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PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

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Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#231
If I'm reading that right, it looks like "do not and will not ... operate any programs... in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws"

Did your lawyer say otherwise? Interested to understand

> We were forced to withdraw our application and turn down the funding, thanks to new language that was added to the agreement requiring us to affirm that we "do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws."

> Our legal advisors confirmed that this would not just apply to security work covered by the grant - this would apply to all of the PSF's activities.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#232

> "do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws." How does the legalese parse here? Does "violation of Federal anti-descrimination laws" apply to the whole thing or just the "discriminatory equity ideology" portion of the statement? I ask, because being in vi…

I'd assume it parses however the US government wants it to parse.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#233
Good for them for putting their money where their mouth is and standing up for what they believe.

Also, this is a golden opportunity for multi-billion dollar tech companies to also do the same and match or double the grant money in support of PSF! Google, AWS, Microsoft, anyone?

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"so much of the political violence (and celebration thereof) is on the left in the US" Biiiiiiiig citation needed. By every available metric, right-wing terror attacks dominate the political violence numbers in the US. I don't know what fantasy world you've been living in, but frankly it sounds pretty sweet to me. And mass violence is a worse problem than targeted violence. Whether or not you think they deserved it,…

To paraphrase: ``` Biiiiiiiig citation needed. By every available metric, left-wing terror attacks dominate the political violence numbers in the US. I don't know what fantasy world you've been living in, but frankly it sounds pretty sweet to me. And mass violence is a worse problem than targeted violence. Whether or not you think they deserved it, the notable cases of right-wing violence in the last year have been i…

If the talibans are the left and progressive, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re too far gone

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#236

On the one hand, the plain text of the language is not against DEI practices in general -- only DEI practices that are "in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws." On the other hand, the federal government has gone after law firms that are not actually in violation of law and forced settlements due to their DEI programs, so you can't actually trust that you won't be hassled. Additionally, that you won't at min…

The conjunction used is "or". It could mean either.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IRS has withheld 501(c) status from the president’s perceived adversaries before[0]. But I haven’t heard of 501(c) status being revoked. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy

"The FBI stated it found no evidence of "enemy hunting" of the kind that had been suspected, but that the investigation did reveal the IRS to be a mismanaged bureaucracy enforcing rules that IRS personnel did not fully understand. "

The sad irony is that the staff understood it perfectly, the organizations were not legitimate 501c groups (since at the time we had enforceable rules around political activity by nonprofit groups) but through extremely bad faith investigations where Congressional republicans literally forbade the IRS from reporting on their barring of climate and ‘progressive’ groups when investigating the ‘scandal’ so that even today people mischaracterize it as an example of IRS political targeting.

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/154584-ig-audit-of-irs-ac...

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#238
post #310

[stub for offtopicness / flamewarness / guideline-breakingness] (this is a rough cut - I know there are other posts left in the thread that arguably belong here, but this time I'm in a bit of a rush) (please, everyone, you can make substantive points thoughtfully but do so within the guardrails at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - avoid the generic-indignant-flamey-snarky-namecalley-hardcore-battley…

I'm not sure that the USA has ever been in such a low standing with the rest of the 'democratic world' in the last 100 years. That's not saying the rest of the world has their stuff together, but it seems that fundamentally un-American ethos is the new nationalist American one that a 1/3 of the country wants. What's happening guys?

About 50 years of slow deliberate destruction of the country's trust in institutions and trustworthy media and communications systems and culture.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#239
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder, how likely do you think there would be a retaliatory threat of revoking PSF’s nonprofit status for a perceived snub in rejecting the offer?

The IRS has withheld 501(c) status from the president’s perceived adversaries before[0]. But I haven’t heard of 501(c) status being revoked. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy

I don't think that's a good summary of what happened. From your wiki link

> In 2013, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS), under the Obama administration, revealed that it had selected political groups applying for tax-exempt status for intensive scrutiny based on their names or political themes. This led to wide condemnation of the agency and triggered several investigations, including a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) criminal probe ordered by United States Attorney General Eric Holder. Conservatives claimed that they were specifically targeted by the IRS, but an exhaustive report released by the Treasury Department's Inspector General in 2017 found that from 2004 to 2013, the IRS used both conservative and liberal keywords to choose targets for further scrutiny.

> The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration's audit found (page 14): "For the 296 potential political cases we reviewed, as of December 17, 2012, 108 applications had been approved, 28 were withdrawn by the applicant, none had been denied, and 160 cases were open from 206 to 1,138 calendar days (some crossing two election cycles)."[11] Bloomberg News reported on May 14, 2013, "None of the Republican groups have said their applications were rejected."

The IRS took some stupid shortcuts by trying to look at keywords (including those linked to liberal causes) for more scrutiny of if they met the criteria of a non profit. There's no evidence this was done based on partisanship and it did not cause any groups to be rejected

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#240

On the one hand, the plain text of the language is not against DEI practices in general -- only DEI practices that are "in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws." On the other hand, the federal government has gone after law firms that are not actually in violation of law and forced settlements due to their DEI programs, so you can't actually trust that you won't be hassled. Additionally, that you won't at min…

The conjunction used is "or". It could mean either.

My reading in context is different: https://www.governmentcontractorcomplianceupdate.com/2025/08...
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