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Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

harvard.edu

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Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#381

Post by colechristensen »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #109
bilbo0s wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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.

>a bank account outside America’s control

There really isn't such a thing if you want to do business in America. If you're in the US and doing business with a bank, the courts can order that bank to do things or face isolation from the entire financial system.

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#382

Post by pjfin123 »

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.

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#383

Post by Animats »

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...

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#385

Post by wnoise »

AlexandrB wrote: post #284
esrauch wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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...

So not a comparable situation.

In this intra-elite competition, the previous winners might deserve to lose. The current regime and its allies absolutely cannot be allowed to be winners.

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#386

Post by matwood »

zoogeny wrote: post #319

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 ris…

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.

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#387

Post by tacticalturtle »

repeekad wrote: post #83
areoform wrote: post #26

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…

$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"?

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.

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#388

Post by baked_beanz »

enaaem wrote: post #250
arp242 wrote: post #169

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.

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.

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#389

Post by shadowgovt »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #374

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…

> That's a Christian school

> That is worth federal funding.

... interesting.

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#390

Post by fzeroracer »

guywithahat wrote: post #337
TrevorAustin wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fait…

> 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/...

If you think 'viewpoint diversity' is any level of sane with the current administration then you haven't been keeping up with their actions:

> 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.

This sounds like the federal government is demanding that they adhere to a department of Policing Wrongthink.

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