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

141–150 of 1001 posts

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

#141

Post by guax »

repeekad wrote: post #113
ceejayoz wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $9 billion dollars from the federal government to Harvard equates to nearly $30 per American… Now do what it gets them.

given my comment got railroaded instantly, this is clearly what everyone thinks, but let's at least have that conversation rather than blindly pumping money into academia while local schools can't even afford books

No need for that. There is more than enough money being funnelled into defense to fund Harvard + everything else you can think of and still have the largest defense spending in the world.

Arguing that Harvard gets too much while ignoring 99% of the budget is not a reasonable stance.

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

#142

Post by ren_engineer »

areoform wrote: post #26

If you've read history, this rhymes with certain acts that have happened before under certain regimes. Under a non-authoritarian Government, this type of showboating can be dismissed, but when habeas corpus and the right to due process is suspended — such actions take on a very different cast indeed. It's good that Harvard is fighting this. The more people accede, the more they will accelerate down a path where there…

these types of moves wouldn't be possible in the first place if these institutions hadn't spent decades burning their own credibility. They even mention Alzheimer's research in this post, something that has literally wasted billions of taxpayer dollars due to an academic cartel shutting down anybody trying to expose the fact that they were completely wrong about amyloid plaques

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

#143

Post by duxup »

PerilousD wrote: post #13

I guess that Harvard probably does not need the Feds as much as the Feds need Harvard but I'm glad they are standing up to the Fascists. I'm going to have to see what NYU is doing now.

The GOP / Trump administration shows no real focus on employing experts, Trump shows no curiosity about anything. They're slashing research and science across the board department by department. They employ anti science people as heads of departments that require science.

I don't think the GOP & Trump thinks they need anything from Harvard other than agreeing to impose first amendment violations on others on behalf of the GOP and Trump.

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

#144

Post by TrevorAustin »

WalterBright wrote: post #35

[flagged]

A demand letter that said only "Harvard may not use race, gender, or national origin as criteria for admissions and hiring" would be a lot more defensible, and much harder to oppose.

But the government's list of demands includes all kinds of stuff that would be mildly insane even if offered in good faith. And we have seen enough already that any independent organization would be very irresponsible to assume good faith.

I would go so far as to say that any institution trying to make decisions based solely on merit is required to resist this kind of pressure very forcefully. There are many examples of the administration using "DEI" as a buzzword when firing meritorious women and minorities, all the while promoting totally meritless white men.

-JD '08

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

#146

Post by oldprogrammer2 »

repeekad wrote: post #83
areoform wrote: post #26

If you've read history, this rhymes with certain acts that have happened before under certain regimes. Under a non-authoritarian Government, this type of showboating can be dismissed, but when habeas corpus and the right to due process is suspended — such actions take on a very different cast indeed. It's good that Harvard is fighting this. The more people accede, the more they will accelerate down a path where there…

$9 billion dollars from the federal government to Harvard equates to nearly $30 per American, that is an ignorant amount of money for a single academic institution, surely the world isn't so black and white that we can have a conversation about how much money is leaking out of our tax dollars without it always coming back to "fascism"?

Yeah, his reasoning is suspect to a lot of folks, but I’m not sure why everyone is so comfortable with the consolidation of wealth at these elite institutions.

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

#147

Post by clivestaples »

Likely I'm very naive. But here goes... It seems that taxpayers fund a lot of research. This research is very valuable and lucrative. It finds its way into the hands of those who know how to profit from it. The taxpayer is again screwed paying exorbitant prices for said breakthroughs. Insulin is one area of interest to me and it very much seems to be the case in the diabetes world.

This was how NAFTA was sold. Move car manufacturing to Mexico and they will enjoy better living wages while we get more affordable cars. Except that I don't recall cars produced in Mexico ever getting more affordable. I'm sure corporate profits were great. Should probably look into this someday and see if my perception is correct.

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

#148

Post by [deleted] »

repeekad wrote: post #113
ceejayoz wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $9 billion dollars from the federal government to Harvard equates to nearly $30 per American… Now do what it gets them.

given my comment got railroaded instantly, this is clearly what everyone thinks, but let's at least have that conversation rather than blindly pumping money into academia while local schools can't even afford books

[deleted]

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

#149

Post by ipaddr »

repeekad wrote: post #83
areoform wrote: post #26

If you've read history, this rhymes with certain acts that have happened before under certain regimes. Under a non-authoritarian Government, this type of showboating can be dismissed, but when habeas corpus and the right to due process is suspended — such actions take on a very different cast indeed. It's good that Harvard is fighting this. The more people accede, the more they will accelerate down a path where there…

$9 billion dollars from the federal government to Harvard equates to nearly $30 per American, that is an ignorant amount of money for a single academic institution, surely the world isn't so black and white that we can have a conversation about how much money is leaking out of our tax dollars without it always coming back to "fascism"?

If the entire budget was income taxes and everyone paid the same including babies then sure $30 dollars or it's 1/4 of the money the government gave to Musk over the last 20 years.

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

#150

Post by throw__away7391 »

adamc wrote: post #128
outer_web wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Habeas corpus - still in effect unless you're already in El Salvador.

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.
Post reply on HN