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Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

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

#851

Post by sam_goody »

Off topic, but _why_ is it good that the gov gives hundreds of billions of dollars [if you include grants] to higher ed.

I work in a startup where none of the programmers have been to college, and they seem to get along just fine.

I volunteer in a youth group that teaches "soft" sciences, and I am sure that groups like ours do a better job at that with a lot less funding.

Trade schools cater to the lower income, are much more effective dollar for dollar, and get a lot less federal funds. If that money were to be poured into trade schools instead of universities, it would help create a better middle class.

Why should Harvard be so entitled?

EDIT: IMO, The reason youth go to college is to have fun. The real reason the parents are willing to pay, is because their children will forge connections with other wealthy families that is worth the money. It may be good for the wealthy that the money stays in their circle, but IMO this is not something the Gov should subsidize.

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

#852

Post by otterley »

sys32768 wrote: post #377
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.

Harvard admitted it needs to "...broaden the intellectual and viewpoint diversity within our community..." This is a no-brainer considering only 2.3% of their faculty identifies as conservative. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/5/22/faculty-survey-...

You make it sound like modern conservatives possess the intellectual rigor and career achievements required to meet Harvard’s hiring bar.

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

#853

Post by bhouston »

intended wrote: post #810
Loughla wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will take a majority of states, and their military backing, forcefully overthrowing Trump. I really hate to be alarmist, but it does feel more and more that we're headed to massive, coordinated state against state violence.

Or you could find illegal conduct for congress people, have them sued in criminal courts, and then hold elections to elect people (republican or democrat) who will make congress function as it is meant to. Perhaps someone can provide security services to republican congress people who are threatened with violence if they dont toe the line, so that they are safe enough to stand up to trump. (This is an actual reason g…

The core fundamental problem from my viewpoint in the US political system is unlimited campaign contributions which empowered the ultra wealthy. This means that elections are fought between ultra wealthy people and politicians have to first appeal to the rich people to get them on their sides, rather than the majority of the people.

You need to fix this, otherwise you have muted the impact of the majority of people in your democracy.

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

#854

Post by bhouston »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #723
Loughla wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will take a majority of states, and their military backing, forcefully overthrowing Trump. I really hate to be alarmist, but it does feel more and more that we're headed to massive, coordinated state against state violence.

Believing that something is inevitable is the first step towards it becoming inevitable. But there feels like there is a momentum in people, and in society as a whole that only ends one way, and we need to release and explore. I don't know if once society gets the "bug" to tear it all down there's any going back. I feel like we're destroying our societies and getting into wars out of curiosity, and because we've forg…

> Believing that something is inevitable is the first step towards it becoming inevitable. But there feels like there is a momentum in people, and in society as a whole that only ends one way, and we need to release and explore. I don't know if once society gets the "bug" to tear it all down there's any going back.

> I feel like we're destroying our societies and getting into wars out of curiosity, and because we've forgotten how it hurts more than anything else.

I can sort of theorize that human society does have the ability to cycle that is partially based on human life spans / human memory. It is like a LLM that runs out of context and then starts forgetting what it learned in the earliest part of the context. For humans it is related to our lifespans as we culturally forgot what we have learned, and thus have to relearn it.

That said, I think that periods of peace are punctuated with war. War resets the pressures that build during peace. This is similar to how refactors or rewrites are needed every once in a while as the technical debt builds up as requirements and use cases change over time, especially if no one was paying down the techn debt as you went.

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

#855

Post by UncleMeat »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #766
forty wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what "agree with the Palestinians" would mean. Like they are not happy with being genocided? I think that would be most people's feeling in that situation, though that doesn't show any proximity in belief, value or principle.

Yeah I guess this is what happens to censored viewpoints. Most people have only heard a caricature of it. The world is really a lot more interesting if you try to understand everyone’s actual perspective. It also becomes much more coherent. Nobody is evil, they just have different interests and viewpoints. In what I’ve seen of “race realist” writings online, they tend to be very anti Israel. So to associate the admin…

"Race realists" tend to be anti-jew but not anti-Israel. Israel provides a few key benefits for their belief system even if they hate jewish people. It means that there is a place for jewish people "over there" and not here. And it provides a starting point for their ethno-nationalist project in other countries ("if Israel can be a country for Jews then why can't Germany be a country for Whites").

