Trump’s support is largely from flyover country, people who believe that the coastal elites look down at them, literally when flying between the east and west coasts, metaphorically in the form best exemplified by Hillary Clinton’s “Basket of deplorables.”
I'd be all for separation of universities and state. Stop massive federal grants to universities, stop federal guarantees of student loans, stop tax exemptions. Once that's done the government would have no leverage over the universities and they could do as they like.
"Whether or not they can be shown to have discriminated in hiring in the past they should be able, with reasonable care, to do so in the future without generating evidence sufficient to convict them of doing it."
I think that's probably not true. It is generally the case that the discrimination is very open from top to bottom, with people putting it in writing all of the time. I think it would, in fact, be difficult to have a top-down mandate to discriminte without some people putting it in writing. It would require everyone to understand the hidden message *without* ever saying it. That isn't the way large organizations work.
I'm imagining something more like a bottom up mandate. If almost everyone in the organization is in favor of affirmative action, people can put a thumb on the scale in the hiring process and anyone who might complain knows that doing so will make him unpopular with his colleagues.
But if *everyone* does this, even “bottom up”, won’t the results be such an obvious pattern of discrimination?
I personally greatly dislike “disparate impact” tests, but leftists have used for years, and many judges have accepted. But in this case it would be quite correct, since they would be unable to point at something substantial - e.g. like test scores - that justified their results.
That said, they could do for a short period of time and get away with it, I agree. But how do you think they could get away with it over the longer term?
As I understand it, a percentage of a research grant goes to the university for administrative overhead. I don't know if it is more than the actual cost for administering the grant, in which case it would be additional money for the university.
I worked for Harvard for 8 years, and I don't have a high opinion of the institution. Working in software development, I was safer from demands for conformity than many other people, but on three occasions I was called in for replying to unsolicited emails and giving opinions that didn't conform to the prevailing dogma. Nonetheless, what the administration is currently doing to Harvard requires that I overlook that and give it my support in the immediate issues. I'm referring especially to the demand that Harvard act as a government informant (reporting who has engaged in illegal protests) and to the expulsion of all foreign students. Trump has picked Harvard because if he can bully it into submission, other schools will quickly fall into line.
What the current administration is doing is insisting that Harvard follow the law. What Harvard administration is doing, doubtlessly with the support of a super majority of its faculty and staff, is insisting that Harvard does not have to follow the law.
Trump has a lot of annoying personality characteristics, and he has a high level of economic illiteracy, evidently (or perhaps he is doesn't, but wants everyone to think it's so for tactical reasons). But he is enforcing the law, which is the responsibility of the POTUS. Bravo.
The law does not forbid ideological uniformity in hiring and teaching, which I think is what conservatives are most concerned with — correctly in terms of consequences. Trump is taking advantage of Harvard having discriminated in admissions, something that until two years ago they had reason to believe was legal and that they may now have stopped doing, to attack them for other reasons.
I think Trump’s reasons for sanctioning Harvard are clear enough. If Harvard wants to practice racism in admissions, it will do so without the benefit of federal tax dollars, evidently.
If they don't get government money they are, as I understand the law, free to discriminate in admissions. But that has nothing to do with admitting foreign students.
Suppose they stop discriminating in admissions, as I suspect they are doing. Do they get punished for having done so for many years, during most of which it was arguably legal? For taking a year to stop doing it? How?
My interpretation of what is happening is that what conservatives are really upset about is the strong political bias of Harvard and most of the rest of the academic world, which has a much larger effect than the admissions policy. That, however, although objectionable is legal. Discrimination in admissions isn't, so makes a useful thing to attack, especially since it is an offense that the left claims to be especially against, an opportunity to accuse them of being racists, something they usually accuse other people of.
“Suppose they stop discriminating in admissions, as I suspect they are doing.”
You genuinely even *suspect* that they are stopping all illegal discrimination in admissions?!? Why in the world would you suspect this?
And I do agree that they have likely now *reduced* the over-the-top blatant discrimination they were doing before and the first year after the SCOTUS decision. But reduction in discrimination is nothing like *stopping* such discrimination.
As Bryan Caplan says, I would be delighted to Bet on It.
What I suspect is that they have stopped discrimination sufficiently obvious to get them in legal trouble. My reason for that suspicion is the difference I observed between acceptance rates for the Silicon Valley applicants I interview, mostly Asian occasionally Jewish in past years and this year.
