Harvard Rejects Trump Admin’s Demands, Going to Court

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What possible basis does the IRS have for removing Harvard’s tax-exempt status? Can’t imagine it will hold up in court but wondering what their theory and rationale is.

It’s illegal for the president to ask IRS to investigate anyone.

[Anonymous]

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A beautifully worded post that is utterly naive. You are still a pawn here. Trump destroying Harvard will not rid the world of racial preference. All it will do is destroy one of the few institutions willing to stand up our new dictator. That’s what this is about - destroying institutions that don’t bend the knee. It’s not about leveling the racial and gender playing field.

A poorly thought through retort. You don't stop cleaning out the garbage in front of you because the act doesn't rid the world of garbage. It is a first step. Taxpayers other than the Obama elite support Trump entirely. The Obama elite living in their ivory towers throw around words like dictator for anything they disagree with. It is laughable. Everyone has seen through the self serving graft and sanctimony.

I'm the poster who thinks Harvard's destruction is a small price to pay to fight anti Asian discrimination but I don't think Trump has anything closer to that sort of support. He won't the popular vote by a little bit and he won a bunch of states by a little bit. I generally don't like extremism at either end and I don't like racism in any form. I think there are more people like me than people who think racism can be used as a tool to (I) reverse the effects of prior racism by discriminating against people who had nothing to do with that prior discrimination or (Ii) profile people for immigrant status or national loyalty. Both of these seem bad

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:So dumb. “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue”’

The government isn’t saying that. No one is forcing Harvard to do anything. They have a billion dollar endowment and can do as they please.

What they can’t do is foster an educational atmosphere of harassment and expect the taxpayers to finance it.

Sounds like you skipped the letter with the Trump admin’s demands. In the second link.

I literally quoted from the article.

No one is forcing Harvard to do anything.

Harvard is throwing a hissy fit because it wants to do certain things AND get taxpayer funds.

Doesn’t work like that.

Their funding like every other school that gets federal funding is for the good of the country. The funding goes into researching diseases and cures. They are affiliated with some of the best teaching hospitals in the country. They do research on advancing technology and much more.

Their endowment is money donated to them usually with instructions on how to use it.

Enough with the tax money. Every school gets some type of funding, it’s what helps make a civilized country.

But the argument was that they could racially discriminate in admissions because they are private and don't get government funding. How many woke racists made that argument? How many of you stood quietly by while they did this?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:No one can explain to me what merit means? Is it just SAT scores? If so we’d need a lottery system to make it completely fair or else everyone will whine about something

Every other country in the world has figured out that standardized tests are how you select college students but it's a mystyery to us.

And every year, thousands of foreign students come to the US to study and to begin their careers. Why? Why not stay in their own countries where standardized test scores are apparently all that matter?

Reasonable question 🤔

American money (including research money) and access to the American job market.

[Anonymous]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/business/trump-harvard-letter-mistake.htm


Whether this is a cover story or true, neither is a good look

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It’s extortion. No previous White House has ever tried to use the power of the state to steer the nation’s preeminent institutions of higher learning in an ideological direction favored by the president.

“U.S. research universities, and the federal funding that supports them, are one major reason Americans have collected more Nobel Prizes than citizens of any other country. They also help make the United States the world’s innovation engine and the top destination for foreign students. No other country is as adept at converting raw human talent and ideas into cutting-edge products. Research universities anchor innovation clusters such as Silicon Valley, which in turn fuel the country’s economic growth.”

Nearly a month ago, for example, Columbia University agreed to most of the White House’s demands in the hopes that Trump and his team would restore $400 million in federal funding. Not only were those hopes soon dashed — Columbia didn’t get its money back — but the administration soon after proposed installing oversight personnel to help run the school in ways that would make the president happy.

In effect, the White House responded to Columbia’s appeasement by trying in part to take over Columbia.

+100

People cheering for this are puppets. It’s the beginning of a fascist regime. They want to control all of the elite universities so there are no alternative ideas or push back. Much like firing all the IGs.

Obama sent letters threatening universities to install DEI or lose funding. Full compliance.

Obama did not tell schools their federal funding depended on creating entire DEI programs, much less demand to pick students and faculty who shared his party’s “viewpoints.” If you mean trans kids getting to use the restroom that matched their identity, you can’t possibly think that was as consequential as reshaping the ideology of any entire university’s population, as the Harvard letter lays out. I’m all for diversity of thought, but the gov should not be in the business of evaluating what that looks like when it itself swings so dramatically from one election to the other.

