30 ms·

A university president makes a case against cowardice

• pseudolus 2y ago
  https://archive.ph/a9ie5 https://archive.ph/a9ie5
• JKCalhoun 2y ago
  Wild that he is some kind of exception. Rolling over, folding is not the university culture I remember.
  • rincebrain 2y ago
    There wasn't, historically, the level of enormous potential negative consequences legally and practically if the universities talked back. Universities, like many institutions, have also become more like large incumbent businesses than previously - e.g. perpetuating their own existence over having strong core values.
    • toddmorey 2y ago
      This is really well articulated. It's like how a company uses fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to justify a pivot away from some kind of principled stance.
    • cess11 2y ago
      Might have been a mistake to let some of them turn into real estate hedge funds.
    • Thorrez 2y ago
      Biden was considering withholding federal funds from schools over their vaccine policies[1], and tried to withhold federal funds from schools based on how they treat transgender students[2], but that was blocked by a judge. Obama did a similar thing regarding transgender students[3]. Things like this are why Hillsdale College rejects all federal funds. So they can do what they want without threat of the government revoking funding[4]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-vaccines-delta/2021/08/05/4359ac76-f567-11eb-a49b-d96f2dac0942_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-vaccines-delta... [2] https://www.texastribune.org/2024/06/12/texas-title-ix-lgbtq-students/ https://www.texastribune.org/2024/06/12/texas-title-ix-lgbtq... [3] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/13/477896804/obama-administration-to-offer-schools-guidance-on-transgender-bathrooms https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/13/477896804... [4] https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/the-controversial-reason-some-religious-colleges-forgo-federal-funding/490253/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/the-co...
      • rincebrain 2y ago
        Sure, but my argument was not "the federal government has never done this", but that "colleges have usually felt secure that this would not be done to them if they defended student protests", or at least, if we're being cynical, "that they would have an opportunity to walk it back if their calculations were incorrect".
      • Aeolun 2y ago
        I don’t feel like the reasons behind this are the same. Biden/Obama: We want you to accept and protect everyone Trump: I want you to deliberately reject certain races and nationalities, and close all the departments studying stuff I don’t like.
        • Jensson 2y ago
          > Trump: I want you to deliberately reject certain races Which race are colleges not allowed to accept? Source for this?
          • kevingadd 2y ago
            The current administration refers to inclusion of PoC and women as "DEI", so when they talk about ending DEI, that's what they mean. See https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/17/defense-department-black-medal-honor-webpage-restored https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/17/defense-depa... for one example where it's particularly blatant.
            • Jensson 2y ago
              > The current administration refers to inclusion of PoC and women as "DEI", so when they talk about ending DEI, that's what they mean. I call bullshit on them wanting to ban women and black people from colleges, that is not what they mean when they say end "DEI", you are crazy. Can you post a single link where they even hinted at wanting to ban black people and women from colleges? That is such an egregious accusation that you need more than just that they took down a page about a black guy.
  • CaptWillard 2y ago
    Not sure when you graduated, but I've seen a complete inversion. Much like 90s rockers, they now rage exclusively on behalf of the machine.
    • techpineapple 2y ago
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      • maeln 2y ago
        Well I think that is the point. The university now are rolling over, not protecting their student.
      • techright75 2y ago
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        • techpineapple 2y ago
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        • vFunct 2y ago
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      • dingaling 2y ago
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        • halfnormalform 2y ago
          The fact that very bad things happened to the Disappeared of Argentina makes me more concerned about the Disappeared of US, not less.
        • SauciestGNU 2y ago
          First we're not allowed to call the detention camps "concentration camps" because there aren't ovens, now we can't call them "disappearances" because they're not getting thrown out of helicopters. Forget that people are getting shipped to a foreign torture slave camp from which nobody has been released with, and with no due process. I think this language policing may be because people don't want to allow opposition to these things, rather than out of honor for the dead. The way to honor the dead is to prevent the circumstances of their deaths from happening again. Which is exactly why we must stand up against the disappearances, the camps, the collaborators, the secret police.
  • Spooky23 2y ago
    Many universities are more like family offices that operate schools. Columbia is historically one of the biggest slumlords in NYC through their various entities.
  • insane_dreamer 2y ago
    > not the university culture I remember. that's because universities are now businesses first, research institutions second, and academic institutions third
    • red_admiral 2y ago
      This point gets to the heart of the matter. The more I look into it, everything else seems downstream from this.
    • dudinax 2y ago
      And yet the US has some of the best universities in the world academically.
      • bdangubic 2y ago
        it absolutely does not. you pay for paper and the network. the education, except at few rare exemptions, is subpar. talk to any asian and european and ask what they think of attending uni in the US :)
• mantas 2y ago
  Some of that so-called activism seems to be closer to suppressing any thoughts someone dislikes. Removing that from university life is not cool, that „activism“ itself went off the rails too.
