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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

#611

Post by elliotec »

zanellato19 wrote: post #591
hayst4ck wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authoritarian governments are arbitrary governments, all decisions are made arbitrarily. Consistency is unnecessary. That's the trouble with choosing power as a guiding principle over reason or consent.

Consistency is undesirable, because if everyone is breaking a law, you apply the hammer of justice only if they aren't a friend. It's one of the best ways to look good to certain people as well,because you can claim to be just following the law.

This comment and the parent’s are the best retorts I’ve seen yet to the “these people are just stupid” idea we hear all the time. These “rules” are not calculated and brilliant, and that’s the point. They’re controlling at any angle they want.

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

#612

Post by const_cast »

bilbo0s wrote: post #73
ghusto wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of no return is Trump getting a third term. The parallels are strong there. I was just thinking this morning that we very much needed the USA's help fighting Nazi Germany, but who will we turn to when we're fighting fascists coming from the East _and_ West? (Russia and the USA)

The point of no return is Trump getting a third term That's a little alarmist. It's not going to happen. Things are close to going off the rails and people are understandably troubled with the direction in which the US government is headed. I am as well. But we all need to start turning down the temperature a bit.

> That's a little alarmist. It's not going to happen.

For context, this is exactly what was said of _literally everything_ that has happened in Trump's current term.

Is it alarmist, or is it just alarming? And, if it is alarming, shouldn't we be taking it seriously, instead of hand-waving it away?

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

#613

Post by throwaway48476 »

amatecha wrote: post #602
TimorousBestie wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a good strategy. Even if Harvard had attempted to satisfy every bullet point, the govt could still retort that their demands were not satisfied.

Like the whole initial excuse for the tariffs on imports from Canada "because of fentanyl" despite https://www.npr.org/2025/02/02/nx-s1-5283957/fentanyl-trump-...

If you don't measure you can just assume all valies are 0.

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

#614

Post by ajross »

WalterBright wrote: post #542
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LoL - why it makes any sense to do this for universities and not billionaires is beyond me, but I'm sure half the country can explain it to me like I'm 5.

Billionaires do pay income tax on investment income.

Only short term gains are taxed as income. Long term capital gains tax caps at 20%, wildly lower than the top income tax bracket of 37%. And it's always possible to defer short term gains (e.g. put your trading money in an IRA).

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

#615

Post by gosub100 »

gaze wrote: post #470
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LoL - why it makes any sense to do this for universities and not billionaires is beyond me, but I'm sure half the country can explain it to me like I'm 5.

if you hate universities it makes obvious sense

[flagged]

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

#616

Post by Retric »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #570
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LoL - why it makes any sense to do this for universities and not billionaires is beyond me, but I'm sure half the country can explain it to me like I'm 5.

Billionaires do not get a tax exemption

Billionaires benefit most from the largest tax exceptions. No tricky accounting needed it’s baked blatantly into the tax code. Long term capital gains are specifically lower than short term capital gains. Further gains are only taxed on sale allowing a lifetime of growth to pass to the next generation tax free.

They also operate at a scale where many tax breaks become viable. CEO owners aren’t paying themselves nominal salaries because they are actually working for free. Creating a shell company to own your 50k car isn’t useful but it’s damn well worth it if you’re buying a 50+m dollar yacht for personal use. Turning depreciation into a nominal loss offsetting capital gains etc.

Meanwhile people of lesser means get stuck with all kinds of crap like a 10% early withdrawal penalty on 401k plans.

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

#617

Post by aposm »

kweingar wrote: post #224

The aggregate demands of the administration are confusing and contradictory. They seem to be simultaneously asking for: - an end to diversity initiatives - a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view - a new policy of not admitting international students with certain points of view - ending speech-control policies - auditing the speech of certain departments and programs - ending discipline of students who…

Nothing they do makes sense until you accept that hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug, for them and their base. They know that what they're asking for is impossible to meaningfully comply with...

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

#618

Post by jltsiren »

walleeee wrote: post #584
jltsiren wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities don't sell or do research. They provide facilities, equipment, services, and sometimes funding for research. The actual research is done by individuals, who are nominally employed by the university but largely independent from it. If a researcher doesn't like a particular university, they can usually take their funding and projects to another university. When grants are revoked for political reasons, it…

Research is often (usually?) the property of the host university, though. Yeah labs are independently managed but the university is in at least one sense, and imo many more, still the institution both doing and selling the work

By default, research belongs to the researchers. That's an essential part of academic freedom. The main exceptions are research funded by grants and contracts that specify otherwise, and when you start looking for patents and other commercialization opportunities.

In other words, the university may have some property rights to your work if you deal too closely with for-profit businesses or national security interests. But if you are just doing normal research with normal grants, you'll probably never see those exceptions in your career.

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

#619

Post by bpicolo »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #594
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.

Columbia's administration obviously has no issues silencing free speech and dissent based on their actions though.

Seems like it could mean death for Columbia as a desirable college honestly

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

#620

Post by crazygringo »

xienze wrote: post #566
crazygringo wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, it's eating your seed corn. Spending a billion of it is not just spending a billion. It's spending the many billions it was meant to provide, in interest, over the next decades. It's extraordinarily expensive to spend it directly, as opposed to spending the income it generates. You can certainly do it, in a true emergency. But you certainly don't want to make a habit of it.

> The point is, it's eating your seed corn. How much is “enough” money to hoard in an endowment though? We hear lots of arguments about how the concept of a billionaire is itself obscene, why can’t we apply to same logic to institutions? E.g. much like people say “billionaires shouldn’t exist”, perhaps endowments over some similarly arbitrary value shouldn’t exist either.

Well, it's proportional to their spending to some degree. It takes a world-class endowment to fund a world-class university. And it's all from private donations.

Harvard doesn't make a profit. It educates students and does research. It sounds like you're arguing Harvard should be broken up or something? But based on what? Is it abusing its power or something?

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