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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

#651

Post by beloch »

FloorEgg wrote: post #475
beloch wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The section on "Student Discipline Reform and Accountability" is explicitly fascist. Harvard police must prevent/crush serious protests that cause disruption. Student groups must be vetted so that they don't violate orthodoxy. Masking (even for valid medical reasons) is banned. (This lets you know that this has nothing to do with facts or diversity of viewpoints and everything to do with the supremacy of theirs.) The…

You made several good points. While I am struggling to validate "Student groups must be vetted so that they don't violate orthodoxy", it may be because I am unfamiliar with the actions of the student bodies listed at the end of the section, or maybe subtleties in the wording that I am missing that could be exploited later. Also I find the mask-ban strange and alarming. That example alone was probably enough of a red…

Universities and colleges are hotbeds of political protest. Take young people with poor impulse control, expose them to education and political literature, and let them freely associate (e.g. form student groups). They're going to question authority and government policy, often in an unruly manner. That's just how it goes. The thing is, when students are right, protests often spread to the rest of the population. That's why the letter makes explicit a concern about non-students being invited onto campus. The last thing any administration wants is for student groups to spark a big protest that sticks around for a bit and pulls in protesters from off-campus. That stuff will make the news every time!

Most governments recognize that large protests can influence public opinion against them. If you let such a protest occur and do nothing to satisfy the demands of the protesters, then things can get ugly quick. Freedom of speech and association are powerful things! There's not much an open, democratic government can do except respond to protests by addressing the underlying issues or crush the protest and hope that the public decides the protesters were wrong. What the Trump administration is trying to do here is reduce their risk by infringing on freedom of speech and association. It's fascist or totalitarian. Take your pick.

As for their claims that they're trying to "unwind enforced ideological conformity"... You can't do that by enforcing conformity to a different ideology, as they are attempting here. This is a case where you should pay less attention to words and more to actions.

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

#652

Post by chipgap98 »

bananalychee wrote: post #520
os2warpman wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Merit is not easily definable. Standardized tests are bullshit, IQ tests are phrenology, class rankings are not comparable across school districts. Someone who was president of every club at school may be less able than a kid who had to flip burgers in the evenings to help make rent. Merit to a university may mean "someone whose charisma and social connections will bring great repute to the institution" more than "a…

Both standardized tests and IQ highly correlate with success in higher education and career over a lifetime. Harvard's performance and reputation have tanked as a result of its anti-meritocratic policies, and the market is indeed responding, slowly but surely. You are making things up and conjuring nonsensical hypotheticals to deny the evidence that's right in front of our eyes.

> Harvard's performance and reputation have tanked as a result of its anti-meritocratic policies

Do you have data to back this up?

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

#653

Post by myko »

bilbo0s wrote: post #73
ghusto wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of no return is Trump getting a third term. The parallels are strong there. I was just thinking this morning that we very much needed the USA's help fighting Nazi Germany, but who will we turn to when we're fighting fascists coming from the East _and_ West? (Russia and the USA)

The point of no return is Trump getting a third term That's a little alarmist. It's not going to happen. Things are close to going off the rails and people are understandably troubled with the direction in which the US government is headed. I am as well. But we all need to start turning down the temperature a bit.

We need to start turning the temperature up or this country will be completely lost

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

#654

Post by WalterBright »

triceratops wrote: post #580
WalterBright wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billionaires do pay income tax on investment income.

If they sell and incur capital gains. But they have so many better alternatives than you or me. And if they do incur capital gains they pay the same tax rate (or maybe 5 basis points higher, depending on your income) as you or me.

What alternatives are those, that enable realizing income without incurring income tax?

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

#655

Post by hnburnsy »

robocat wrote: post #257
bretpiatt wrote: post #32

With their endowment above $50 billion, combined with Federal plus Non-Federal sponsored revenue at 16% of operating budget, it makes sense to me they just forgo Federal funds and operate independently. If all 16% is canceled, then they'd need to draw an additional $1 billion per year from endowment at current budget levels. That would put them above 7% draw so potentially unsustainable for perpetuity, historically t…

Republicans Are Floating Plans To Raise the Endowment Tax. Here’s What You Need To Know : https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/2/11/increasing-endo... Proposed College Endowment Tax Hike: What to Know : https://thecollegeinvestor.com/52851/proposed-college-endowm... College endowments are typically tax-exempt, but a 2017 law imposed a 1.4% tax on investment income for a small group of wealthy private universities.…

>A new proposal seeks to increase the endowment tax rate to 14%

That would be great that Harvard pays %14 on investment income on its 50 billion fund, considering I pay a minimum of 20% on my 'way less than $50 billion' in taxable investments, which was funded by my already taxed earnings, where as Harvard gets much of its endowment funds gifted to it.

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

#656

Post by giardini »

abirch wrote: post #649
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, colleges were originally religious institutions. (Harvard was founded to train clergy [1].) Converting the Corporation to Harvard Church is about the least shenanigany thing I could think of in this tale. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_University

This is genius. Next up, Apple could easily convert into a church with its many disciples.

And this is why I believe governments should tax nonprofit organizations!

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

#657

Post by kenjackson »

gazebo64 wrote: post #449
os2warpman wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Merit is not easily definable. Standardized tests are bullshit, IQ tests are phrenology, class rankings are not comparable across school districts. Someone who was president of every club at school may be less able than a kid who had to flip burgers in the evenings to help make rent. Merit to a university may mean "someone whose charisma and social connections will bring great repute to the institution" more than "a…

I fail to see how the lack of a perfect quantifiable metric of merit logically flows down to "stop admitting Asians because we have too many"? Whatever the university's method of determining merit is, it should be applied to everyone equally, and racially discriminating because one group historically performs well is indefensible imo

It’s also not what they’re doing. Seems like you’re arguing against a strawman.

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

#658

Post by kenjackson »

chipgap98 wrote: post #652
bananalychee wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both standardized tests and IQ highly correlate with success in higher education and career over a lifetime. Harvard's performance and reputation have tanked as a result of its anti-meritocratic policies, and the market is indeed responding, slowly but surely. You are making things up and conjuring nonsensical hypotheticals to deny the evidence that's right in front of our eyes.

> Harvard's performance and reputation have tanked as a result of its anti-meritocratic policies Do you have data to back this up?

Admissions data does not back it up. And based on my college recruiting data, recruiting doesn’t back it up either.

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

#659

Post by throw__away7391 »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #150
adamc wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although the president was caught on mic musing about deporting American citizens.

Not caught, he held a press conference and announced that he was going to try to do it.

Actually I stand corrected--he was ALSO caught on tape with a much more chilling version of this statement.

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

#660

Post by kenjackson »

palmotea wrote: post #541
rocqua wrote: post #14

Harvard just earned some reputation with me. It was already a place with great research. But now, it is also in institution with actual moral fiber.

> Harvard just earned some reputation with me. It was already a place with great research. But now, it is also in institution with actual moral fiber. I'm not so sure. The Harvard endowment is huge . I might not be so much "moral fiber" as having enough fuck you money that risks don't matter as much as they do to others.

No. This fight will be much bigger than money. It’s true they have money, but this will be a literal fight of academic freedom against authoritarianism.
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