Friends, as we all know, Harvard University has a glorious past, and an abysmal, woke present. The future? Well, that's to be decided, but the Trump Administration is trying to insist that Harvard pay its own way, come what may. In other words, Trump's Department of Education is trying to starve Harvard of federal funds. I think we can safely assume that some (Harvard-educated) federal judge will put an injunction on this funding freeze so fast that it will make our heads spin, but ultimately the Supreme Court will resolve the issue of whether the executive branch has this kind of leeway. Higher ed better hope that it doesn't, because if it does I predict dark days ahead for academic leftists!
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz01y9gkdm3o
Meanwhile, as satisfying as it may be to have begun the process of uncoupling the U.S. from Red China, the fact is that the Chicoms can retaliate in some pretty effective ways. We've become alarmingly dependent on China for a whole host of imports, not the least of which is rare earths. Those Ukrainians better start ponying up their own rare earths (or maybe the Russians?), because the Chinese are apparently in a stingy mood...
Dr. Waddy from Jack: This is like a dream come true. What a long pent up need for confrontation of the presumptuous and incipiently totalitarian left by an aroused America, this unconquerable man is answering. Eg. he put the military on the border, with his full support, (as should have been done decades ago )in order to cut off the far left's intended mass integration of wretched unfortunates who could be held obligated to the far left, or even told that they MUST obey the radical rump.
ReplyDeleteThe American academy has no right to taxpayer funding and it is a crime for any institution to deny any American their full civil rights: PERIOD.
DJT is doing the right thing by hitting haughty Ivy League bastions right in the money bag. He's slugged Harvard with two good haymakers: massive Federal defunding and loss of tax exempt status and how very richly their undeniable and blatant far left biases deserve such sanction for that once exalted "university". As for violating the civil rights of Jewish students by enabling vicious far left antisemites to run wild on their fabled campus, I am confident that Atty. General Bondi has charges in the offing.
The poor dears bleat " we will not be controlled by government" and they say they can thrive solely on their, yes, astronomical Endowment. Yeah, well how long will that hold up when donors bail out and parents refuse to send their, especially Jewish and Asian kids to this radical reeducation camp.
In the late "50s and '60s. southern governments and educational institutions which thought to brazen it out on denial of full civil rights to blacks were treated to U.S. Army occupation and prolonged very close , detailed and humiliating Federal executive and judicial supervision. I am confident that such is in store for Harvard and all for whom it stands exemplary if they don't get with the program.
I once revered the Ivy League; I still have dreams that I am attending Cornell , which I never came close to earning. For whatever its worth,I really like their purely amateur scholar/ athlete sports tradition and always hoped they would incorporate the Service Academies in their Conference.
But the Ivy League has shamed itself beyond measure by its obsequious surrender to the thoroughly and viciously bigoted and thus comprehensively anti intellectual antiAmerican radical left. Can any condemnation worse than that of academic turpitude be leveled at an erstwhile "university?! And they have the gall to howl that they are being done profound injustice by being cut off from funding by the dutiful tax payers of an America for which they harbor only withering contempt. Do they hear themselves?
Their imperious presumption of airy moral and academic superiority over the "unenlightened"common run of Americans has attracted for them the unrelenting gimlet eye of the man who is their worst nightmare. Let them stew awhile and when they see they MUST, embark on the dolorous long road to redemption, integrity and deliverance from their terrible folly since the '60s. Failing that, let them persist unaided and shunned as grotesque and ironically informative throwbacks to a bizarre Marxist interlude in our history.
No one has ever said that universities have a right to taxpayer funds. Governments have put tax money into higher education as an investment -- one that has paid off immensely over the years. Rod
DeleteI've got an idea...
ReplyDeleteHow bout we turn those Ivy Billions in to Trade School and STEM Education Billions?
Richie, surely you jest? Spend federal dollars on USEFUL and uplifting educational programming, instead of more gilding for the iron gates at Harvard that bar entry to the unwashed??? You would make a very poor commissar, indeed. You just don't "get it". Harvard is entitled to unlimited federal funding and must not be held accountable for how it spends a single penny. That's "academic freedom", don't ya know? Egad!
ReplyDeleteAll kidding aside, there's no doubt in my mind that finances are the soft underbelly of not only the Democratic Party but institutional leftism in all its forms. Follow the money, Pam (Bondi)!
Nicholas, if Trump gets his way with Harvard, both my academic job and your academic job are at risk. Beyond that, society loses. Academia not only does a ton of applied research, but pure research as well -- where innovations come from.
DeleteWhile Pam is looking at that soft underbelly, she's going to find a lot of funding from the Koch family, the Bradley family, the Scaife family, the Pope family, the DeVos family, the Wilks family and other right wing dark money funders.
DeleteRod
Rod from Jack: My understanding is that even pure research has been much compromised by political correctness. Surely implacable DEI requirements must (maybe still) be satisfied before it can proceed. And that no doubt considerable amount of Federal funding to "universities"devoted to antiintellectual far left political advocacy protested by its advocates as being protected by an "academic freedom" they disdain in practice, has until now helped only to bring our country closer to dissolution than at any time since the '60s.