  • deleted 2y ago
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  • throw4847285 2y ago
    Freedom of speech necessarily implies that a group of people might team up and loudly announce that the people they don't agree with are incorrect and immoral and should be ignored or even ostracized. That's the price of freedom of speech, and it's a fair price. Being annoyed, inconvenienced, or even negatively impacted by the speech acts of others is by design. To throw that out is to make a calculation that without freedom of speech, your perspective will be the natural default without activism to upset it. A dangerous assumption.
    • clarionbell 2y ago
      Problem is that in the past two decades university admins gave in to various deplatforming causes and enforced codes. If they had stood firm before, the arguments against them wouldn't be nearly as strong. Unfortunately, they didn't. So when they now use the "free speech" argument themselves it rings hollow.
      • rightbyte 2y ago
        No it doesn't ring hallow. It is just that the issue is old.
      • mmooss 2y ago
        Those policies were designed to promote free speech from vulnerable groups. Political vulnerability has a huge influence on free speech (and freedom), and that's what they have been addressing. (Picking two random groups:) If you are Pakistani and are in a room of all Indian people, and the others say how horrible Pakistanis are and how research shows that Pakistanis are less intelligent or prone to violence, that is a very intimidating atmosphere and it would be hard to endure, much less speak up. If that one Pakistani says the same about Indians, it's obnoxious and annoying, but it's no threat to anyone. The many Indians are not vulnerable. That's the difference. Furthermore, the dominant groups in a culture tend to create systems and knowledge that support them to the exclusion of others - sometimes explicitly and intentionally. That's systemic discrimination - the system naturally generates it if you follow the usual path. It takes some effort to create space for other points of view. Whether the typical DEI policies are optimal is another question. I haven't heard anyone come up with a great solution. Some pretend it's not a problem and there is no prejudice, which is absurd and not a solution; it's just sticking one's head in the sand - because they can, because they are not vulnerable.
• DeathArrow 2y ago
  It's nice universities will have to reform themselves and people will be able to speak their minds again without being afraid.
  • scarface_74 2y ago
    You mean like afraid of being deported when they are here legally?
    • techright75 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • jakeinspace 2y ago
        What?
  • alabastervlog 2y ago
    The data do not support what you suggest being a widespread problem. There's a popular story about it being a big problem, but when people start trotting out examples most of them fall apart on closer examination, which is weird if lots of solid examples exist (why pick so many that are, at best a stretch if not simply wrong, if this is a widespread trend and not just a couple actual events that were maybe not great?). Folks have tracked things like speaker cancellations, and there are vanishingly few of those, conservatives, even fairly fringe ones, speak on campuses all the time.
    • PathOfEclipse 2y ago
      I like how you claim data doesn't support this being a problem but at the same time can't be bothered to cite any data. I'll do it for you: https://5666503.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/5666503/CFSR_2022_Report.pdf https://5666503.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/5666503... "Alarming proportions of students self-censor, report worry or discomfort about expressing their ideas in a variety of contexts, find controversial ideas hard to discuss, show intolerance for controversial speakers, find their administrations unclear or worse regarding support for free speech, and even report that disruption of events or violence are, to some degree, acceptable tactics for shutting down the speech of others." "Less than one-in-four students (22%) reported that they felt “very comfortable” expressing their views on a controversial political topic in a discussion with other students in a common campusspace. Even fewer (20%) reported feeling “very comfortable” expressing disagreement with one of their professors about a controversial topic in a written assignment; 17% said the same about expressing their views on a controversial political topic during an in-class discussion; 14%, about expressing an unpopular opinion to their peers on a social media account tied to their name; and 13%, about publicly disagreeing with a professor about a controversial political topic. " And as for examples, the sitting NIH director, Jay Bhattacharya, who in hindsight was far more correct on everything COVID-related than the CDC was: had this to say about his experience at Stanford: https://stanfordreview.org/stanfords-censorship-an-interview-with-dr-jay-bhattacharya/ https://stanfordreview.org/stanfords-censorship-an-interview... " I presented the results in a seminar in the medical school, and I was viciously attacked. ... It was really nasty: allegations of research misconduct, undeclared conflicts of interest… In reality, the whole study was funded by small-dollar donations." "It was very stressful. I had to hire lawyers. I've been at Stanford for 38 years and I felt it was really, really out of character. At one point, the Chair of Medicine ordered me to stop going on media and to stop giving interviews about COVID policy. They were trying to totally silence me."
• carbocation 2y ago
  So far the fight/not fight decisions can be predicted in advanced based on whether an institution has a medical center with NIH grants.
  • alephnerd 2y ago
    And if they hire the right alumni lobbyists - major reason why you don't hear about Dartmouth in the news [0] despite a similarly active student activism scene. Most other private universities could have easily managed the relationship, but a mix of inertia and vindictiveness from certain alumni (eg. Ackman) messed it up. Mind you, Dartmouth is also kind of unique in that their alumni relations team actually TRY to maintain a relationship. The other high prestige colleges (excluding USC) ignore you until they need to hit fundraising KPIs. A Tuck or Dartmouth College grad will always fight for an alum if they make it to the shortlist - most other Ivy grads don't (Wharton kinda, but that's only for Wharton). This really helps build loyalty. [0] - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-is-bombarding-the-ivy-league-this-college-just-hired-a-staunch-ally-as-its-top-lawyer-00239635 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-is-bombarding...
