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A university president makes a case against cowardice

newyorker.com

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Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#461

Post by eszed »

joe5150 wrote: post #216
disambiguation wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent events alone do not fully represent the affairs of the past 2+ decades. Community, state, ivy, all levels were gorging themselves on federal funding and endowments. I have no comment on the current admin, but blatantly inefficient use of funds is an understatement.

What does "gorging themselves on endowments" even mean? If they did that, they wouldn't be very endowed in quick order.

Charitably, they may mean "the proceeds from their endowments" (or maybe "engorging their endowments", if that's even a proper use of the word), but I think that's a weak point. Proportionally very, very few institutions have significant endowments.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#462

Post by selectodude »

throw10920 wrote: post #444
jquery wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Took me all of 5 seconds to find an example. Tattoos are a form of protected speech: https://archive.is/2025.04.03-041258/https://www.theatlantic...

[flagged]

The administration admitted that they deported a legal resident to a fucking concentration camp in El Salvador! How is this something we’re like “oh but the illiberal left!” This is literally Stalinism!

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#463

Post by karaterobot »

lr4444lr wrote: post #266
karaterobot wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're framing this in an odd way if you want neutral responses. Is withdrawing federal funding an attack? The government has always used the power of the purse as a lever to influence many institutions, including universities, and it often uses this mechanism to exert influence for ideological purposes. The most famous example is withholding funding for roads until states mandated a drinking age of 21. It's how the…

As for the roads example, which would go to my second point if I understand you correctly, I think the analogy is limited: roads aren't gate-kept by admissions committees for certain intangible criteria for who can ride on them, with an artificial limit on how many cars overall, while they receive federal funding. If that was happening, then you'd have a similar situation to what universities are doing.

It's not meant as an analogy for this case, so don't worry about it too much. My only point in bringing it up is an example of evidence for prior governments being more than willing to use funding as a lever to influence the policy of institutions they are not directly responsible for. I don't believe it was to be 1:1 to make that point, as indeed it is not.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#464

Post by eszed »

xracy wrote: post #297
recursive wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Provide a way to get a lower-cost credential without using the tuition to subsidize research/athletics/arts/social programs. But that might be counter to their whole nature. Doesn't mean anyone's being irrational though. They're now de-facto gatekeepers on entering the professional class. I don't think it's unreasonable for the gate-kept to have opinions about the -keepers.

Honestly, it feels like the kind of thing that companies which actually want merit-based graduates should want to subsidize more aggressively. If you're a billion-dollar company that only hires college grads, it feels like there's gotta be value to you in making sure there's more meritocracy in the process of getting degrees. It would also change who the customer is so that the university doesn't "owe" the student a…

Why do they want meritocracy? The companies I've seen up close want "certified Smart Kid", in which case nearly any degree will do; "pre-trained worker", in which case they require a degree in a particular field; or "someone well-connected", in which case they want someone from a limited set of schools.

(Companies do subsidize that limited set of schools, and pretty heavily, but it probably has more to do with social connections than economic merit.)

The system might break down to the point that what you're suggesting makes sense. On the other hand, "Indebted Worker" (from any of the three types above) allows companies a lot of power over their employees, so it might not.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#465

Post by steviedotboston »

The real cowardice was when student mobs took over campuses and harassed jewish students but the universities did nothing about. They hoped it would fizzle out and go away, and even though the worst of it did, it didn't go away entirely and the underlying tensions still simmered. Jewish students who were terrified to walk to class, lest they be harassed by some masked terrorist supporters, wanted to make sure the worst offenders of the protests were dealt with. Most universities still did nothing, and then Trump was elected. He has been consistently pro-Israel, and the organized Jewish community has been able to make inroads with his administration. So now he's dealing with it in the way that he deals with every issue.

What we are seeing now is entirely the fault of university administrators who failed to deal with the issue when it started.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#466

Post by Bluescreenbuddy »

steviedotboston wrote: post #465

The real cowardice was when student mobs took over campuses and harassed jewish students but the universities did nothing about. They hoped it would fizzle out and go away, and even though the worst of it did, it didn't go away entirely and the underlying tensions still simmered. Jewish students who were terrified to walk to class, lest they be harassed by some masked terrorist supporters, wanted to make sure the wor…

And pray tell how did they harass jewish students?

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#467

Post by marcosdumay »

rayiner wrote: post #412
kevingadd wrote: post #309

[flagged]

[flagged]

> The US has the prerogative to filter immigrants based on their views and affiliations.

Just to point, the prerogative to "filter" immigrants does not allow the US to keep them in jail, torture, or send them to foreign countries non-supervised labor camps.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#470

Post by diggan »

steviedotboston wrote: post #465

The real cowardice was when student mobs took over campuses and harassed jewish students but the universities did nothing about. They hoped it would fizzle out and go away, and even though the worst of it did, it didn't go away entirely and the underlying tensions still simmered. Jewish students who were terrified to walk to class, lest they be harassed by some masked terrorist supporters, wanted to make sure the wor…

How is this connected to the submission? Or is a random tangent because the article mentions "student activism" and "Trump" in the opening? The only part mentioning anyone Jewish is:

> You have prominent Jewish figures around the country who get comfortable with Trump, it seems to me, because they can say he’s fighting antisemitism: “He’s good for the Jews.” It’s pathetic. It’s a travesty of Jewish values, in my view.

But I'm not sure how that is connected to what you wrote.

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