I'm having a problem with understanding why an institution with a $50B endowment needs federal money.............and I have felt this way for a decade when I realized how much federal money they actually get.
I imagine it’s probably similar to how it is so easy for the federal government to have wasted SO much taxpayer money—greed, corruption, and mismanagement. Am sure many people’s pockets have been thickly lined and far too many useless projects have been funded. The expected outcome when one uses “someone else’s money” and when one does not need to be transparent nor accountable for where funds go.
It's because at a university, funding/budgeting in any given year is a zero sum game. The $2 billion (or $9 billion?) hole produced by Trump withholding federal funds may seem insignificant to an outside observer, but that money was already allocated to various ongoing projects at Harvard. Losing it will cause a fight among departments, and they want to avoid an internal fight. There will be a huge push to try to fill the hole by recruiting ever higher private donations, but that hole can't be filled overnight.
Harvard, of course, is threatening to end cancer research as the first casualty of the halt in federal funds. I expected nothing less from those folks. Lord knows they wouldn't want to divert funds away from DEI initiatives to save the cancer researchers.
I have multiple colleagues in science and/or healthcare fields who obtained undergrad or medical degrees at Harvard. Half of them, even after decades, have never recovered from the disorder called "harvarditis" -- the snobby attitude that anybody who gets a Harvard degree is somehow "special" and everybody else is just bird shit. The good news is that the other half comprises folks I know well and they have recovered nicely from being a Harvard "product".
I think that the administration in Cambridge is going to get exactly what is deserved for the institution -- whether they give in to Trump or not. I think you are correct to opine that,in general, universities in our land are hooked (like a sleazy carp) on Federal money infusions.
I hope they don't comply. I don't want my taxpayer dollars going to a school that has multiple billions in endowment funds and who would laugh if any of my children applied to go there. Why should I fund them?
Vinay - I think you are loosing perspective here. Yes, higher education participated in a betrayal of its ideals - commitment to open inquiry, freedom of expression, and real diversity of ideas.
Leftwing cancelations, firings, silencing, or required DEI statements/land acknowledgments were bad. But the answer is not government coercion to push MORE viewpoint discrimination.
I didn't like leftist title IX complaints and I don't like rightwing title IX complaints (if that is the basis of the federal government threats). On what possible legitimate grounds could the federal government ban DEI programs per se? What is the legal basis for banning particular classes, majors, departments? Do we really want government pressure on Med Schools to be a tool for ripping up the sociology department? Could the government ban Marxism studies? Could the government ban the study of economics - because they sure don't seem to know much or want to know much about that. I don't like "great" literature much, if I get elected President, can I force universities to only teach paperback science fiction novels? If schools are violating laws regarding admission processes or hiring processes (as you have argued), lets see actual legal proceedings decided by juries of citizens, not this blackmail.
Yes research institutions are "addicted" to federal money. As is explicit in the indirect cost negotiations, the infrastructure of the research enterprise is dependent on both the direct and indirect costs provided by federal grants. How could it be elsewise? The only alternative is either not having research (outside of corporate) or having fully federally funded institutes as in Europe. If some of the research is bad or foolish, that is really on the Funders - who as you have argued need to get their acts together. However, it must be acknowledged that funding will never be perfect - there will be mistakes and foolishness, it is just part of the human condition.
In the current DOGE craze, projects with words in their titles like "Diverse Lymphocytes" have been cancelled in a perfect mirror to leftwing manias for wrong think words like "master plan." Both are stupid and adding government stupid to private stupid just gets us more stupid faster and stupider. We have let the feds use conditions on their money to try to ban discrimination based on race and sex. And that feels right. But we need to be very very careful about allowing the government (particularly in a series of executive actions of dubious rationality and without congressional consideration) to use its coercive power to intrude further on private action.
Our present executive branch takes the stance that giving one race preference over another is contrary to federal law and therefore federal funding should be withheld from the school that does this in its teaching or admissions policies. Harvard can contest this judgement in court or alternatively can eschew federal funding. Seems pretty clearcut to me.
Yes - the administration has reversed the Johnson era EO on affirmative action by contractors and SCOTUS has ruled against using race in admissions. But how does that mean that the divinity school can be required to have a special master or that university governance must be changed to give students and faculty less influence. If the admin has evidence of discrimination in hiring or admissions, bring it to a court or better yet wait until an affected party does so.