    • ghaff 2y ago
      Dartmouth is smaller and has, historically, had a stronger and more intense ongoing alumni connection in various ways than is probably the norm with the Ivies in general.
      • alephnerd 2y ago
        > Dartmouth is smaller Yale and Dartmouth are similar in student body size, yet Yale has been hit by investigations [0] while Dartmouth has been spared. [0] - https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/office-civil-rights-initiates-title-vi-investigations-institutions-of-higher-education-0 https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/office-civil-rig...
        • ghaff 2y ago
          Fair enough. Yale has more/bigger grad schools--though Dartmouth has tended to expand in that respect (though it doesn't have a law school).
• acc_297 2y ago
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  • techright75 2y ago
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    • kamarg 2y ago
      Those giant university endowments are partially used to allow those who couldn't afford it but otherwise have shown they have what the university is looking for in students to attend for significantly/entirely reduced costs. Meanwhile, the most visible billionaires are using their money to try to buy elections so they can dismantle the government for personal gain while oftentimes employing people with such low wages that they depend on the government to be able to afford such luxuries as eating three meals a day. It's pretty easy to see why the large parts of the public find one acceptable and the other less acceptable.
      • techright75 2y ago
        Everyone can afford it if given a loan. If the job you get after can't afford to pay back the loan, it's time to look for another career, and for the schools to be on the hook for the miss, not the taxpayer. And yes you are right acceptability, because polls show that the government bailing out students making poor career choices and schools paying for bloated staff is definitely not acceptable to the majority of Americans.
    • dekhn 2y ago
      Endowments are typically restricted funds (imposed by the fund provider) and can't be used (unless the restrictions are removed) to be used for general operating budget. Harvard generally uses the interest on the fund principal to pay for things and it was a massive internal controversy when folks proposed drawing down the (absolutely enormous) principal as payment for capital expenditures (among other controversies).
  • Tadpole9181 2y ago
• doctorpangloss 2y ago
  > And in the last two months, it’s become painfully apparent that wanting to have nice conversations is not going to stop people who are bent on authoritarianism. Right now, I’m not sure what will stop them, except successful court challenges, and even that seems precarious. Winning elections could work. > Watching the video of this poor woman at Tufts who was abducted by federal agents —I wrote my blog today about that. I think the government is spreading terror, and that’s what they mean to do. Brother, a blog post is, quoting you, a “nice conversation.” A New Yorker interview is a nice conversation. Getting rid of legacy admissions… guess who wins elections? The sons and daughters of politicians! Whereas grandstanding on X or Y achieves nothing.
• CaptWillard 2y ago
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  • rimunroe 2y ago
    What are you referring to?
    • MSFT_Edging 2y ago
      He is making a stink about Covid vaccine requirements during a period where hospitals were overflowing and bodies were being stacked in refrigerated trailers.
      • techright75 2y ago
        There are no stories about this outside the first month. The hospitals were initially ill equipped but were so well equipped after March/April that the giant boat they sent as a backup to New York was barely used. Almost no healthy people died from COVID, most had co-morbidities and they should have been the only ones forced to vax and stay home.
      • rimunroe 2y ago
        Vaccines were a miracle. The state medical examiner converted one nearby university’s arena to a temporary morgue at one point in 2020. It’s mind boggling that people were and still are in denial about how bad it got before large parts of the population started getting vaccinated
        • dashundchen 2y ago
          For real. The sibling comment is flagged now but people seem to have memoryholed the impact of COVID on the healthcare system. Hospitals were absolutely overwhelmed at many points during parts of the pandemic, outside of the first month. That was a major concern during the "surges" and spread of new variants. I know this because my state routinely publishes hospital census levels and at many points during the pandemic elective and even non-elective procedures had to be cancelled due to lack of bed and staff capacity. The facility I work at was regularly impacted. Search hospital related COVID stories during 2021 and 2022 and you'll find plenty.
• tomohawk 2y ago
  This is rich. The Universities that caved to student activists engaged in antisemitism and other egregious activities should now fight for their rights to be cowards? Or the Universities that engaged in racist DEI programs are now going to stand on principal? Give me a break.
  • MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
    If tenure was designed to protect intellectual freedom, but academics are consistently the biggest cowards failing to stand up to anything - what does that say about academia?
  • deleted 2y ago
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  • bigyabai 2y ago
    I thought private institutions weren't supposed to worry about federal guidelines. Does this mean Trump University can be attacked if a sufficiently powerful liberal wants to smear their university president for his antisemitic behavior?
• oldpersonintx 2y ago
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• sequoia 2y ago
  A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?
  • pjc50 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings was arguably a worse time for universities. Protesting attracts reprisals. Universities taught people, both explicitly and by example, to stand up for what they believed in, but have undersold students on how dangerous that is. Universities could have done a better job explaining that certain injustices are load-bearing, and that calling them out will make half the country hate you.