ReplyDeleteJack, OK, provide an example that supports your allegations about pure research here.
DeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: WELL! The chickens are surely coming home to roost! Now NY AG James is reported under the snide for alleged activities comparable to some for which she tasked DJT. Of course she was simply doing her duty to all of NY, as she promised while campaigning for her august office to do by lawfaring DJT into extreme discreditation.
ReplyDeleteIf she is compelled to leave office then common sense NY has its first opportunity to break the far left dictatorship in our benighted state. Its a tall order but we have to start somewhere and if we lose, learn from it enroute to sending Kathy Hochul back to official obscurity.
Rod from Jack: Why would your position and that of Dr. Waddy be at risk? To judge by your respective commentaries at this site I see in neither one of you intolerant, antiintellectual bigotry and taxpayer funded presumption of the kind being finally taken to task by a justifiably aroused President Trump. Yes , you two often disagree, not always amicably but you both support your views with empirical evidence and measured reasoning. I would suggest that academics who, like you two, practice creditable intellectual discourse, have nothing to fear.
ReplyDeleteJack, I was not suggesting Nick or myself would be in danger in terms of ideology, but overall lack of funding. Neither Nick nor I are in a STEM area, so when faculty are on the chopping block, we could be vulnerable.
DeleteRod from Jack: Also Federal defunding, which could bring some staff reduction ,is a civil matter but violation of civil rights, even unto severe physical, emotional, psychological and even financial and academic hazard (we all know that if you summarily drop out for any reason you don't necessarily get all your tuition, housing or fees expenditures back and you receive no credit for courses you have not completed. All that has considerable intimidation about it and I'm sure the thugs countenanced at some "universities" know that full well), is CRIMINAL plain and simple! And who knows how much discredit may consequently accrue to prospective transfer credits from schools academically maimed by their demonstrated pusillanimous embrace of a totalitarian ideology!?
ReplyDeleteRod from Jack: If nobody in the American academy has previously and impolitically , overtly stated that they are owed Federal taxpayer tolerance for their nonetheless, passionately defended, by definition, intolerant far leftist investment of many heretofore respected institutions , then surely: their wounded miens , their protestations of profound injustice today are obvious statements of their "heartfelt feelings "to that effect.
ReplyDeleteRod from Jack: Point well taken about how staffing cuts might proceed; I stand better informed now. I would venture that maybe, at some very far leftist "universities" those with academic integrity might even be the first to be cut.
ReplyDeleteIn commenting about DEI requirements for pure research I was relying on reports I've read from well informed authority. I'll locate some and get back to you. Has it been your experience that such financial support is free of ideological requirements?
Rod from Jack: In having googled "research grants ideological requirements" I found an AI overview stating that DEI requirements sometimes do obtain. The site then listed examples both general and specific. Nowhere did it specify that it was speaking of pure research but I would think it plausible to assume that such projects were within the scope of their examples. By pure research perhaps you meant that research in which specific goals cannot be specified but from which something useful is possible (?) Of course much of great importance has been discovered that way. I would still think such to be within the purview of the examples presented at this site.
ReplyDeleteRod, that's an interesting point that taxpayer funds directed at higher ed represent an "investment". Of course, you're right, to a point, but it's clearly an investment that's been producing diminishing returns despite greater and greater amounts being thrown at it. And one can legitimately question whether all this is, first and foremost, an investment in a better life for average Americans, or in leftist dominance of the elite...
ReplyDeleteYou're right that Trump's scrutiny of higher ed to some degree puts academic fat cats like you and me at risk, but one might equally well argue that it's the politicization of academia, perpetrated by leftists, that's at the root of the current backlash... Of course, that would mean that Trump ISN'T to blame for...something, which I know is a non sequitur in your book.
Jack, I think it more likely that Letitia James will be convicted, go to federal prison...and then be reelected by acclamation in the great state of New York!
Will higher ed suffer from an acute lack of funding in the years ahead? Schools that defy the Trump Administration may. Truthfully, though, higher ed has had it easy for a long time. More and more young people are questioning the wisdom of shelling out hundreds of thousands for an "education" thoroughly compromised by wokeness, the dumbing down of the curriculum, AI-enabled cheating, etc etc. The whole business model will have to change someday. Trump may just be bringing that day forward a bit.
Jack is right, DEI strong-arming has permeated every level of academia, starting, of course, with hiring. You can't do much "pure research" if no one will give you a job in the first place.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Yes, it is sadly plausible that James could progress just as you have described. This is the Age of Counterintuition.
ReplyDeleteRod and Dr. Waddy from Jack: One other thought: if recalcitrant and un apologetic far left biased "universities" provoke this no nonsense President to it, they may find themselves subjected to the kind of very detailed supervision some southern states endured 60+ years ago. They may find they have little choice about what faculty to cut and what to keep!
ReplyDeleteMaybe, Jack, but I think the courts will exert themselves extra hard to shield higher ed from any such scrutiny...for all the obvious reasons.
ReplyDelete