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Is there any precedent in US history for what the administration is asking of the nations top universities? Incredible they have to deal with this.

hexis 1y ago
Yes, the federal government of the United States has always attached conditions to federal funding.
- laidoffamazon 1y ago
  Not like this, no, and it has never shaken down schools like it has at Columbia or Harvard. As much as I despise these institutions and their undergrads this does nothing to punish them and everything to increase the power of this current corrupt executive.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    Why specifically the undergrads?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - laidoffamazon 1y ago
      They hate the rest of us that didn’t get into elite schools and are permanent members of the upper caste of this country. Graduate school admission is more purely meritocratic on if you can do research but even that isn’t great.
      - fedsocpuppet 1y ago
        Is this like a humiliation fetish at this point? This is seriously unhealthy. We don't hate our friends that didn't a go to an eLiTe school because we're not sociopaths. Not sure why I'm even trying since you seem pretty dead set on this, but it's just a lot easier to go through life without made up enemies.
        laidoffamazon 1y ago
        People that go to elite undergrads think the rest of us are a lower inferior caste. I don’t know how that’s even something you can deny. You’ve clearly expended a lot of effort to segregate yourself from the likes of people like me or people that go to SJSU because we don’t have “merit” or “potential”
        fedsocpuppet 1y ago
        I can deny it because it's obvious bullshit lol. I don't think that way and neither does anybody I know from MIT think that way. This is reality versus your imagination. If there's anyone I look down on it's my classmates who could've worked anywhere and still went to palantir... I can't claim 100% aren't assholes, but the vast majority realize the luck and arbitrary nature of it. Are you going to be stuck in decision day sadness mode for the rest of your life? Life is too short
        laidoffamazon 1y ago
        I've asked people at MIT this repeatedly. They all say they came to MIT for the peer group. Peer group = people that are not _like me_. They shut up quick when I challenge them on that point though, or ask what the difference between them and me is. Even the non-assholes sometimes genuinely don't realize there's an entire parallel world beneath them with zero privilege or respect that made $150k out of undergrad instead of $500k.
        pastel8739 1y ago
        I am nearly sure that you are not arguing in good faith, but just the fact that you think all elite school grads make $500k shows that you have not talked to a nearly representative sample. I went to an elite school and have friends that make much less even than $150k. Are you aware that there is an entire parallel world beneath you with zero privilege or respect that make $40k instead of $150k? I’m not sure why you think anyone is targeting you specifically. The vast majority of students at elite schools, in my experience, know that we got lucky in addition to all the other things that we did well to get admitted. A couple people in this thread now have told you that they don’t match your description of “every” and “all” graduates of elite schools, and the nice thing about using such strong descriptors is that a single counterexample disproves them.
      - Steltek 1y ago
        Have you ever met undergrads from these schools? This as far from my experience as you could get.
        laidoffamazon 1y ago
        Yes. I live in a city with two Ivy+ institutions and graduates from many more. They're all the same, except some are better at faking it than others. And why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't they think people like me are lazy and genetically predisposed to be stupid? I didn't make $500k out of undergrad. HRT or OpenAI isn't going to recruit me anytime soon. My net worth isn't $12m at 29, it's a tenth that. Whenever I ask what the difference between them and their infinite success and potential is and people like me they never have an answer. They're always so confused.
        pastel8739 1y ago
        > My net worth isn't $12m at 29, it's a tenth that This honestly reads like you are just bragging about how successful you are. I think you know this, but if you made $150k at 22 and have a net worth of $1M at 29, you are far more monetarily successful than the vast, vast majority of the country. I’m pretty sure you are rage baiting, which doesn’t belong on HN, but if not you are seriously out of touch and not grateful enough for your luck or proud enough of the work you have put in to get there.
        laidoffamazon 1y ago
        This is not bragging to literally anybody that went to an Ivy+ school for CS ~10 years ago. A $15m+ net worth is their standard for success. Hell, it's their standard for _average_.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > Yes, the federal government of the United States has always attached conditions to federal funding. Sure, but that's a very high level of abstraction. At a lower level, it is far less common (if precedented at all) for the federal executive to attempt to unilaterally impose conditions that violate the Federal Constitution and would require those subject to the conditions to violate federal civil rights law.
ReptileMan 1y ago
Dear Colleague letter.
magnio 1y ago
While the current climate is not comparable, I find the actions and general attitude of the current US government similar to that during the McCarthy era. Which led me to this very interesting article from 1965: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/6/17/the-university-in-the-mccarthy-era/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/6/17/the-university-... In it, the author described the attacks on specific personnels and public villainification of Harvard. More tellingly though, the author wrote the article for students in the 60s, who, growing up a mere decade after, most likely considered the events "an aberration which could not have lasted", and that, "the whole [McCarthy] period has an air of unreality". Those who did not know history are bound to repeat it. Unfortunately, no amount of textbooks and historical resources seems to be sufficient to impart lessons to subsequent generations, and we are bound to repeat it after a few cycles.
- DrewADesign 1y ago
  Assuming lack of knowledge is the reason authoritarian tendencies show up periodically dismisses the fact that a lot of people think it’s a good thing. There were neo nazis right after wwii. They didn’t forget — they wanted it.
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
    Yeah that worries me. The Nazi party ended on paper, the flags were taken down, but there is no military defeat that really changes the minds of the losing faction. They just went covert, stopped saying the quiet part, and waited.
    - esseph 1y ago
      We won the war but never learned as a group how to handle the ideological problems.
      - DrewADesign 1y ago
        That feels oversimplified. A lot of people would think people that oppose Nazis are the ones with the ideological problems. Who defines what a problem is in our society? The majority or some skewing of it. This is the problem that politics is supposed to solve, and then the problem that the electoral college was supposed to safeguard against. How do we avoid the tyranny of a demented majority? Aligning to a specific moral code? … like a theocracy? I can’t think of any way that doesn’t immediately instill the tyranny of a minority in its place. We in the US have been very arrogant in assuming we’ve found the solution to all this when all it took was a few decades — a flash-in-the-pan, really — of consistent, strategic bad faith by the political rulers to undermine the whole thing.
NoImmatureAdHom 1y ago
Yes, the Biden Administration's promulgation of a Title IX interpretation that, among other things, would have compelled certain kinds of speech: https://speechfirst.org/case/title-ix/ https://speechfirst.org/case/title-ix/ One example of many: it would have been a punishable offense to refuse to use someone's preferred pronouns.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
  Are you injured if you can't misgender someone?
  - NoImmatureAdHom 1y ago
    Compelled speech is a bright line the U.S. has, so far, managed not to cross. We should be trying as hard as we can not to cross that line. You may not see the harm in this particular instance, but establishing "we'll just force them to say it and punish them if they don't" as a tool in any government's toolbox is a very, very bad idea.
    - dem_bones 1y ago
      [flagged]
  - kjksf 1y ago
    Yes, to the extent that any violation of constitution injures me. Forcing me to say things I don't want to say under threat of punishment violates first amendment. It's been litigated and so concluded. The fact that it's the 1st amendment indicates that founding fathers thought that it is indeed the greatest injury us government can inflict on us citizens.
    - throwup238 1y ago
      > The fact that it's the 1st amendment indicates that founding fathers thought that it is indeed the greatest injury us government can inflict on us citizens. By that argument the greatest injury that they were addressing was a weak central government that couldn’t provide for the security and financing of the state. It’s literally called the first amendment because the Bill of Rights was an addendum to the constitution.