Republicans are supposed to favor small gov!

Forcing trans ideology on everyone is not really great either.

And Republicans never favored small government, they favor low taxes and no entitlements or social safety nets. Bootstraps and all that.

Not forcing ideology - enforcing respect for individual human beings, including those with whom you disagree.....Including different viewpoints - isn't that what the Trump argument is here complaining that universities are squashing conservative voices?

They were enforcing compliance with trans ideology.

It wasn't live and let live. It was, do as I say.

What a tiny percentage of the population yo worry about.

Sure you don't have Trans Derangement Syndrome?

You are not winning any converts this way.

It's too late for that.

I'm not hoping to win you. You are clearly nuts and lost sight of the narrative a long time ago.

Right back at you. You are part of the reason trump won

Trump won because bigots gonna bigot. DP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is an important point, when you say it is all BS. It actually is not all BS. I do feel bad for Harvard, because the Trump Administration is not negotiating in good faith and is overreaching. And certainly the threat of pulling Harvard’s tax exemption is grossly unfair and illegal. But it is not all BS. The race politics and race identity focus of Harvard is actually harming the people it is intended to help. The DEI programming was terribly misguided.
It is a tough situation. Trump is a bad person and a poor President, no doubt. But when a large number of your fellow Americans say something is wrong, I suggest you not dismiss it as BS coming from ignorant people. Instead, maybe you should think harder about why some of these people are upset and what solutions might be acceptable to both sides.

. Why? It's so much easier to just assume that all disagreements are because everyone else is stupid and those stupid people will disappear at the next election of I keep telling them they're stupid

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:CNN
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The Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, according to two sources familiar with the matter, which would be an extraordinary step of retaliation as the Trump administration seeks to turn up pressure on the university that has defied its demands to change its hiring and other practices.

Not really that extraordinary. They were doing to have violated the constitutional rights of Asians by discriminating against them. Racial discrimination is how Bob Jones University lost it's tax exempt status.

You realize what Trump is doing is nothing to do with Asians …Trump is all about helping white males

[Anonymous]

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I don't know any Asian who supports the actions of this administration against universities.

Anyone who uses Asian bias in college admissions to push a MAGA agenda is a troll.

- Asian, who deplores any bias.

Exactly. You can be upset about (1) the use of DEI and affirmative action and/or (2) the presence of antisemitism on college campuses. But if you think that those concerns somehow validate (or make legal) the authoritarian actions that the President is taking against universities, then you are utterly devoid of critical thinking skills.

We're not upset about DEI. We're upset about racial discrimination against Asians. Stop pretending it was some minor foot fault. They were intentionally limiting Asian admissions which created a fukn hyper competitive arms race that ONLY Asians had to compete in to get into good schools. And it was mostly to make room for under qualified legacies and URM.

False.

It is basically a lottery for the vast majority of the high-achieving kids. Even legacy.

And your definition of “good schools” is very narrow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is an important point, when you say it is all BS. It actually is not all BS. I do feel bad for Harvard, because the Trump Administration is not negotiating in good faith and is overreaching. And certainly the threat of pulling Harvard’s tax exemption is grossly unfair and illegal. But it is not all BS. The race politics and race identity focus of Harvard is actually harming the people it is intended to help. The DEI programming was terribly misguided.
It is a tough situation. Trump is a bad person and a poor President, no doubt. But when a large number of your fellow Americans say something is wrong, I suggest you not dismiss it as BS coming from ignorant people. Instead, maybe you should think harder about why some of these people are upset and what solutions might be acceptable to both sides.

DP. It’s sorta BS though, cause the most commonly cited, consequential area of DEI was affirmative action, which was around for ~60 years during 6 different Republican presidencies. So, using outrage over DEI under Biden to justify the current nonsense is a big reach.

He said it's not all BS. You do your side a disservice by displaying legitimate concerns.

Affirmative action 60 years ago looked nothing like affirmative action 10 years ago. Or after BLM.