I think it's a lot easier than that. If the administration decides to withhold funds it should state its specific reasons. If Harvard contests because it denies the actions the administration is contending it should make its case or alternatively should alter its actions to satisfy the administration. If Harvard wants to continue its actions in opposition to what the executive determines to be federal law it must pay the consequences and, if desired, go to court. Or perhaps it should defer to the EEOC or the Civil Rights Commission. Your suggestion of leaving the whole issue to the judicial system via complaints of the aggrieved parties is long and cumbersome. And remember that the courts are part of the government as well, and as we have seen, just as influenced by political preferences as is the executive.
Chris, you completely miss the point. The universities can do as they please but they are then not entitled to drink at the federal rough at the expense of the US tax payers, many of whom are living check to check. It's really that simple. When Harvard starts loosing it's STEMM faculty who decide to move to greener pastures they will eventually come to their senses.
No I see the point - your view is that the government can unilaterally alter its grant agreements to try to influence behavior of the university that Trump disapproves of. And that the government wrings these funds from those on the edge makes it especially just.
I just don’t agree. I think: 1. a contract is a contract and should not be broken w/o due process. 2. The government may not act in a way that is arbitrary and capricious. 3. The government is not allowed to practice viewpoint discrimination against those protected by the first amendment.
The federal executive branch is tasked with enforcing federal law. In doing this it must make its judgement as to how the law applies and how to enforce it unless otherwise specifically stated by the legislature. This process does not appear to me to be arbitrary and capricious or viewpoint discrimination. If Harvard disagrees that they are breaking federal civil rights law they can take the case to court.
Normally a contract shouldn't be broken. On the other hand, the federal government has a debt of $36 trillion. So under those circumstances they can break whatever contract they wish or go bankrupt. Further, the US government is under no obligation to support and promote the work of organizations that are effectively plotting against our American way of life and all the things that most regular Americans hold dear. In essence the universities have broken their contract with the people and they are not entitled to any protection of any sort. Sure they can say and do what they want under the 1st amendment, but why should "we the people" support them financially in those endeavors that are antithetical to our way of life, our beliefs, western culture and western civilization. It's not complicated and enough is enough. And moreover, the universities have been treated with kid gloves: they have massive endowments and don't pay taxes on their properties, their capital gains and their distributions. All the while they fleece the people by charging ever more exhorbitant student fees that are simply unaffordable to the vast majority.
Except nothing has even slowed this Marxist snowball. In dire circumstances you need to counter the argument “they eat baby brains” with “no, THEY eat baby brains”. The satisfying thing about this counter-argument is that they actually DO “eat baby brains”.
Except that the ban on “Diverse lymphocytes” study is removed almost immediately but can you say the same thing about the “master plan” study? They we’re probably coerced to change the wording.
My source said as of April 6 the project was still cancelled and the faculty member likely to be laid off. The federal appeals process is said to be so slow as to be impossible. Do you know that this grant has been reinstated?
I suspect you're right. They are taking a literary stance by exhibiting sound and fury that signifies nothing, to paraphrase Shakespeare. People are watching the ivory towers crumble before them, built as they are on immutable characteristics rather than merit. And though Harvard and Columbia and their ilk bear the brunt of this takedown, almost every university has been playing by these rules for far too long. Michigan, Duke, the entire UC system - very few are exempt. But I fervently hope these very public examples scare others into compliance. Perhaps the next generation will learn again that trading on imagined victimhood is far less satisfying than toiling for something you achieve all by the machinations of your mind and the sweat of your brow.
If Harvard was as it is today when Alan Michael Garber applied to college for his BA, MA, and Ph.D., he would likely never have applied to such an antisemitic university or perhaps stayed the course and graduated-- despite being a brilliant person who finished college in 3 years and got his masters apparently at the same time as he got his M.D. degree.
After all, by birthright, if not in his practices, he would be identified as a Jew or at least a person whose parents were middle-class Jewish family, owners of a retail business in Rock Island, Illinois, striving to help their children succeed. So, regardless of what might be his tactic, he should at least have had the courage to stand up for the Jewish students.
Spot on Vinay. I read Alan Gerber's (President of Harvard) letter to the Harvard Community released to the general public yesterday with great interest. That letter is a perfect illustration of everything that is currently unhealthy in American Academia.
Only somebody with the supreme arrogance that is so characteristic of the Harvard brand and who is caught within an echo chamber of uniform (un)thinkers could have written a piece that drips with virtue signaling and completely misses the point.
Harvard, as any private organization, is perfectly entitled to do as it pleases; the faculty and students at Harvard have the right to say what they wish under the 1st amendment; and Harvard has the right to admit whomever they want to their precious institution no matter whether they chose to discriminate based on race and gender and violate the spirit of Supreme Court decisions. After all Harvard is nothing more than a private club. Harvard is even entitled to have a complete non-entity and plagiarizer as their previous President, and keep her on as a faculty member at an outrageously high six figure salary.
