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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

#691

Post by petesergeant »

bhouston wrote: post #210
greasegum wrote: post #76

It's just words, obviously contradicted by many of Harvard's recent actions, but all I can think is what a fucking lay-up. If only Columbia's administration had half a spine they would have responded similarly.

> all I can think is what a fucking lay-up I am nervous about the US right now. So many cases are going to end up at the Supreme Court that is controlled by conservatives. It may not be the lay-up you think it is. Also what happens if Trump just decides to ignore a court loss as he did with the recent deportation of Kilmar Garcia?

The biggest irony here is that after Roberts, the justices Trump appointed are the conservatives most likely to do the right thing. Gorsuch and Barrett are fine justices (even if they have opposing views to mine), Kavanaugh could be worse. Hopefully he doesn't get to choose another one or we'll get another Alito or Thomas.

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

#692

Post by jakelazaroff »

firesteelrain wrote: post #683
tmpz22 wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of the endowment is earmarked towards specific ends. It is not a slush fund for discretionary spending.

Earmarked implies discretionary so it is discretionary

Most of it is not discretionary, no matter what words random Internet commenters use to describe it.

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

#693

Post by nashashmi »

nailer wrote: post #673
nashashmi wrote: post #15

> Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the “intellectual conditions” at Harvard. So alongside antisemitism, The other demand is for changes in intellect. For some reason this reeks of Christian evangelical movement to purge wokism and anti-Zionism, both of which have run counter to evangelical dogma.

[flagged]

Except homeland has been Egypt before it was Palestine. And Jews lived in both places peacefully after the Arabs established peace.

Antisemitism is not what you want to make it out to be. It is as much a hatred against Arabs as it is against Jews, as Zionist Christians want to fill the land with Jews just so the end of the world is near, without any consideration for what happens to the Arab natives of the region.

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

#694

Post by forgotoldacc »

hnburnsy wrote: post #507
paulpauper wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80% of the endowment funds are heavily restricted as per donor requests and cannot be used unconditionally.

Could you give us some of these restrictions? This seems like a BS excuse to not support the students.

If I give a school 20 million yearly to research a specific form of cancer, and I find out that they instead used that money to upgrade the plumbing in their dormitories and spent nothing on cancer research, I would not give them 20 million ever again.

Sure, due to funding cuts students will suffer with slowly degrading infrastructure and will need to do plumbing fixes at some point. But that doesn't mean people who give them money for one purpose are happy with it being used for another purpose.

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

#695

Post by nrmitchi »

hnburnsy wrote: post #665
skadamat wrote: post #416

Re: endowments, really good post on why universities can't just tap into endowments for budget shortfalls: https://medium.com/@myassa_62896/why-you-cant-just-use-the-e...

>It’s more like a patchwork of locked treasure chests, each with its own key and its own label: this one funds scholarships, that one supports cancer research, another pays for upkeep on a library. Explain why direct donations cannot accomplish the same. I suspect that universities want endowment donations because they grow tax free.

My understanding is that a large part of endowments comes from large (really, huge) donations.

If I was to donate 9 (or 10) figures to an institution, I would want to make sure it is used to support what I want it to support (cancer research, scholarships, libraries, etc), rather than be used as a general slush fund.

It's not entirely about what the organization wants, but also what the donators/sponsors want.

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

#696

Post by Daneel_ »

qwertygnu wrote: post #664
hnburnsy wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

holy shit dog, you make over $533,000???

Expletive aside, I think they’re talking about their total investment rather than their income.

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

#697

Post by acmj »

saagarjha wrote: post #686
aoki wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, we literally just saw what happened at JHU when their USAID funding vanished. Everybody on that soft money got laid off. That’s what makes stands like this hard for admin: you’re risking massive layoffs in the programs that are often the least political to defend the academic freedom of the programs that are often the most political. Columbia made one decision. Harvard is making another. You could make Lord F…

Some universities should make sacrifices for academic freedom, yes. That's what they are there for!

I wouldn't say this easily if I were the sacrifice, especially as a visa holder.

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

#698

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

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.

While I agree with this, if you read the letter of demands from the administration I don't think Harvard had any choice. I think the letter was much more egregious than what the Columbia demands were (at least from what I read about the Colombia demands). I think if Harvard had acquiesed it wouldn't have much reason to exist anymore, and I say this as a Harvard alum who took plenty of issue with the direction of the university in recent years.

In contrast, most of the demands I read for Columbia, except for the one about putting the Middle Eastern studies department under some sort of "conservatorship", seemed relatively reasonable to me if they hadn't come from the barrel of a gun and from an administration who has clearly defined any criticism of Israel and any support for Palestinians as anti-Semitism.

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

#699

Post by adfm »

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.…

No skin in the game, but curious to know why any Republican would want to raise taxes. Is this some sort of power play like the tariffs? Feels like they’re ghost riding the economy for the lulz.

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

#700

Post by nsingh2 »

tines wrote: post #644
Loughla wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want freedom for themselves. They're free to impose their will on others without judgement. That's the purpose.

I wrote this on another thread recently, reposting here: Things started to make more sense to me once I realized that by nature, human beings hate freedom and love tyranny. Once you accept this, it all falls in place. Deporting citizens to foreign prisons? Sounds great. Incoherent foreign and economic policy? Love it. Freedom of the press? Who needs it! Destruction of democracy? Own the libs! Legalize bribery of fore…

Seems like this could also be explained by short memories. Most westerners, me included, have never lived through true tyranny, we don't know the signs and probably are just too comfortable coasting along, thinking what we have now won't suddenly disappear [1].

We can read history, but it's nothing compared to actually living through it. And I think most American voters don't know their history, and don't bother to inform themselves either, which makes things much worse.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_effect

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