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Remember, fascism is not an ideology or philosophical idea. It is a system of government. Gaining control of academia is a core part of this system. I applaud M

Remember, fascism is not an ideology or philosophical idea. It is a system of government. Gaining control of academia is a core part of this system. I applaud MIT for standing up to this. I hope the other universities involved also resist. We'll see.

zamadatix 1y ago
> I hope the other universities involved also refuse to resist I think you may have meant "refuse and resist" (or something similar) in your comment, based on the first half.
- boplicity 1y ago
  Sorry! Fixed!
tencentshill 1y ago
The nine universities include: Vanderbilt University Dartmouth College the University of Pennsylvania the University of Southern California Massachusetts Institute of Technology the University of Texas at Austin the University of Arizona Brown University the University of Virginia
- laidoffamazon 1y ago
  I didn’t realize UA was here - even UVA and UT as more egalitarian institutions are a weird set to include.
  - etchalon 1y ago
    UT is, for better or worse, still in Texas. And Texas has yet to discover a Trump/MAGA initiative it doesn't embrace.
- runako 1y ago
  This is a motley list. I am guessing the criteria for inclusion was an administration staffer (or their offspring) was not able to secure admission.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    For anyone confused like me, a definition of motley is “Having elements of great variety or incongruity; heterogeneous.” I think a lot of the neural connections to the word motley come from the expression “motley crew” which has fairly negative connotations. But the truth of the matter is, this is just a very varied group of schools; some great schools on the list. I won’t say any of the schools are not great, because of course some alum will come along and say “actually we had a great department for some niche computational thing” and I’ll be embarrassed to not have known that.
    - runako 1y ago
      I meant it in the sense of heterogeneous. The list includes public & private institutions across a variety of states and size ranges. It singles out particular institutions in state university systems (e.g. University of Texas at Austin but not Texas A&M or University of Texas at El Paso). Half the list is in the northeast, while the midwest and Pacific Northwest are not represented. It's 9 institutions, not 10. It's just an odd list.
      - bee_rider 1y ago
        I 100% agree!
  - TheCondor 1y ago
    That's a very favorable interpretation. It looks an awful lot like a sampling designed to identify who the "enemies" are.
    - justin66 1y ago
      I was thinking it was a rare display of caution on the part of otherwise careless idiots. (or maybe we just got lucky) They aren't fucking with any of the universities responsible for managing national laboratories.
- nostrademons 1y ago
  Interesting. I first heard about this from Newsom's statement that any university that signed it would lose California education funds instantly, but the only California university on it is the private USC. Thought for sure that at least UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Stanford would be on it, but I guess not. Maybe they chose USC because it seems to have a bit more of a conservative bent than most California schools.
  - justin66 1y ago
    > Thought for sure that at least UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Stanford would be on it, but I guess not. UC and Stanford manage national laboratories for the US government. Someone might have realized the crisis that could come from that particular confrontation, and decided to steer clear for the moment.
p4ul 1y ago
Yeah, I am very curious to see the responses from other institutions. The University of Texas (Austin) said they were "honored" to have received the compact.[1] That is obviously very concerning. [1] https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-white-house-sent-its-compact-to-9-universities-heres-what-their-administrators-and-faculty-are-saying https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-white-house-sent-its-c...
stronglikedan 1y ago
[flagged]
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
  No, the 2025 Republican party is definitely fascist. Wikipedia: "Fascism is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy" - Dictatorial leader - President Trump tries to push things through Executive Orders, which are supposed to go through Congress. And that one guy in his admin said he has "plenary" (I guess meaning total, unquestioned) authority - Centralized autocracy - "Autocracy is a form of government in which absolute power is held by one person, known as an autocrat. It includes absolute monarchy and all forms of dictatorship, while it is contrasted with democracy and other forms of free government" - Same thing - Militarism - The President has deployed National Guard and militarized ICE agents to American cities under the guise of improving public safety. The real reason is to terrorize non-white people and prepare for interfering with or preventing the next election. He also attacked ships from another country without any just cause. - Forcible suppression of opposition - I believe right now Trump's administration is going after an Attorney General? ICE has also been detaining and physically harming people who try to (legally) film them. There is certainly more suppression I'm forgetting and more in the pipeline. The Republican party also generally seemed okay with violence against Democratic Party elected officials. I seem to recall violence against Nancy Pelosi's husband went un-remarked-upon. - Belief in a natural social hierarchy - I don't have pull quotes from elected officials but there is a lot of white supremacy in the Republican party and among their voter base. They have ideas like "America First" where, when you dig into it, "American" means "pure-blood white person". They also seem to broadly look down on women, gay people, transgender people, the usual suspects. Patriachy is popular among the right, they'll say things like wives should submit to their husbands, women would categorically be happier as stay-at-home mothers, and some have opposed women's right to vote. - Subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race - We are being asked to give up our civil rights, as well as our free trade (via tariffs that nobody wants) for some nonsense efforts from the President and the Republican Party. - Strong regimentation of society and the economy - Kind of a restatement but again - Tariffs, deploying the military and the police without warrants against citizens and residents who have not been properly accused of any crime, yada yada
kjksf 1y ago
Given that leftists have gained control of academia, are democrats fascists? My claim of "leftists control academia" is based on data on political affiliation / donations by staff at major universities which is 80-90% democrats.
- dotnet00 1y ago
  Pretty massive difference between "the federal government is using its influence to try to compel academia into bending the knee to it and it's fascistic methods of operating" and "most academics aren't in favor of the party that still doesn't believe in vaccines, hates them or their colleagues for having the wrong skin color and doesn't see any value in the liberal arts".
- boplicity 1y ago
  Fascism is a top-down system of government. If it's true that "leftists" gained control of academia, I don't see that as something that happened via top-down control, which is clearly what the Trump administration is attempting to impose.