Further, the Trump administration is committing violence against people simply advocating for no more bombing in Palestine. Despite the administration's claims that these people are "Hamas supporters" and "anti-semites", the bulk of these people are not actually advocating for violence to be done to jewish people that might put them in concert with far-right anti-semites.

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

#856

Post by etchalon »

nailer wrote: post #803
etchalon wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as they're their viewpoints. You don't see letters going out to conservative institutions demanding they hire gender ideology professors or communists.

I’m not sure the government is funding many conservative institutions.

You'd be hilariously incorrect about that.

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

#857

Post by inglor_cz »

baegi wrote: post #850
inglor_cz wrote: post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most American academia" !== "most educated people" (much less so if taken globally). Many Americans would be seriously surprised by the balance of left and right at continental European universities. It is nowhere near as one-sided. And Asian universities are a completely different world. Generalizing from the extremely lopsided ratios in academia of the Anglosphere to the global educated class is somewhat unreliabl…

From my European pont of view, I think the definitions of left and right have shifted a lot. Sure, in Europe left and right may be more closely matched in academia, but most "right"-leaning Europeans would not be anywhere near the "right" in US-terms, so your argument is comparing very different things

Depends. German Burschenschaften, though not massive, strike me as very far right. IIRC one of them had a big row over whether they can accept a member who was ethnically Chinese. (That guy was a full German citizen born in Dortmund, but of Asian ancestry.)

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

#858

Post by jiriknesl »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #787
jiriknesl wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the university was founded by the government, it should represent Americans. All of them. Half of Americans are conservative. Approx. half of academia should be conservative. Harvard is older than both parties. There is no good reason why it should cater to only one half of Americans.

Are you arguing that _all_ universities that receive government funding should cater equally to conservatives and liberals? Given that Texas Christian University receives funding from the government, would you argue that it too should stop receiving federal funding until represents America equally?

If they receive federal funding, they should represent Americans. If 100% of Americans will be Democrats, then it can be this monoculture. If more people shift to Green politics, or Libertarian, it should represent those more too.

If there is a Christian university, it should either be sponsored by Christians only, or similar funding should go to other universities representing other major American groups (for example Jews).

Discrimination based on political views should be treated the same as discrimination based on sexual orientation or race.

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

#859

Post by oldprogrammer2 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #832
inglor_cz wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could also possibly fire some administrators. Not every vice-provost out there is strictly necessary. Just a few years ago, Harvard Crimson carried an op-ed complaining about the bloat: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/11/29/anderson-burea...

Cannot edit my original comment, because I wrote it 16 hours ago, but I am somewhat surprised by the fluctuating up/downvote count, going from 0 to 6 and back. It seems that the very idea that some employees in academia might be superfluous is very disagreeable for some HNers. Why? Institutional bloat is a well known problem, it happens in private sector, public sector, churches, military, wherever you can think of.…

People are reflexive. In a different context, driven by someone else, many of the people currently defending Harvard would instead be pointing out that Harvard and the other elite institutions are part of "the problem". In general this year, it's been interesting to me to see Republicans become protectionists and Democrats become neoliberal free traders, both parties flipping their talking points to either align or disagree with Trump.

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

#860

Post by Yeul »

Zamaamiro wrote: post #677
porphyra wrote: post #261

Merit-based admission sounds good to me. Harvard is vigorously defending its "right" to continue to deny admissions to highly qualified Asian applicants out of nothing but pure racism, and somehow they are the good guys?

Merit as defined by an administration whose cabinet is composed of Fox News personalities, DUI hires, and some of the least qualified people for the jobs they were given. This administration has ZERO credibility to define what "merit" is.

Merit is what allowed women and non whites to attend university.

I don't believe for one second that conservatives care much for it.

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