What Harvard, and like-minded Ivy league institutions, are NOT entitled to is support in their endeavors from the hard earned money of US Tax Payers, especially when many of Harvard's policies (related to faculty hiring, student recruitment, anti-semitism, anti-americanism, anti-western culture, etc...) are anathema to the American people. In other words, Harvard can do as it pleases but it can then make use of its $50 billion endowment to support its faculty and research labs, rather than leach on the American taxpayer. What Harvard cannot expect to do is come begging at the welfare trough of the American taxpayer.
Sometimes, it really helps for the Alan Garber's of this world to be a little bit less arrogant. And I suspect that when their esteemed STEM faculty have their grants canceled or severely delayed, and decide to move to greener pastures, he and his Harvard colleagues will eventually come to their senses. In poker you have to know the value of the cards you hold, and when to hold or fold. Right now, Harvard has no cards to hold. Sure they will have the support of Academia and all the learned societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, who are wailing at how the current administration is destroying the pursuit of science in the US. But right now the reputation of these institutions are basically down the drain and will garner no support from regular Americans who comprise the vast majority living in the US for whom having their kids, no ,matter how talented, attend Harvard is not even a distant dream.
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad........Theodore Roosevelt.
One can extrapolate a bit to see what a Harvard-degreed man is capable of.
Big universities' administrations were probably never entirely on board with DEI. They enjoy their independence, as most of them are researcher who require independence to do meaningful research. They most likely went along from a combination of slick salesmanship, bribery, threats (funding will be contingent on compliance), and fear of being slandered as "elitist" since that's what they are and have no defense against such an accusation. But I agree
that DEI must DIE. It will be a slow and painful death. Let's hope that those who went along with such crap, and vaccine mandates get their just deserts.
I have no problem with Harvard teaching, influencing and indoctrinating their students who knowingly accept this. As a private institution they can do that. But funding them with tax payer dollars I do have a problem with. And it’s not just Harvard. Why are colleges and universities across the country receiving federal funding? When President Biden tried to forgive student debt under the guise of tuition being expensive there was no discussion of why. The entire higher education system needs an economic overhaul.
Harvard is so corrupt, they have professors involved in pharma ripoffs.
One of them was the former "head" of NIBR, behind ripping medicare of for billions.
Harvard refuses to respond to it, letters to the president fall on deaf ears.
Aren't we supposed to be able to count on these "higher learning" outfits to look out for such things and help to protect the public, not use their haaavvaard smaats to rip us all off?
Any organization or city-gov or state-gov that enters DEI-mode ceases to be professional. Rules and procedures are abandoned and replaced with ideological dictate. Let all the DEI-universities crumble. I am trying to ban DEI in California and the cities within.
I agree 100% everyone is tired of this fringe of very weak woke wimpy wellness bitches an America looks bad to anybody who is sophisticated and has common sense
I'm having a problem with understanding why an institution with a $50B endowment needs federal money.............and I have felt this way for a decade when I realized how much federal money they actually get.
It is not a question of whether Harvard, the institution, needs federal money. (Though more money is always welcome.)
It is a question of whether people in power at Harvard need federal money for their favorite boondoggles.
Name one boondoggle.
I imagine it’s probably similar to how it is so easy for the federal government to have wasted SO much taxpayer money—greed, corruption, and mismanagement. Am sure many people’s pockets have been thickly lined and far too many useless projects have been funded. The expected outcome when one uses “someone else’s money” and when one does not need to be transparent nor accountable for where funds go.
It's because at a university, funding/budgeting in any given year is a zero sum game. The $2 billion (or $9 billion?) hole produced by Trump withholding federal funds may seem insignificant to an outside observer, but that money was already allocated to various ongoing projects at Harvard. Losing it will cause a fight among departments, and they want to avoid an internal fight. There will be a huge push to try to fill the hole by recruiting ever higher private donations, but that hole can't be filled overnight.
Harvard, of course, is threatening to end cancer research as the first casualty of the halt in federal funds. I expected nothing less from those folks. Lord knows they wouldn't want to divert funds away from DEI initiatives to save the cancer researchers.
I have multiple colleagues in science and/or healthcare fields who obtained undergrad or medical degrees at Harvard. Half of them, even after decades, have never recovered from the disorder called "harvarditis" -- the snobby attitude that anybody who gets a Harvard degree is somehow "special" and everybody else is just bird shit. The good news is that the other half comprises folks I know well and they have recovered nicely from being a Harvard "product".
