Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

harvard.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 1001 posts

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

#711

Post by silexia »

jakeydus wrote: post #559
iAMkenough wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just watch what happens when they exercise their Constiutional right to "say whatever it wants." Stephen Miller made it clear this morning: "Under this country, under this administration, under President Trump, people who hate America, who threaten our citizens, who rape, who murder, and who support those who rape and murder are going to be ejected from this country." If the government decides you "hate America" or y…

They're absolutely teeing up to be able to deport whoever they want. Reasonable people should be (and are) very afraid.

Irrelevant and without basis.

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

#712

Post by qingcharles »

bilbo0s wrote: post #103
Obscurity4340 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not gonna be happy they can operate financially without his assent

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.

I mean, it turns out the fed has the power to pull any money from any account they wish, at any time, like they recently did with NYC.

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

#713

Post by TriangleEdge »

Wasn't Harvard's president a woman who wrote her PhD thesis on DEI? I vaguely remember the news about this (fraud or something). If this is what Harvard considers that the person for the job, I think the sense making apparatus of Harvard personnel is specifically tuned to not bend the knee in this case. The instrument would likely fail at the input validation step and not proceed to the sense making portion.

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

#714

Post by kristjansson »

hnburnsy wrote: post #645
kristjansson wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely par for the course for university endowments. They're not big pots of money, they're thousands of small pots of money with various restrictions on their investment, disbursement, etc.

Not asking for the breakdown, wondering what some of those restrictions look like and whether they support the students with those restrictions.

For a quick institution specific overview, see “with donor restrictions” on page 20-21 (pdf page 21-22) of their most recent annual report[0].

I’d imagine “maintain and invest the original contribution in perpetuity” covers majority of the restricted funds, with use-specific restrictions in a distant but comfortable second. Since it’s Harvard, they probably also have more funky restrictions than the average bear (gifts of stock in kind with restrictions on timing of sale, voting, etc.).

[0]: https://finance.harvard.edu/files/fad/files/fy24_harvard_fin...

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

#715

Post by kristjansson »

forgotoldacc wrote: post #694
hnburnsy wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You might even form a contract with the institution obligating them do certain things with your gift

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

#716

Post by yencabulator »

FloorEgg wrote: post #540
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?

Yes it does sound authoritarian. Thank you for answering my question in good faith. I am noticing a pattern; whenever I ask clarifying questions on hacker news threads regarding politically charged topics, most people assume least-respectful interpretation of my questions and heavily downvote them. As someone who is curious and genuinely trying to understand what's going on (I am here instead of other social media be…

It's because you sounded like a sealion. That and whataboutism are just adding refuting noises without substance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

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

#717

Post by greycol »

FloorEgg wrote: post #540
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?

Yes it does sound authoritarian. Thank you for answering my question in good faith. I am noticing a pattern; whenever I ask clarifying questions on hacker news threads regarding politically charged topics, most people assume least-respectful interpretation of my questions and heavily downvote them. As someone who is curious and genuinely trying to understand what's going on (I am here instead of other social media be…

The problem with your questions (if the one above is an example) is that you're asking what can be seen as an insulting question that doesn't really add any nuance or analysis itself.

You could have asked the question while highlighting points in the governments letter that you thought were valid policy goals that you wanted more discussion about. You could have asked if they'd read the government letter and pointed out that the government telling the university that it both had to consider who it hired with regard to political and ethnic and to make personnel changes to demonstrate they didn't consider political and ethnic considerations going forward was particularly ridiculous.

You may still get downvoted for emotional(which you shouldn't) or other reasons but it would be less likely to be the case as it showed you made some effort (which can indicate good faith) and more importantly you're comment might inform someone reading the comments more about the topic as well.

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

#718

Post by [deleted] »

deepsun wrote: post #682
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.

But I don't understand why 14%? It should be the same as you, 20%. Same goes for religious organizations, but it would be extremely hard to enforce, as they might say "government is interfering us practicing our religion", as practicing religions helps to not pay taxes and protected by the Constitution.

[deleted]

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

#719

Post by anonfordays »

explodes wrote: post #623
anonfordays wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Unfortunately, unlike the post above mine, my list is grounded in reality.

Again, both sides play this game, both sides claim to have "reality" on their side.

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

#720

Post by yencabulator »

jacobs123 wrote: post #590

> "Harvard must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious and immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension." Wow. Imagine being sick with something serious like pneumonia and having to decide whether to get everyone around you sick, or risk being suspended from school.

I think you mean jailed, tortured and deported.
Post reply on HN