    • LatteLazy 2y ago
      > certain injustices are load-bearing This is an excellent way of explaining why some injustices are ignored and others decried. Thank you
    • matthewdgreen 2y ago
      People in the 1960s were murdered for protesting. You might imagine that this motivated an end to protest, and everyone calmed down. But in fact, it didn't. The very best way to motivate increased protest is to act like a bunch of monsters.
  • drooby 2y ago
    I think it's actually extremely simple.. because the herd mentality is extremely simple. Intellectuals think it's complex because intellectuals love complexity.. This is what happened.. The right witnessed riots over the past decade. These riots were in response to police brutality and perceived racism. The ideas behind anti-racism spawned a perceived new ideology - "wokism". This frightened the right. Intellectuals on the right mapped the origins of this new ideology to philosophies from elite institutions. Therefore, these institutions must be punished to be kept in check. It's really that simple.. What I find interesting about this guy is that in a way he actually is "caving" to the demands of the administration. This uni president advocates for more heterodox thinking - which is in alignment with what the Trump admin wants as well... maybe that's why Wesleyan won't be punished..
• josefritzishere 2y ago
  I don't mind saying this is some serious Nazi stuff going on. The federal government is trying to obstruct free speech, jailing people for free speech... we are in a bad place.
  • deleted 2y ago
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  • Gothmog69 2y ago
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    • oa335 2y ago
      They are detaining people for op-Ed’s though.
      • cryptonector 2y ago
        What did I miss?
        • adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
          a Tufts student had her visa cancelled and then was kidnapped by ICE for publishing an op Ed saying "hey, maybe genocide is bad"
• JacobiX 2y ago
  Not sure if Michael Roth is related to Philip Roth, but it somehow reminds me of American Pastoral and that era of protests against the Vietnam War and its aftermath. I'm not entirely sure how those demonstrations compare to the ones we’re seeing today, but the parallels are striking
• guywithahat 2y ago
  The best solution here is for universities to become less involved with government money. They should have to compete for students and research on an even playing field, and we shouldn't be creating politically aligned fields through government spending.
  • kjkjadksj 2y ago
    The issue with these ideas is they lack an understanding of anything really about how we fund research in this country. We collect taxes and disperse these taxes in the form of research grants that we have boards of experts in the field call for proposals about realistically achievable topics that would benefit the American citizen in health, wealth, or some other form of prosperity. We only have a few national labs and most of this research is conducted in the university system, which simultaneously trains the next crop of researchers. Now you are proposing this work doing/training aspect be cut off. What is your replacement? You have to come up with one that gets trainees hands on experience, as well as provides economies of scale benefits for expensive experimental apparatus or sample or data/compute resources, fosters collaboration and idea generation, and shares this work with other grant funded researchers in the field so that they might further their own efforts. Or, you could just not blow the whole system apart with a broadside strike, and enjoy the striking benefits in fields like medicine we have enjoyed over the decades.
  • SubiculumCode 2y ago
    No. Research Universities are about Research. There are non governmental sources of funding for research, but they pale in comparison with government funding. If you want to make the case that the private industry should take on research, the problem is that there is no immediate profit in it. It can take decades, and few companies can invest decades of funding hoping for some eventual breakthrough. Moreover, in that model, research is slowed because companies are notoriously bad at sharing research with competitors. So you either create national research centers, or you use research universities.
  • InkCanon 2y ago
    Surprised at how it hasn't been pointed out here but - the "general public" wants the sausage, but not how it's made. They wouldn't if they knew what it entailed. Cutbacks to student aid, shuttering of departments, eliminating of PhD positions, etc.
• mmooss 2y ago
  I don't see much talk of donors? My impression is that, as in many situations, the super-wealthy are forming a dominant class - as if it's their right - rather than respect democracy and freedom, and attacking university freedom. Didn't some person engineer the Harvard leader's exit? Roth says the Wesleyan board is supportive; maybe they are just lucky.
  • aaron695 2y ago
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  • chriskanan 2y ago
    Being a super wealthy alum is a prerequisite for being a Trustee, and University Trustees are the group that University Presidents report to.
    • Loughla 2y ago
      This is why I always have and always will prefer community colleges. Their boards are elected officials. Not perfect, but 1000 times better than just having wealth.
      • tialaramex 2y ago
        Election is a bad way to choose almost anything. The enthusiasm of Americans for adding yet more elected roles rather than, say, having anything done by anybody competent is part of how they got here. The only place elections are even a plausible choice is political office - with an election and as close as you can to universal suffrage now the idiots running things are everybody's fault, although Americans even managed to screw that up pretty good. Sortition would probably be cheaper, but elections are fine for this purpose.
        • Quarrelsome 2y ago
          democracy is bad but its still better than more autocratic systems because it encourages change which keeps succession well-oiled and also acts as a vent for tyranny to curtail its worst excesses. This applies as much to politics as it does a school board.
• CSMastermind 2y ago
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  • DFHippie 2y ago
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    • defen 2y ago
      Does it matter if they did or didn't? Universities have indisputably lost the mandate of heaven, have they not? Arguing over whether they actually did any of those things is irrelevant, if a politically powerful group of people think they did! None of them have an objective definition, so it's going to come down to values, and universities / academics as a class have alienated themselves from a substantial portion of the population.