zamadatix 1y ago

> I hope the other universities involved also refuse to resist I think you may have meant "refuse and resist" (or something similar) in your comment, based on the first half.

boplicity 1y ago
Sorry! Fixed!

tencentshill 1y ago

The nine universities include: Vanderbilt University Dartmouth College the University of Pennsylvania the University of Southern California Massachusetts Institute of Technology the University of Texas at Austin the University of Arizona Brown University the University of Virginia

laidoffamazon 1y ago
I didn’t realize UA was here - even UVA and UT as more egalitarian institutions are a weird set to include.
- etchalon 1y ago
  UT is, for better or worse, still in Texas. And Texas has yet to discover a Trump/MAGA initiative it doesn't embrace.
runako 1y ago
This is a motley list. I am guessing the criteria for inclusion was an administration staffer (or their offspring) was not able to secure admission.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  For anyone confused like me, a definition of motley is “Having elements of great variety or incongruity; heterogeneous.” I think a lot of the neural connections to the word motley come from the expression “motley crew” which has fairly negative connotations. But the truth of the matter is, this is just a very varied group of schools; some great schools on the list. I won’t say any of the schools are not great, because of course some alum will come along and say “actually we had a great department for some niche computational thing” and I’ll be embarrassed to not have known that.
  - runako 1y ago
    I meant it in the sense of heterogeneous. The list includes public & private institutions across a variety of states and size ranges. It singles out particular institutions in state university systems (e.g. University of Texas at Austin but not Texas A&M or University of Texas at El Paso). Half the list is in the northeast, while the midwest and Pacific Northwest are not represented. It's 9 institutions, not 10. It's just an odd list.
    - bee_rider 1y ago
      I 100% agree!
- TheCondor 1y ago
  That's a very favorable interpretation. It looks an awful lot like a sampling designed to identify who the "enemies" are.
  - justin66 1y ago
    I was thinking it was a rare display of caution on the part of otherwise careless idiots. (or maybe we just got lucky) They aren't fucking with any of the universities responsible for managing national laboratories.
nostrademons 1y ago
Interesting. I first heard about this from Newsom's statement that any university that signed it would lose California education funds instantly, but the only California university on it is the private USC. Thought for sure that at least UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Stanford would be on it, but I guess not. Maybe they chose USC because it seems to have a bit more of a conservative bent than most California schools.
- justin66 1y ago
  > Thought for sure that at least UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Stanford would be on it, but I guess not. UC and Stanford manage national laboratories for the US government. Someone might have realized the crisis that could come from that particular confrontation, and decided to steer clear for the moment.

p4ul 1y ago

Yeah, I am very curious to see the responses from other institutions. The University of Texas (Austin) said they were "honored" to have received the compact.[1] That is obviously very concerning. [1] https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-white-house-sent-its-compact-to-9-universities-heres-what-their-administrators-and-faculty-are-saying https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-white-house-sent-its-c...

stronglikedan 1y ago

[flagged]

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
No, the 2025 Republican party is definitely fascist. Wikipedia: "Fascism is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy" - Dictatorial leader - President Trump tries to push things through Executive Orders, which are supposed to go through Congress. And that one guy in his admin said he has "plenary" (I guess meaning total, unquestioned) authority - Centralized autocracy - "Autocracy is a form of government in which absolute power is held by one person, known as an autocrat. It includes absolute monarchy and all forms of dictatorship, while it is contrasted with democracy and other forms of free government" - Same thing - Militarism - The President has deployed National Guard and militarized ICE agents to American cities under the guise of improving public safety. The real reason is to terrorize non-white people and prepare for interfering with or preventing the next election. He also attacked ships from another country without any just cause. - Forcible suppression of opposition - I believe right now Trump's administration is going after an Attorney General? ICE has also been detaining and physically harming people who try to (legally) film them. There is certainly more suppression I'm forgetting and more in the pipeline. The Republican party also generally seemed okay with violence against Democratic Party elected officials. I seem to recall violence against Nancy Pelosi's husband went un-remarked-upon. - Belief in a natural social hierarchy - I don't have pull quotes from elected officials but there is a lot of white supremacy in the Republican party and among their voter base. They have ideas like "America First" where, when you dig into it, "American" means "pure-blood white person". They also seem to broadly look down on women, gay people, transgender people, the usual suspects. Patriachy is popular among the right, they'll say things like wives should submit to their husbands, women would categorically be happier as stay-at-home mothers, and some have opposed women's right to vote. - Subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race - We are being asked to give up our civil rights, as well as our free trade (via tariffs that nobody wants) for some nonsense efforts from the President and the Republican Party. - Strong regimentation of society and the economy - Kind of a restatement but again - Tariffs, deploying the military and the police without warrants against citizens and residents who have not been properly accused of any crime, yada yada

kjksf 1y ago

Given that leftists have gained control of academia, are democrats fascists? My claim of "leftists control academia" is based on data on political affiliation / donations by staff at major universities which is 80-90% democrats.

dotnet00 1y ago
Pretty massive difference between "the federal government is using its influence to try to compel academia into bending the knee to it and it's fascistic methods of operating" and "most academics aren't in favor of the party that still doesn't believe in vaccines, hates them or their colleagues for having the wrong skin color and doesn't see any value in the liberal arts".
boplicity 1y ago
Fascism is a top-down system of government. If it's true that "leftists" gained control of academia, I don't see that as something that happened via top-down control, which is clearly what the Trump administration is attempting to impose.