I am not sure how you bet on whether they have stopped discriminating or only stopped visible discrimination.
Please cite the law that requires Harvard to act as a surveillance apparatus for the president. Please cite the law that prohibits foreign students when the president decides he doesn't like them. Please cite the part of the Constitution that lets the president mete out punishments as if he were a judge, but without the inconvenience of process, naming charges, and giving the accused the chance to offer a defense. The United States is not an absolute monarchy run by whim.
That's tricky. I don't know the legal details but a lot of government actions, including handing out research grants and granting visas, are controlled by the executive branch. Trump is being unusually obvious about it but I doubt he is the first president to favor people he likes and disfavor people he doesn't like in those decisions. I doubt that NSF during the Obama administration funded much research by climate skeptics.
Please cite the law that required the Ferguson, Missouri police department to agree to the consent degree they accepted from the Feds.
Harvard clearly violated the law in racial admissions, and with greater than99% certainly they have violated the law with regard to hiring.
That you don’t like the conditions the current administration suggested as their first pass of negotiations with Harvard is completely different from whether there is a law saying they must do those things.
Else show me the law that applied to the Ferguson case “punishment.”
Is he still alive? There's no justice in the universe.
He was the mentor of the nutter, John Holdren, Obama's "Science" Advisor.
Even if Obama had wanted to do good science during his administration, Holdren would have lied to him about the methods and consequences to guarantee it would all be in service of Malthusian hatred of humans.
Yes, for all of your posts I can recall. Perhaps Substack switched a default option because this also happened this week for another author I read regularly
I'd be all for separation of universities and state. Stop massive federal grants to universities, stop federal guarantees of student loans, stop tax exemptions. Once that's done the government would have no leverage over the universities and they could do as they like.
Make it seperaton of eduction and state so you can go to the head of the class (no associated humor/joke intended).
That would be harder. I'd like to see it, but it would be much harder.
And while I'm it, seperation of trade and state to boot.
The genie would like to know what you'd like for your third wish.
...I'll have a Coke.
"Whether or not they can be shown to have discriminated in hiring in the past they should be able, with reasonable care, to do so in the future without generating evidence sufficient to convict them of doing it."
I think that's probably not true. It is generally the case that the discrimination is very open from top to bottom, with people putting it in writing all of the time. I think it would, in fact, be difficult to have a top-down mandate to discriminte without some people putting it in writing. It would require everyone to understand the hidden message *without* ever saying it. That isn't the way large organizations work.
I'm imagining something more like a bottom up mandate. If almost everyone in the organization is in favor of affirmative action, people can put a thumb on the scale in the hiring process and anyone who might complain knows that doing so will make him unpopular with his colleagues.
But if *everyone* does this, even “bottom up”, won’t the results be such an obvious pattern of discrimination?
I personally greatly dislike “disparate impact” tests, but leftists have used for years, and many judges have accepted. But in this case it would be quite correct, since they would be unable to point at something substantial - e.g. like test scores - that justified their results.
That said, they could do for a short period of time and get away with it, I agree. But how do you think they could get away with it over the longer term?
"As best I can tell from the 2024 financial overview, federal money goes for research not education."
From what I've been reading I've the impression much if not most goes to neither research nor education but to administration.
As I understand it, a percentage of a research grant goes to the university for administrative overhead. I don't know if it is more than the actual cost for administering the grant, in which case it would be additional money for the university.
I believe at Harvard that percentage was something like 60% for administration.
Surely there is no doubt at all at this point that a higher percentage than “actual cost (of administration for the research)” is paid as overhead.
The fact that the Packard and Gates Foundations limit such overhead to 10%-15% is also a *massive* indicator of this, is it not?
I worked for Harvard for 8 years, and I don't have a high opinion of the institution. Working in software development, I was safer from demands for conformity than many other people, but on three occasions I was called in for replying to unsolicited emails and giving opinions that didn't conform to the prevailing dogma. Nonetheless, what the administration is currently doing to Harvard requires that I overlook that and give it my support in the immediate issues. I'm referring especially to the demand that Harvard act as a government informant (reporting who has engaged in illegal protests) and to the expulsion of all foreign students. Trump has picked Harvard because if he can bully it into submission, other schools will quickly fall into line.