      • michaelhoney 2y ago
        ... or have anti-intellectual media whipped up that resentment as part of their culture war?
    • Aunche 2y ago
      Regardless of your stance on affirmative action, it should be very suspicious that all prestigious universities implemented it until it was banned while support in the general population is mixed.
      • freejazz 2y ago
        I'm not sure how that follows. Do elite universities typically track the general population?
        • lelanthran 2y ago
          > I'm not sure how that follows. Do elite universities typically track the general population? He's saying that the universities are out of touch with the general population, which is never a good thing.
• jmyeet 2y ago
  The last year and a half in particular has exposed just what a sham the academic freedom fo colleges really is. We've always heard that the college tenure system encourages freedom of expression and academic freedom without the pressure of potential job loss. Instead what we have iscollege professors and administrations who move is absolute lockstep and have acted like jack-booted Gestapos to crush and punish First Amendment expression where some people merely said "maybe we shouldn't bomb children". Norm Finkelstein, who is a national treasure, does not have tenure. He is a world-authority on these issues. Why doesn't he have tenure? Because he embarrassed Alan Dershowtiz by exposing him as a rampant plagiarist and general fraud. Int he 1960s we had the National Guard open fire on anti-Vietnam protestors at Kent State, killing several, to repress anti-government speech. I swear we're not far from college administrators open firing on protestors directly. The collaboration between colleges (particularly Columbia) and the administration pales in comparison to the anti-Vietnam era. Colleges are standing by letting agitators attack protestors (ie UCLA) and then later using that violence as an excuse to crush the protest. They're cooperating with law enforcement to crush protests. But they're going beyond that. These protestors who have been illegally deported have largely been named and targeted by college administrations as well as organizations like the Canary Mission. Think about that: colleges are knowingly cooperating with people who are black-bagging people protesting against genocide, fully knowing they will end up in places like prisons in El Salvadore.
  • hello_computer 2y ago
    Norm is a hero.
  • senderista 2y ago
    I have not heard of any protesters ending up in El Salvador, source?
    • senderista 2y ago
      I guess the downvoters must have information to which I am not privy...
• magwa101 2y ago
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• necubi 2y ago
  Oh hey, Wesleyan on HN! I’m an alumnus (matriculated a year or two after Roth became president). Wesleyan has a rich history of activism and protest, and not always entirely peaceful (Roth’s predecessor, Doug Bennet, had his office firebombed at one point). I’ve had a few opportunities to speak with Roth since the Gaza war started, and I’ve always found him particularly thoughtful about balancing freedom of expression with a need to provide a safe and open learning environment for everyone on campus. In particular, he never gave in to the unlimited demands of protestors while still defending their right to protest. In part, he had the moral weight to do that because—unlike many university presidents—he did not give in to the illiberal demands of the left to chill speech post-2020, which then were turned against the left over the past year. I don’t see any particularly good outcome from any of this; the risk of damaging the incredibly successful American university system is high. Certainly smart foreign students who long dreamed of studying in the US will be having second thoughts if they can be arbitrarily and indefinitely detained. But I hope the universities that do make it through do with a stronger commitment to the (small l) liberal values of freedom of expression , academic freedom, and intellectual diversity.
  • mlindner 2y ago
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    • lqstuart 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • nl 2y ago
        Who was in the US illegally?
    • nl 2y ago
      Who is supporting terrorist groups? Pro-Palestinian protesting is not support for terrorism.
      • 2y ago
• trentnix 2y ago
  If you don’t want to be subject to the whims of whoever is in office, don’t take the poison pill of government money.
  • altacc 2y ago
    If only politics was limited to affecting those who opted in. But mostly government shouldn't be the whims of one individual, it should be much more considered than that.
    • mathgradthrow 2y ago
      These do not represent the whims of one person. Donald Trump was elected.
      • ceejayoz 2y ago
        An elected person can both have and act upon whims, including ones their supporters might not approve of.
      • altacc 2y ago
        He was elected as president of a constitutional republic. He's acting like an emperor, enacting control through cronyism, threats and targeting of individuals and private companies via executive power. You could counter that he was elected by people who wanted to disrupt the system but that's a massive assumption and even many of his political base seem to be surprised by the extent of his actions. There is constantly political alignment behind his actions, with aligned politicians & media noticeably readjusting their opinions, politics and bills and revising history to align with the latest demagoguery to appear from this one person. The constitutional republic was designed to protect from one person's whims but that ideal seems to have crumbled when the rest of the republic has been co-opted, controlled or simply ignored. In Europe we always knew that US claims to have the best democratic system were hubristic nonsense, no maybe more in the US realise the fragility of government.