I think that the administration in Cambridge is going to get exactly what is deserved for the institution -- whether they give in to Trump or not. I think you are correct to opine that,in general, universities in our land are hooked (like a sleazy carp) on Federal money infusions.
I hope they don't comply. I don't want my taxpayer dollars going to a school that has multiple billions in endowment funds and who would laugh if any of my children applied to go there. Why should I fund them?
Vinay - I think you are loosing perspective here. Yes, higher education participated in a betrayal of its ideals - commitment to open inquiry, freedom of expression, and real diversity of ideas.
Leftwing cancelations, firings, silencing, or required DEI statements/land acknowledgments were bad. But the answer is not government coercion to push MORE viewpoint discrimination.
I didn't like leftist title IX complaints and I don't like rightwing title IX complaints (if that is the basis of the federal government threats). On what possible legitimate grounds could the federal government ban DEI programs per se? What is the legal basis for banning particular classes, majors, departments? Do we really want government pressure on Med Schools to be a tool for ripping up the sociology department? Could the government ban Marxism studies? Could the government ban the study of economics - because they sure don't seem to know much or want to know much about that. I don't like "great" literature much, if I get elected President, can I force universities to only teach paperback science fiction novels? If schools are violating laws regarding admission processes or hiring processes (as you have argued), lets see actual legal proceedings decided by juries of citizens, not this blackmail.
Yes research institutions are "addicted" to federal money. As is explicit in the indirect cost negotiations, the infrastructure of the research enterprise is dependent on both the direct and indirect costs provided by federal grants. How could it be elsewise? The only alternative is either not having research (outside of corporate) or having fully federally funded institutes as in Europe. If some of the research is bad or foolish, that is really on the Funders - who as you have argued need to get their acts together. However, it must be acknowledged that funding will never be perfect - there will be mistakes and foolishness, it is just part of the human condition.
In the current DOGE craze, projects with words in their titles like "Diverse Lymphocytes" have been cancelled in a perfect mirror to leftwing manias for wrong think words like "master plan." Both are stupid and adding government stupid to private stupid just gets us more stupid faster and stupider. We have let the feds use conditions on their money to try to ban discrimination based on race and sex. And that feels right. But we need to be very very careful about allowing the government (particularly in a series of executive actions of dubious rationality and without congressional consideration) to use its coercive power to intrude further on private action.
Our present executive branch takes the stance that giving one race preference over another is contrary to federal law and therefore federal funding should be withheld from the school that does this in its teaching or admissions policies. Harvard can contest this judgement in court or alternatively can eschew federal funding. Seems pretty clearcut to me.
Yes - the administration has reversed the Johnson era EO on affirmative action by contractors and SCOTUS has ruled against using race in admissions. But how does that mean that the divinity school can be required to have a special master or that university governance must be changed to give students and faculty less influence. If the admin has evidence of discrimination in hiring or admissions, bring it to a court or better yet wait until an affected party does so.
I think it's a lot easier than that. If the administration decides to withhold funds it should state its specific reasons. If Harvard contests because it denies the actions the administration is contending it should make its case or alternatively should alter its actions to satisfy the administration. If Harvard wants to continue its actions in opposition to what the executive determines to be federal law it must pay the consequences and, if desired, go to court. Or perhaps it should defer to the EEOC or the Civil Rights Commission. Your suggestion of leaving the whole issue to the judicial system via complaints of the aggrieved parties is long and cumbersome. And remember that the courts are part of the government as well, and as we have seen, just as influenced by political preferences as is the executive.
Chris, you completely miss the point. The universities can do as they please but they are then not entitled to drink at the federal rough at the expense of the US tax payers, many of whom are living check to check. It's really that simple. When Harvard starts loosing it's STEMM faculty who decide to move to greener pastures they will eventually come to their senses.
No I see the point - your view is that the government can unilaterally alter its grant agreements to try to influence behavior of the university that Trump disapproves of. And that the government wrings these funds from those on the edge makes it especially just.
I just don’t agree. I think: 1. a contract is a contract and should not be broken w/o due process. 2. The government may not act in a way that is arbitrary and capricious. 3. The government is not allowed to practice viewpoint discrimination against those protected by the first amendment.
The federal executive branch is tasked with enforcing federal law. In doing this it must make its judgement as to how the law applies and how to enforce it unless otherwise specifically stated by the legislature. This process does not appear to me to be arbitrary and capricious or viewpoint discrimination. If Harvard disagrees that they are breaking federal civil rights law they can take the case to court.