The DEI Asians are legitimately concerned about had been going on a long time but the DEI that has provoked the nation is much more recent. Defunding the police is a new.
Waving Hamas colors at student protests is new.
Telling white people they are racist and if they don't admit their own racism then they are double racist .. That's new too.
The notion that the way to fight racism is with more racism, am allegedly"good" from of racism, that's new.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Caltech comes the closest to a true meritocracy. Interestingly, the profs are currently far more concerned with athletic admission boosts than racial, as there’s a high percentage of athletes at a school of 1000.

But even at Caltech I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some differences difference based on sex, given there’s more than double the number of male applicants but the student population is 54% male. So, is that an ok exception? If so, how different from other cases? If not, do we lose something? There has always been at least a case for some form of diversity, but arguing we might as well resort to ditching democratic norms if we can’t agree where to draw the line is like burning down the house when you dislike the paint job.

We don't have to agree on where to draw the line on racial discrimination, the constitution does that for us.

And gender discrimination? That's OK?

I don't think so but maybe. Gender is not a suspect class but it is a qausi suspect class which means that gender discrimination is subject to intermediate scrutiny rather than strict scrutiny.

How convenient

we are a nation ruled by laws (or at least we should be)
Not a nation ruled by quips and snide remarks.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:So dumb. “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue”’

The government isn’t saying that. No one is forcing Harvard to do anything. They have a billion dollar endowment and can do as they please.

What they can’t do is foster an educational atmosphere of harassment and expect the taxpayers to finance it.

Sounds like you skipped the letter with the Trump admin’s demands. In the second link.

I literally quoted from the article.

No one is forcing Harvard to do anything.

Harvard is throwing a hissy fit because it wants to do certain things AND get taxpayer funds.

Doesn’t work like that.

All taxpayers will never agree on anything. If the standard for receipt taxpayer funds is agreement from all taxpayers, then nothing would ever be funded from public coffers.

Right. That's why we have elections. Trump won the last election. In no small part because people were turned off to the liberal elite messaging, the racial discrimination against white and asians, the never ending stream of woke ideology coming out of places like Harvard.

If I have learned one thing in the past couple of years is all the same people who say they can't stand racism against Asians had no problem with COVID epithets and violence against Asians and hate meritocracy when Asians actually thrive.

The same people who cry about anti semitism at universities embrace salutes and white supremacists like Stephen miller.

So no...no one is taking you any seriously any more. You've rung a false tune on that bell too many times.

You know Stephen Miller is Jewish right?

It wasn't the Republicans calling Asians racist for fighting against anti Asian racism.

Clearly not a very good one.

Depends on who you ask.

Miller’s uncle said he wasn’t. He would know his nephew better than you.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13/stephen-miller-is-an-immigration-hypocrite-i-know-because-im-his-uncle-219351/

His uncle may have a different opinion on what makes a good Jew

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't know any Asian who supports the actions of this administration against universities.

Anyone who uses Asian bias in college admissions to push a MAGA agenda is a troll.

- Asian, who deplores any bias.

Exactly. You can be upset about (1) the use of DEI and affirmative action and/or (2) the presence of antisemitism on college campuses. But if you think that those concerns somehow validate (or make legal) the authoritarian actions that the President is taking against universities, then you are utterly devoid of critical thinking skills.

We're not upset about DEI. We're upset about racial discrimination against Asians. Stop pretending it was some minor foot fault. They were intentionally limiting Asian admissions which created a fukn hyper competitive arms race that ONLY Asians had to compete in to get into good schools. And it was mostly to make room for under qualified legacies and URM.

False.

It is basically a lottery for the vast majority of the high-achieving kids. Even legacy.

And your definition of “good schools” is very narrow.

I mean, 94% of all applicants are rejected. All kinds of kids are rejected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Defund racist and anti Semitic Harvard.

Anti semitic is an overused and trite word used by anyone who disagree with Zionism. Alan Garber, the president of Harvard University is a practicing Jew who grew up in a Jewish household.

Did you feel this way about the overuse and trivializing of the word racist too?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Defund racist and anti Semitic Harvard.

Exactly. They are wealthy enough without my hard earned tax dollars.

Better to stop poisoning people, then to endlessly steal from us.

We’ve been sucked into a massive racket.

Defund all colleges and universities is the thing to do. If you don’t attend university, why should our hard earned money subsidize them.

Yeah
Those Greatest Generation were real stupid.

Set up the government grants after WWII because they knew America's survival depended on being technological dominant

And yet we kept admitting students to our best college based on skin color.

Was skin color diversity going to help us maintain our technological dominance?