What the current administration is doing is insisting that Harvard follow the law. What Harvard administration is doing, doubtlessly with the support of a super majority of its faculty and staff, is insisting that Harvard does not have to follow the law.
Trump has a lot of annoying personality characteristics, and he has a high level of economic illiteracy, evidently (or perhaps he is doesn't, but wants everyone to think it's so for tactical reasons). But he is enforcing the law, which is the responsibility of the POTUS. Bravo.
The law does not forbid ideological uniformity in hiring and teaching, which I think is what conservatives are most concerned with — correctly in terms of consequences. Trump is taking advantage of Harvard having discriminated in admissions, something that until two years ago they had reason to believe was legal and that they may now have stopped doing, to attack them for other reasons.
I think Trump’s reasons for sanctioning Harvard are clear enough. If Harvard wants to practice racism in admissions, it will do so without the benefit of federal tax dollars, evidently.
If they don't get government money they are, as I understand the law, free to discriminate in admissions. But that has nothing to do with admitting foreign students.
Suppose they stop discriminating in admissions, as I suspect they are doing. Do they get punished for having done so for many years, during most of which it was arguably legal? For taking a year to stop doing it? How?
My interpretation of what is happening is that what conservatives are really upset about is the strong political bias of Harvard and most of the rest of the academic world, which has a much larger effect than the admissions policy. That, however, although objectionable is legal. Discrimination in admissions isn't, so makes a useful thing to attack, especially since it is an offense that the left claims to be especially against, an opportunity to accuse them of being racists, something they usually accuse other people of.
“Suppose they stop discriminating in admissions, as I suspect they are doing.”
You genuinely even *suspect* that they are stopping all illegal discrimination in admissions?!? Why in the world would you suspect this?
And I do agree that they have likely now *reduced* the over-the-top blatant discrimination they were doing before and the first year after the SCOTUS decision. But reduction in discrimination is nothing like *stopping* such discrimination.
As Bryan Caplan says, I would be delighted to Bet on It.
What I suspect is that they have stopped discrimination sufficiently obvious to get them in legal trouble. My reason for that suspicion is the difference I observed between acceptance rates for the Silicon Valley applicants I interview, mostly Asian occasionally Jewish in past years and this year.
I am not sure how you bet on whether they have stopped discriminating or only stopped visible discrimination.
I agree.
Please cite the law that requires Harvard to act as a surveillance apparatus for the president. Please cite the law that prohibits foreign students when the president decides he doesn't like them. Please cite the part of the Constitution that lets the president mete out punishments as if he were a judge, but without the inconvenience of process, naming charges, and giving the accused the chance to offer a defense. The United States is not an absolute monarchy run by whim.
That's tricky. I don't know the legal details but a lot of government actions, including handing out research grants and granting visas, are controlled by the executive branch. Trump is being unusually obvious about it but I doubt he is the first president to favor people he likes and disfavor people he doesn't like in those decisions. I doubt that NSF during the Obama administration funded much research by climate skeptics.
Is Harvard in compliance with the relevant law?
They were not last year, may be this year.
Please cite the law that required the Ferguson, Missouri police department to agree to the consent degree they accepted from the Feds.
Harvard clearly violated the law in racial admissions, and with greater than99% certainly they have violated the law with regard to hiring.
That you don’t like the conditions the current administration suggested as their first pass of negotiations with Harvard is completely different from whether there is a law saying they must do those things.
Else show me the law that applied to the Ferguson case “punishment.”
I wish Trump would apply the same treatment/attention to Stanford...
They've been harboring that charlatan, Jacobson, for decades, amongst other academic abuses that do not deserve federal support.
He may, soon enough.
Not to mention Paul Ehrlich.
Is he still alive? There's no justice in the universe.
He was the mentor of the nutter, John Holdren, Obama's "Science" Advisor.
Even if Obama had wanted to do good science during his administration, Holdren would have lied to him about the methods and consequences to guarantee it would all be in service of Malthusian hatred of humans.
To be fair, the number of articles doesn't speak to their quality or influence in the field.
Did you on purpose disable the audio version of this post in Substack?
No. Is there normally an audio version? Was there for my previous posts?
Yes, for all of your posts I can recall. Perhaps Substack switched a default option because this also happened this week for another author I read regularly
Your can curb the worst excesses of evil people with law. But only a heart change can really move the needle.
I am not sure how much of the Harvard faculty is woke true believers, how much going along to get along.