• siliconc0w 2y ago
  They could fight back with, "We will not accept students from politicians that support anti-education policies". Further they could kick out any students currently enrolled, "if they wrote a college essay promoting their anti-education values, we wouldn't have let them in - so they were clearly lying and we're just remedying that mistake"
  • nosianu 2y ago
    > "We will not accept students from politicians that support anti-education policies" Given how many stories there are about children seriously at odds with their parents about political issues, I don't think that is a good idea. At all. Do you want to be judged by how your parents think or behave, or think that is acceptable?
    • siliconc0w 2y ago
      This wasn't a serious proposal, I was mocking the cruelty and logic of the current administration.
      • HamsterDan 2y ago
        Were you? The current administration is punishing students who directly voiced support for terrorism. That's not at all equivalent to punishing students for their parents' much less objectionable beliefs.
• insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Brown just got targeted next, after releasing a statement that it would "not compromise on academic freedom". We're about to find out how true that is or not. But if universities don't start fighting back, they will all find themselves in the same boat as Columbia -- and ultimately regret it. The US's universities are one of its greatest assets, if not the greatest. The repercussions of this are highly damaging.
• Georgelemental 2y ago
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  • xracy 2y ago
    How has this happened? What are your concrete examples of this having happened? I suspect all of the example(s) you might have are going to be overblown news storie(s) But if there are decades of this, I'd love to see the evidence.
    • Georgelemental 2y ago
      I was a university student myself not too long ago. I experienced it personally.
      • nashashmi 2y ago
        So vague! Experienced what??
        • Georgelemental 2y ago
          Mandatory political indoctrination courses is the biggest thing. But also, having to fund left-wing events with mandatory activities fee. And it was much easier to get funding as a student group if you have the correct political opinions. Finally, if you say the wrong things, you might get reported to a political commissar (this was really rare at my uni though, there were signs everywhere saying how to make a report but in practice people didn’t do it).
  • nashashmi 2y ago
    Universities have endorsed leftist ideas. Not cowered .
  • jibe 2y ago
    I don’t know that Universities cower before leftist ideology. They are leftist, and are the generators of leftist ideology. It’s more like the wallow in it than cower before it.
• rahimnathwani 2y ago
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  • rahimnathwani 2y ago
    Also, they require academic applicants to submit mandatory diversity statements: https://www.wesleyan.edu/inclusion/whatwedo/recruitment-resources/Search-Guidelines-21_22.pdf#:~:text=sample%2C%20statement%20of%20current%20research,Date%20by%20which%20to%20apply https://www.wesleyan.edu/inclusion/whatwedo/recruitment-reso...
• rahimnathwani 2y ago
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• hayst4ck 2y ago
  America has done an absolutely terrible job of teaching people about rights. If governments granted rights then they would be privileges not rights. In western tradition governments exist to protect rights, such as the freedom of expression, not to grant them. If you believe these are human rights, rather than your privilege as an American, then you must protect their rights to seek justice too. People are already being robbed of due process, which means they are robbed of the process that determines their right to "protections" and citizenship status. Almost all authoritarian regimes presume the right to rob people of the protections of their state. You perceive citizenship to be some indelible legal status, but citizenship can be revoked either tacitly or explicitly which is a prelude to the violation of someone else's rights and their human dignity. The law can't protect or enforce itself. If the ruling regime chooses not to be bound by law then what should happen or what is supposed to happen is supplanted by what can happen. Even a cursory look of what can happen in authoritarian regimes should turn anyone's stomach.
  • kelnos 2y ago
    I think what's going on is a helpful reminder that there's no such thing as "rights" in the way you describe. Everything we have, everything we're permitted to do, is at the pleasure and permission of our governments. Constitutions and laws are only worth anything if the people in charge honor them. Might may not make right, but might does let you impose whatever you want on people who don't have your might. You can try to design systems where one group of people don't have all the might, and so those who balance them are somewhat adversarial in their goals and desires. We always thought the US had such a system, but when you put law enforcement and the military under a single group, and give the other two groups no teeth, you really don't have that sort of system.
    • branko_d 2y ago
      > Everything we have, everything we're permitted to do, is at the pleasure and permission of our governments. Wrong! The people are ultimately responsible for reigning-in their governments and are the ultimate source of any rules or rights that the governments end up enforcing. If you think that the ultimate authority is with the government, then you have justified every authoritarian regime out there.
• kevingadd 2y ago
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  • decimalenough 2y ago
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    • yieldcrv 2y ago
      Reminder to anyone triggered by a “both sides” comment: just like you, we are all aware of how the sides are different, it is valid to be more annoyed by the ways they are the same
      • paulryanrogers 2y ago
        > it is valid to be more annoyed by the ways they are the same Is it? One side has a vocal minority who took defense of minorities to the point of harassment and was ultimately rebuffed. The other side controls the government and is enthusiastically renditioning legal residents to prisons and defying the constitution and courts to keep doing it. To be more upset about both sides being imperfect than the injustice of irreversible deportations to foreign prison seems ... absurd.
