Reply to Harvard Rejects Trump Admin’s Demands, Going to Court

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.

[/quote]

+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. [/quote]

Obama sent letters threatening universities to install DEI or lose funding. Full compliance. [/quote]

It is the government's responsibility to uphold civil rights and non-discrimination laws. Call it "control" if you want - but it's controlling fairness.
The Trump administration's demands work against civil rights and are controlling ideology they agree with and eliminating opposing views. That is not appropriate government "control."
It isn't federal regulations or government policies that are to blame if students with more conservative views don't feel comfortable expressing those views on their campus, or similarly employees in a company. That's the result of the school and the company's chosen practices.
Is Trump going after Liberty University for being too conservative or too Christian?[/quote]

Trump administration is demanding as one of several conditions that Harvard stop discriminating against Asians and Harvard said no. Very simple. [/quote]

No, the letter is saying a bunch more. If that’s all the letter said it would be a normal case of “no we didn’t” vs “yes you did” settled in court. The letter wants a bunch of crazy stuff, the most outrageous being the idea the gov gets to oversee hiring and admissions to comply with ideological diversity as they see fit.

The problem isn’t the idea of ideological diversity, which is wonderful. The problem is the gov shouldn’t police thought in academia. [/quote]
Neither should academia police it. [/quote]

No, they shouldn’t, but that’s not what they have tried to do. It might seem like it happens occasionally when we read about something silly like a prof getting canceled by peers, but that’s not an institutional intention, and that’s what lawsuits are intended to remedy. The letter to Harvard is talking about the gov literally overseeing future hires and admits based on ideology. The scale and institutional intent are different here.

Academia isn’t perfect, but blowing up their autonomy is out of proportion to its problems. It also ignores a central tenet of conservatism: don’t assume all change is good, esp for systems that are mostly working. Our universities are (were?) the envy of the world and fueled generations of innovation and global economic leadership. This is high risk/low reward behavior. [/quote]

This is FAFO[/quote]

Do you really think having deloitte or whomever come in and do an 'ideological audit' of the faculty and then appoint people who meet these ideological diversity criteria is doing to be the best solution?  What makes you think that these 'consultants' are even gong to understand what goes into a hiring decision?  They're going to appoint their friends and then half of your faculty is going to consist of grifters and really old retirees who have 'always wanted to teach at Harvard' and probably Dr. Oz and the head of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation and someone who once played a professor on a TV show.  Things that other people worked really hard to earn handed out like candy to friends of Trump.  People with no publications swanning around and calling themselves Professor.  Good luck with that.  Let me know how it works out for you.  [/quote]

FAFO is rarely optimal.  It's just consequences.[/quote]

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