hexis 1y ago

Yes, the federal government of the United States has always attached conditions to federal funding.

laidoffamazon 1y ago
Not like this, no, and it has never shaken down schools like it has at Columbia or Harvard. As much as I despise these institutions and their undergrads this does nothing to punish them and everything to increase the power of this current corrupt executive.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  Why specifically the undergrads?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - laidoffamazon 1y ago
    They hate the rest of us that didn’t get into elite schools and are permanent members of the upper caste of this country. Graduate school admission is more purely meritocratic on if you can do research but even that isn’t great.
    - fedsocpuppet 1y ago
      Is this like a humiliation fetish at this point? This is seriously unhealthy. We don't hate our friends that didn't a go to an eLiTe school because we're not sociopaths. Not sure why I'm even trying since you seem pretty dead set on this, but it's just a lot easier to go through life without made up enemies.
      - laidoffamazon 1y ago
        People that go to elite undergrads think the rest of us are a lower inferior caste. I don’t know how that’s even something you can deny. You’ve clearly expended a lot of effort to segregate yourself from the likes of people like me or people that go to SJSU because we don’t have “merit” or “potential”
        fedsocpuppet 1y ago
        I can deny it because it's obvious bullshit lol. I don't think that way and neither does anybody I know from MIT think that way. This is reality versus your imagination. If there's anyone I look down on it's my classmates who could've worked anywhere and still went to palantir... I can't claim 100% aren't assholes, but the vast majority realize the luck and arbitrary nature of it. Are you going to be stuck in decision day sadness mode for the rest of your life? Life is too short
        laidoffamazon 1y ago
        I've asked people at MIT this repeatedly. They all say they came to MIT for the peer group. Peer group = people that are not _like me_. They shut up quick when I challenge them on that point though, or ask what the difference between them and me is. Even the non-assholes sometimes genuinely don't realize there's an entire parallel world beneath them with zero privilege or respect that made $150k out of undergrad instead of $500k.
        pastel8739 1y ago
        I am nearly sure that you are not arguing in good faith, but just the fact that you think all elite school grads make $500k shows that you have not talked to a nearly representative sample. I went to an elite school and have friends that make much less even than $150k. Are you aware that there is an entire parallel world beneath you with zero privilege or respect that make $40k instead of $150k? I’m not sure why you think anyone is targeting you specifically. The vast majority of students at elite schools, in my experience, know that we got lucky in addition to all the other things that we did well to get admitted. A couple people in this thread now have told you that they don’t match your description of “every” and “all” graduates of elite schools, and the nice thing about using such strong descriptors is that a single counterexample disproves them.
    - Steltek 1y ago
      Have you ever met undergrads from these schools? This as far from my experience as you could get.
      - laidoffamazon 1y ago
        Yes. I live in a city with two Ivy+ institutions and graduates from many more. They're all the same, except some are better at faking it than others. And why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't they think people like me are lazy and genetically predisposed to be stupid? I didn't make $500k out of undergrad. HRT or OpenAI isn't going to recruit me anytime soon. My net worth isn't $12m at 29, it's a tenth that. Whenever I ask what the difference between them and their infinite success and potential is and people like me they never have an answer. They're always so confused.
        pastel8739 1y ago
        > My net worth isn't $12m at 29, it's a tenth that This honestly reads like you are just bragging about how successful you are. I think you know this, but if you made $150k at 22 and have a net worth of $1M at 29, you are far more monetarily successful than the vast, vast majority of the country. I’m pretty sure you are rage baiting, which doesn’t belong on HN, but if not you are seriously out of touch and not grateful enough for your luck or proud enough of the work you have put in to get there.
        laidoffamazon 1y ago
        This is not bragging to literally anybody that went to an Ivy+ school for CS ~10 years ago. A $15m+ net worth is their standard for success. Hell, it's their standard for _average_.
dragonwriter 1y ago
> Yes, the federal government of the United States has always attached conditions to federal funding. Sure, but that's a very high level of abstraction. At a lower level, it is far less common (if precedented at all) for the federal executive to attempt to unilaterally impose conditions that violate the Federal Constitution and would require those subject to the conditions to violate federal civil rights law.

