A university president makes a case against cowardice • Hacker News Board

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#61

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 1:58 PM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #49

A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings was arguably a worse time for universities.

Protesting attracts reprisals. Universities taught people, both explicitly and by example, to stand up for what they believed in, but have undersold students on how dangerous that is. Universities could have done a better job explaining that certain injustices are load-bearing, and that calling them out will make half the country hate you.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#62

Post by carbocation » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 1:58 PM UTC

ty6853 wrote: post #31

carbocation wrote: post #7

So far the fight/not fight decisions can be predicted in advanced based on whether an institution has a medical center with NIH grants.

And NSF grants?

I’m not familiar with the NSF funding mechanisms or how people track NSF funding. Not saying NSF is not relevant, just that I’m not using it for my personal heuristic right now.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#63

Post by mind-blight » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 1:58 PM UTC

mantas wrote: post #4

Some of that so-called activism seems to be closer to suppressing any thoughts someone dislikes. Removing that from university life is not cool, that „activism“ itself went off the rails too.

I know someone who works for a university in event planning. They were putting together an event for a civil rights icon. Because of the new policies, they were forced to go through all of the brochures and pamphlets and censor any use of words such as "racism" and "black" (when referring to the man's skin color).

They literally couldn't say "black man fighting against racism" about a civil rights icon without losing millions in funding. I have no idea how someone can argue that this kind of censorship targeting universities is acceptable

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#64

Post by maplant » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 1:58 PM UTC

CaptWillard wrote: post #36

sixothree wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referring to the most studied medicine in human history or the one that saved more lives than any other medicine in human history?

I'm referring to the medicine deployed against a pandemic whose death count is still entirely unknown. How many people died because of COVID? You don't know. No one knows. Meanwhile, everyone who knows better pretends that the most fundamental data about the subject, on top of which all other data and decsions were built ... is garbage.

about 7 million people died of COVID according to the WHO: https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19/deaths

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#65

Post by JacobiX » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 1:58 PM UTC

Not sure if Michael Roth is related to Philip Roth, but it somehow reminds me of American Pastoral and that era of protests against the Vietnam War and its aftermath. I'm not entirely sure how those demonstrations compare to the ones we’re seeing today, but the parallels are striking

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#66

Post by n4r9 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 1:59 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #38

sixothree wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referring to the most studied medicine in human history or the one that saved more lives than any other medicine in human history?

Maybe he is, but forcing teens to take the vaccination was still rather illiberal. We knew perfectly well back then that bad cases of Covid were rare in teenagers.

We also knew perfectly well that allowing it to spread among teenagers would make it impossible to control. When I got vaccinated it was to protect elderly friends and family, not myself.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#67

Post by ty6853 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:00 PM UTC

rimunroe wrote: post #29

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is making a stink about Covid vaccine requirements during a period where hospitals were overflowing and bodies were being stacked in refrigerated trailers.

Vaccines were a miracle. The state medical examiner converted one nearby university’s arena to a temporary morgue at one point in 2020. It’s mind boggling that people were and still are in denial about how bad it got before large parts of the population started getting vaccinated

Are we living in the same world? I had a child born about that time which was one of the few ways to actually get into a hospital. When I went in the fucking place was barren. A bunch of medical professionals shaking in their shoes waiting for something that never came. I knew then and there I knew i was being sold a lie and the news was carefully orchestrating snippets of misrepresented footage. And then went about my business as normal.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#68

Post by maplant » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:00 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #38

sixothree wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referring to the most studied medicine in human history or the one that saved more lives than any other medicine in human history?

Maybe he is, but forcing teens to take the vaccination was still rather illiberal. We knew perfectly well back then that bad cases of Covid were rare in teenagers.

Doesn't matter if the cases were bad for them or not. They were still believed to be able to spread it.

"illiberal" or not, the COVID 19 vaccination mandates were good decisions that saved countless lives.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#69

Post by drooby » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:01 PM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #49

A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?

I think it's actually extremely simple.. because the herd mentality is extremely simple. Intellectuals think it's complex because intellectuals love complexity.. This is what happened..

The right witnessed riots over the past decade. These riots were in response to police brutality and perceived racism. The ideas behind anti-racism spawned a perceived new ideology - "wokism". This frightened the right. Intellectuals on the right mapped the origins of this new ideology to philosophies from elite institutions. Therefore, these institutions must be punished to be kept in check.

It's really that simple..

What I find interesting about this guy is that in a way he actually is "caving" to the demands of the administration. This uni president advocates for more heterodox thinking - which is in alignment with what the Trump admin wants as well... maybe that's why Wesleyan won't be punished..

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#70

Post by alephnerd » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:01 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #60

alephnerd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if they hire the right alumni lobbyists - major reason why you don't hear about Dartmouth in the news [0] despite a similarly active student activism scene. Most other private universities could have easily managed the relationship, but a mix of inertia and vindictiveness from certain alumni (eg. Ackman) messed it up. Mind you, Dartmouth is also kind of unique in that their alumni relations team actually TRY to m…

Dartmouth is also famously the "conservative" Ivy.

More "conservative" than Columbia but still fairly liberal - the overwhelming majority of students backed Harris [0] and support abortion rights [1]

The Israel-Palestine protests (which sparked this whole university culture war issue) were fairly active at Dartmouth as well, but messaging around it was better handled by their admin.

The only conservative-ish and kinda prestigious college (not university) I can think of is Claremont McKenna, but they are drowned out within the larger Claremont community.

[0] - https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2024/11/2024-election-a...

[1] - https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2023/11/2023-election-s...