        • yieldcrv 2y ago
          all parties are beneficiaries of the institutional structures that allow for a party to do those things so the things you are bothered by and demand everyone to prioritize are actually solved by addressing the underlying mechanisms, as opposed to simply trying to propagate your preferred party's numbers something... both sides... might actually be into. if the other party is afraid of the opposition party doing the same thing to different people, then there might actually be overwhelming consensus to change the thing that a "both sides" person is trying to point out
          • paulryanrogers 2y ago
• yieldcrv 2y ago
  Universities don’t have to roll over, they also don’t have to accept federal funds Easy
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• nonrandomstring 2y ago
  Most simply this all boils down to two entirely incompatible models of a university. One institution produces thinkers who can innovate and lead. The other is a training camp that produces docile workers for the oligarchs. Regardless of allowing students free speech on campus universities have been heading toward the latter for three decades. It's a little late to be preaching courage thirty years after selling-out the core tenets of pedagogy. There is so much more to this than just "Trump". The fascists in power now are the result of 30 years of moral cowardice.
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• piokoch 2y ago
  So, after long years of accepting cancel culture, kicking off people from universities since they happened to write a twitter comment that was not aligned with the current "right" way of thinking, universities suddenly are protectors of free speech. Well... Who is going to buy this?
• rtkwe 2y ago
  Harvard's rolling over was particularly annoying, they have a 52 billion dollar endowment! If any university could afford to make a stand and lose funding over it it's Harvard. What's the point of this massive pile of money if you never dip into it in exceptional circumstances?
  • pclmulqdq 2y ago
    Harvard is a hedge fund that happens to do some education and research as a tax-advantaged side gig.
    • xdavidliu 2y ago
      who gets to withdraw that money?
      • rtkwe 2y ago
        The university uses it for salaries, financial aid and other operations.
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  • Animats 2y ago
    That surprised me. It set the pattern for lesser schools, too.
  • thinkcontext 2y ago
    Universities typically only spend about 5% of their endowments per year, since it has to last forever. And much of it comes with restrictions on what it can be spent on, those come from the donors wishes. So money in the endowment that's for the theater department or to support an econ professorship can't be repurposed to support federal funds that supported cancer research.
    • 2y ago
• low_tech_love 2y ago
  Some personal highlights: "They’re excellent schools, and they have excellent scientists, and if one of Vice-President Vance’s kids is sick, he’s going to want the doctor to have gone to one of these schools; he’s not going to want them to have gone to Viktor Orbán’s university." "People have said to me, “Well, you take all that money from the government, why don’t you listen to them?” The answer is, because the money doesn’t come with a loyalty oath." "I don’t have to agree with the mayor to get the fire department to come put out a fire. And that’s what they’re saying to these international students: “Well, you came to this country. What makes you think you can write an op-ed in the newspaper?” Well, what makes you think that is, this is a free country. "
  • jgalt212 2y ago
    > The answer is, because the money doesn’t come with a loyalty oath But it does come with some reasonable level of consideration and appreciation.
    • deleted 2y ago
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    • turtlesdown11 2y ago
      "you didn't say thank you!!!"
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    • sigmar 2y ago
      You don't know how they feel, so what you're saying is "they have to show/express appreciation," which is synonymous with a loyalty oath.
      • jgalt212 2y ago
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• steviedotboston 2y ago
  The real cowardice was when student mobs took over campuses and harassed jewish students but the universities did nothing about. They hoped it would fizzle out and go away, and even though the worst of it did, it didn't go away entirely and the underlying tensions still simmered. Jewish students who were terrified to walk to class, lest they be harassed by some masked terrorist supporters, wanted to make sure the worst offenders of the protests were dealt with. Most universities still did nothing, and then Trump was elected. He has been consistently pro-Israel, and the organized Jewish community has been able to make inroads with his administration. So now he's dealing with it in the way that he deals with every issue. What we are seeing now is entirely the fault of university administrators who failed to deal with the issue when it started.
  • Bluescreenbuddy 2y ago
    And pray tell how did they harass jewish students?
    • steviedotboston 2y ago
      Here's one example: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/judge-rules-jewish-students-says-ucla-cant-allow-barred-accessing-camp-rcna166529 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/judge-rules-jewish-stud... "the protesters created a “Jew Exclusion Zone” where in order to pass “a person had to make a statement pledging their allegiance to the activists’ view.” Those who complied with the protesters’ view were issued wristbands to allow them to pass through, the complaint says, which effectively barred Jewish students who supported Israel and denied them access to the heart of campus."
  • diggan 2y ago
    How is this connected to the submission? Or is a random tangent because the article mentions "student activism" and "Trump" in the opening? The only part mentioning anyone Jewish is: > You have prominent Jewish figures around the country who get comfortable with Trump, it seems to me, because they can say he’s fighting antisemitism: “He’s good for the Jews.” It’s pathetic. It’s a travesty of Jewish values, in my view. But I'm not sure how that is connected to what you wrote.
• mapt 2y ago
  Columbia has an endowment that stands (pre- Liberation Day) at 15 billion dollars. They kowtowed to some of the militant Zionist interests involved in that endowment in order to attain a fractionally higher return, and betrayed their students. They kowtowed to the fascist administration on the grounds that it was threatening 400 million dollars in grants, and betrayed their students to the point of facilitating a project to unilaterally deport many of them based on Constitutionally protected quasi-private speech. At this point I don't think they want or deserve to be called a university. Let's go with "Tax-exempt investment fund".
