[PerilousD]

I guess that Harvard probably does not need the Feds as much as the Feds need Harvard but I'm glad they are standing up to the Fascists. I'm going to have to see what NYU is doing now.

[amalcon]

The thing to remember is that these grants are their research budget. The endowment is largely earmarked for educational projects. Your average university professor is there because they want to do research, not because they want to teach - so the research budget is critical for educating as well.

I assume Harvard has a plan for dealing with this dynamic. They have some extremely smart people there, so I don't doubt they've found a way.

[nonethewiser]

What does the Federal Gov need Harvard for? Harvard gets 16% of its funding from them - what outweighs that on the aide of the Federal government?

[ceejayoz]

The tax revenues from the $1.3T company that arose from their online yearbook?

Lawyers? Doctors? Medical research? Thousands of highly educated graduates annually? 161 Nobel prize winners?

[andrewaylett]

One may expect that the funding is paying for research, such that the government finds the trade to have positive expected value.

[matwood]

Until recently, the US brand was where exceptional people wanted to go study and work. If you want to send the world's best and brightest to other countries that's fine, but it will have negative long term impacts on the US.

[bitmasher9]

I wonder how many Harvard graduates work for either Trump or the federal government.

[duxup]

The GOP / Trump administration shows no real focus on employing experts, Trump shows no curiosity about anything. They're slashing research and science across the board department by department. They employ anti science people as heads of departments that require science.

I don't think the GOP & Trump thinks they need anything from Harvard other than agreeing to impose first amendment violations on others on behalf of the GOP and Trump.

[bakugo]

> I'm glad they are standing up to the Fascists

Today I learned that demanding an end to racial discrimination makes you a fascist. I swear this word becomes more meaningless by the day.

[FloorEgg]

Genuinely curious: what part of the federal government's letter to Harvard seems fascist to you?

Is the government asking a university to shift their bias away from skin color diversity to viewpoint diversity fascist?

Is there a historical parallel?

Or is it just the fact that the government is asking for reform, and any reform request would be considered fascist? If so, do you also consider the DEI reform requests fascist?

[beloch]

The section on "Student Discipline Reform and Accountability" is explicitly fascist. Harvard police must prevent/crush serious protests that cause disruption. Student groups must be vetted so that they don't violate orthodoxy. Masking (even for valid medical reasons) is banned. (This lets you know that this has nothing to do with facts or diversity of viewpoints and everything to do with the supremacy of theirs.) The "Whistleblower Reporting and Protections" section is basically a demand for a hotline, direct to the government, to inform on anyone not toeing the line. The "Transparency and Monitoring" section makes it clear the government intends to monitor foreign students at Harvard closely.

This isn't quite 1930's Germany yet, but it's getting there. The next step to watch for would be any laws passed that regulate who can serve as faculty in universities or attempts to impose different leadership on universities that don't comply with demands.

[nairteashop]

Let's set aside specific terms like "fascist" for now. Below is one of the demands from the government:

> the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.

Do you feel this is ok for the government to demand of an educational institution? This isn't about specific political ideologies. If the Biden administration had threatened to withhold funding from a university because, for example, their hiring policies weren't left-leaning enough or something, it would be equally outrageous.