861–870 of 1001 posts
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No. This fight will be much bigger than money. It’s true they have money, but this will be a literal fight of academic freedom against authoritarianism.
I guess the nice thing is, the bad guys picked a fight against Harvard Fucking Law.
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Conservatives should start their own universities, if they aren't happy with the existing ones. The federal government has no business enforcing conformity to certain ideological demands in private institutions. It's right there in the very first amendment.
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.
The reason that academia is overwhelming left-leaning is that those are the people that choose to go to grad school and pursue academic careers. For whatever reason (whether ability or inclination) conservatives do so in much smaller numbers. You want conservatives in academia, go get a Ph.D.
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When these people use "freedom of speech" all they mean is they want to say their vile Nazi stuff without people complaining.
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Have you no hesitation, even at this late juncture? Read everyone elses comment above, and try to stretch your critical thinking ability just a bit. Trump is our Caesar, we have ceased to be a constitutional republic, and you defend this with blithely pretending that 2 months of pure power-madness have not been occurring in plain view of the entire world? I suspect that such discourse as we have will not be "permitte…
No, I have no hesitation. How are you not finding it obvious that the government are trying to end racially based admittance programs?
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So you're fine with them arresting dissenters as long as you disagree with the dissenters? That's fairly antithetical to the ideas expressed in the US constitution.
I'm fine with stopping the flow of federal money to people who hate me in particular and who take a salary to convince others to do so too. Those who defend the conduct of universities need to pause and consider that the public has noticed the radicalization of academia, despises it, and will support state action to reverse it.
Whats the problem.. just get your pal Soros to give you the money instead.. With $36T debt, Federal Government cannot continue splashing out money like there is no tomorrow
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Not to mention all those legal covenants have another party to them - they're not written in stone. I'm sure a good number of them would be willing to considering loosening legal restrictions if it would really help.
Endowments have come from people over the entire history of the institution. The vast majority of the endowers are likely deceased and won't be able to agree to change the terms of their endowment.
As for the minority where that is not the case, it also means nobody will have standing to sue if the school decides to stop letting someone who died 200 years ago decide exactly how Harvard's money will be spent.
> "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.
If you're seriously ill, you should get treatment, not walk around hoping that a piece of cloth will save others from exposure to whatever it is you're coughing up.
It's a weak response, in that it accepts the Trump Administration's position on antisemitism. This is tied to the broad definition of antisemitism which includes acts by the State of Israel.[1] That definition comes from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. There's a more balanced definition called the Jerusalem Declaration here.[2][3] This will lead to a controversial discussion, so I'll stop here, with…
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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 d…