  • bko 2y ago
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    • sbochins 2y ago
      There is an ongoing genocide in Gaza and genocidal language is commonplace in Zionist discourse. If there are cases of hate speech on the pro Palestinian side, they pale in comparison to speech from the other side. Regardless we shouldn’t be rounding up and imprisoning folks if they disagree with your politics. This is what is getting lost in this specific case.
      • bko 2y ago
        I don't remember the pro single state pro Israel protest. Don't know what it has to do with the question
      • trustinmenowpls 2y ago
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    • viccis 2y ago
      >Do you think calling for the genocide of Jews I'm guessing the motte associated with this particular bailey won't be nearly as clear in its violation of such codes.
• mathgradthrow 2y ago
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  • ceejayoz 2y ago
    > Mahmoud Khalil lied on hus visa application about being a member of UNRWA. He was briefly an unpaid intern. https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/2015/11/uscis-explains-if-unpaid-interns-need-form-i-9 https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/2015/11/uscis-explains-if-u... > USCIS is frequently asked whether an unpaid intern needs to complete Form I-9. In general, an unpaid intern does not need to complete Form I-9 unless he or she will receive remuneration, which is something of value such as no-cost or reduced-cost meals, lodging or other benefits in exchange for his or her labor or services. I can see how someone'd leave that off a green card application for that reason, which is more plausible than hiding an association with a UN agency while applying for a green card during the Biden years. (If anything, work for the UN and a close ally's embassy should increase trust here.) Given https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/forms/i-485.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/forms/i-4... says things like "Have you EVER been a member of, involved in, or in any way associated with any organization, association, fund, foundation, party, club, society, or similar group in the United States or in any other location in the world?" there's a good chance every single green card applicant has forgotten to list something. Do I include my kindergarten? The music club I was in as a toddler? Joining a political party's subreddit? Donating $10 to a charity ten years ago? Hell, I'm "associated with" Hacker News, but it wouldn't go on my I-485. Should that get me deported to an El Salvadorean slave camp?
    • mathgradthrow 2y ago
      I'm not arguing in favor of el salvadoran prisons, but he's not in an el salvadoran prison. He's being charged with being in violation of his Visa. And yes, I do expect you to report the time that you "Interned" at the UNRWA. This organization has always operated tightly with Hamas and the PA, and if I'm establishing your background, I need to know about it so that I can investigate it, period. I don't need to know about your affiliations with hackernews, because hackernews is not closely affiliated with designated terror organizations. Now that the UNRWA is properly designated as a terrorist organization itself, do you think it would be appropriate to lie about your affiliations with them on a visa application? Mahmoud Khalil is in an American jail awaiting trial. A New Jersey court will rule on his status.
• efitz 2y ago
  Cowardice is in the eye of the beholder and the article is self-serving. The article makes the point that it's cowardly to cave to administration pressure to limit the activities of anti-Israel/Pro-Palestine protesters. Someone on the other side of the issue could make the argument "it is cowardly to kowtow to a small but vocal minority who justifies interfering with other students' ability to learn, as 'free speech'". It is dishonest to describe non-speech activity such as intimidation and forceful prevention of access, as "speech", even if you like the motivation or outcome. "Speech" is talking with words. Physically using your body to prevent someone else from acting in a desired way, is something other than "speech".
• adultSwim 2y ago
  The Trump administrations attacks are able to go so far now, because institutions already rolled over under a Democratic administration. Take for instance University of Pennsylvania. In 2023, student anonymously projected "Let Gaza Live" onto a building. The next day then-college president Liz Magill publicly called in the FBI to investigate this as an "antisemitic hate crime". She was later forced to resign for "not doing enough" to combat alleged antisemitism.
• deleted 2y ago
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• assimpleaspossi 2y ago
  What bothers me the most about all these protests and going-ons at universities and colleges is that they are generally by 18-22 year olds who are pre-adults still in their formative years who still have a lot of learning and growing up to do.
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  • calf 2y ago
    What bothers me is the ageist assumption that "full-adults", say, boomers, are somehow more educated, less indoctrinated, or less prejudiced than young adults
    • BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
      Pretty sure that this wasn't implied. It's more about being "life wise".
  • tguedes 2y ago
    I suppose that means you don't know about the rich history of college protests that were instrumental in progressing human rights over the last 100 years?
    • trhway 2y ago
      It would be useful if you mentioned say a couple examples. It would be even more useful if you were able to show that the effect of such student protests moving progress forward exceeded the effect of the student protests moving progress backward, like the Cultural or Iranian Revolutions. I think you'd not be able to show it.
  • kashunstva 2y ago
    > who still have a lot of learning and growing up to do I’m 60, and I have a fair bit of learning to do yet. And as the father of a student in roughly the 18-22 I would be proud to see her standing up for views that she feels strongly about whether her knowledge is fully complete or not.
• deleted 2y ago
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• golemiprague 2y ago
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