ReptileMan 1y ago

Dear Colleague letter.

magnio 1y ago

While the current climate is not comparable, I find the actions and general attitude of the current US government similar to that during the McCarthy era. Which led me to this very interesting article from 1965: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/6/17/the-university-in-the-mccarthy-era/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/6/17/the-university-... In it, the author described the attacks on specific personnels and public villainification of Harvard. More tellingly though, the author wrote the article for students in the 60s, who, growing up a mere decade after, most likely considered the events "an aberration which could not have lasted", and that, "the whole [McCarthy] period has an air of unreality". Those who did not know history are bound to repeat it. Unfortunately, no amount of textbooks and historical resources seems to be sufficient to impart lessons to subsequent generations, and we are bound to repeat it after a few cycles.

DrewADesign 1y ago
Assuming lack of knowledge is the reason authoritarian tendencies show up periodically dismisses the fact that a lot of people think it’s a good thing. There were neo nazis right after wwii. They didn’t forget — they wanted it.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
  Yeah that worries me. The Nazi party ended on paper, the flags were taken down, but there is no military defeat that really changes the minds of the losing faction. They just went covert, stopped saying the quiet part, and waited.
  - esseph 1y ago
    We won the war but never learned as a group how to handle the ideological problems.
    - DrewADesign 1y ago
      That feels oversimplified. A lot of people would think people that oppose Nazis are the ones with the ideological problems. Who defines what a problem is in our society? The majority or some skewing of it. This is the problem that politics is supposed to solve, and then the problem that the electoral college was supposed to safeguard against. How do we avoid the tyranny of a demented majority? Aligning to a specific moral code? … like a theocracy? I can’t think of any way that doesn’t immediately instill the tyranny of a minority in its place. We in the US have been very arrogant in assuming we’ve found the solution to all this when all it took was a few decades — a flash-in-the-pan, really — of consistent, strategic bad faith by the political rulers to undermine the whole thing.

NoImmatureAdHom 1y ago

Yes, the Biden Administration's promulgation of a Title IX interpretation that, among other things, would have compelled certain kinds of speech: https://speechfirst.org/case/title-ix/ https://speechfirst.org/case/title-ix/ One example of many: it would have been a punishable offense to refuse to use someone's preferred pronouns.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
Are you injured if you can't misgender someone?
- NoImmatureAdHom 1y ago
  Compelled speech is a bright line the U.S. has, so far, managed not to cross. We should be trying as hard as we can not to cross that line. You may not see the harm in this particular instance, but establishing "we'll just force them to say it and punish them if they don't" as a tool in any government's toolbox is a very, very bad idea.
  - dem_bones 1y ago
    [flagged]
- kjksf 1y ago
  Yes, to the extent that any violation of constitution injures me. Forcing me to say things I don't want to say under threat of punishment violates first amendment. It's been litigated and so concluded. The fact that it's the 1st amendment indicates that founding fathers thought that it is indeed the greatest injury us government can inflict on us citizens.
  - throwup238 1y ago
    > The fact that it's the 1st amendment indicates that founding fathers thought that it is indeed the greatest injury us government can inflict on us citizens. By that argument the greatest injury that they were addressing was a weak central government that couldn’t provide for the security and financing of the state. It’s literally called the first amendment because the Bill of Rights was an addendum to the constitution.