental funding, as the Constitution prescribes: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46827
The governments conditions are not unlimited.
Their proposed "viewpoint diversity" is absurd at face value.
Indeed. I wish the government side was more reasonable, but it's hard to expect now; they are into running a TV show :(
Do you believe antisemitism is a problem at Harvard? If so, what led you to believe this?
Do we really believe there is a rooted undercurrent of antisemitism at Harvard of all places? Or is this just anti-zionist expansion straw manning? I'm sorry but the continuously faithless positioning of the Trump administration right now makes me believe the antisemitic accusations are a pretext.
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> antisemitism is barely mentioned as a problem
Because it's very obviously being used as a cover to exert control over universities which are deemed to be too "woke" (which has nothing to do with anti-semitism).
Yes, antisemitism exists, like many other social ills. But is it a major problem at Harvard and these elite institutions? No, it is not.
The government does not have all that right tho. First amendment and all.
I would invite you to read the government letter if you have not, but look at each demand and put yourself in the position of the recently affected but also try to see if you can hold a "controversial" view of the world that should be fine but would be put in danger by these demands: https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...
Civil rights, suffrage, they were all the controversial opinion at some point. Some people still argue that they are but anyone against those can go pound sand.
I don't think that the government's demands are all reasonable, or even permissible. Some things read like they were written in the height of the civil rights movement in 1960s:
> By August 2025, the University must adopt and implement merit-based hiring policies, and cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin throughout its hiring, promotion, compensation, and related practices
Some though read as if they were written in an advent to a totalitarian dystopia:
> Harvard will immediately report to federal authorities, including the Department of Homeland Security and State Department, any foreign student, including those on visas and with green cards, who commits a conduct violation.
To my mind Harvard is right in bringing this to the public attention. It's also free to walk away from governmental financing programs that stipulate such conditions (if they are even found legitimate), and is even in a position to do so.
The government subsidizes a private institution that cuts class sizes. Clearly education isn't their priority, so the subsidy can go.
Harvard received the "worst score ever" clamped at 0.0 in 2023. By the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. The actual score was -10.69.
They were particularly oppressive on anyone espousing opinions on the political right...Both leaning toward Individual liberty & stateist inclined.
While I believe that freedom of speech is a right not to be infringed on. Their current stance is selective. They have a massive endowment. So Harvard doesn't need subsidies. Since their endowment benefits private parties, Harvard can be funded by private parties.
https://www.thefire.org/news/harvard-gets-worst-score-ever-f...