Normally a contract shouldn't be broken. On the other hand, the federal government has a debt of $36 trillion. So under those circumstances they can break whatever contract they wish or go bankrupt. Further, the US government is under no obligation to support and promote the work of organizations that are effectively plotting against our American way of life and all the things that most regular Americans hold dear. In essence the universities have broken their contract with the people and they are not entitled to any protection of any sort. Sure they can say and do what they want under the 1st amendment, but why should "we the people" support them financially in those endeavors that are antithetical to our way of life, our beliefs, western culture and western civilization. It's not complicated and enough is enough. And moreover, the universities have been treated with kid gloves: they have massive endowments and don't pay taxes on their properties, their capital gains and their distributions. All the while they fleece the people by charging ever more exhorbitant student fees that are simply unaffordable to the vast majority.
Except nothing has even slowed this Marxist snowball. In dire circumstances you need to counter the argument “they eat baby brains” with “no, THEY eat baby brains”. The satisfying thing about this counter-argument is that they actually DO “eat baby brains”.
Except that the ban on “Diverse lymphocytes” study is removed almost immediately but can you say the same thing about the “master plan” study? They we’re probably coerced to change the wording.
My source said as of April 6 the project was still cancelled and the faculty member likely to be laid off. The federal appeals process is said to be so slow as to be impossible. Do you know that this grant has been reinstated?
I suspect you're right. They are taking a literary stance by exhibiting sound and fury that signifies nothing, to paraphrase Shakespeare. People are watching the ivory towers crumble before them, built as they are on immutable characteristics rather than merit. And though Harvard and Columbia and their ilk bear the brunt of this takedown, almost every university has been playing by these rules for far too long. Michigan, Duke, the entire UC system - very few are exempt. But I fervently hope these very public examples scare others into compliance. Perhaps the next generation will learn again that trading on imagined victimhood is far less satisfying than toiling for something you achieve all by the machinations of your mind and the sweat of your brow.
Amazing how arrogance can be institutionalized. I’m glad I was able to seperate the wheat from the chaff as an older student.
If Harvard was as it is today when Alan Michael Garber applied to college for his BA, MA, and Ph.D., he would likely never have applied to such an antisemitic university or perhaps stayed the course and graduated-- despite being a brilliant person who finished college in 3 years and got his masters apparently at the same time as he got his M.D. degree.
After all, by birthright, if not in his practices, he would be identified as a Jew or at least a person whose parents were middle-class Jewish family, owners of a retail business in Rock Island, Illinois, striving to help their children succeed. So, regardless of what might be his tactic, he should at least have had the courage to stand up for the Jewish students.
Spot on Vinay. I read Alan Gerber's (President of Harvard) letter to the Harvard Community released to the general public yesterday with great interest. That letter is a perfect illustration of everything that is currently unhealthy in American Academia.
Only somebody with the supreme arrogance that is so characteristic of the Harvard brand and who is caught within an echo chamber of uniform (un)thinkers could have written a piece that drips with virtue signaling and completely misses the point.
Harvard, as any private organization, is perfectly entitled to do as it pleases; the faculty and students at Harvard have the right to say what they wish under the 1st amendment; and Harvard has the right to admit whomever they want to their precious institution no matter whether they chose to discriminate based on race and gender and violate the spirit of Supreme Court decisions. After all Harvard is nothing more than a private club. Harvard is even entitled to have a complete non-entity and plagiarizer as their previous President, and keep her on as a faculty member at an outrageously high six figure salary.
What Harvard, and like-minded Ivy league institutions, are NOT entitled to is support in their endeavors from the hard earned money of US Tax Payers, especially when many of Harvard's policies (related to faculty hiring, student recruitment, anti-semitism, anti-americanism, anti-western culture, etc...) are anathema to the American people. In other words, Harvard can do as it pleases but it can then make use of its $50 billion endowment to support its faculty and research labs, rather than leach on the American taxpayer. What Harvard cannot expect to do is come begging at the welfare trough of the American taxpayer.
Sometimes, it really helps for the Alan Garber's of this world to be a little bit less arrogant. And I suspect that when their esteemed STEM faculty have their grants canceled or severely delayed, and decide to move to greener pastures, he and his Harvard colleagues will eventually come to their senses. In poker you have to know the value of the cards you hold, and when to hold or fold. Right now, Harvard has no cards to hold. Sure they will have the support of Academia and all the learned societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, who are wailing at how the current administration is destroying the pursuit of science in the US. But right now the reputation of these institutions are basically down the drain and will garner no support from regular Americans who comprise the vast majority living in the US for whom having their kids, no ,matter how talented, attend Harvard is not even a distant dream.
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad........Theodore Roosevelt.
One can extrapolate a bit to see what a Harvard-degreed man is capable of.
Big universities' administrations were probably never entirely on board with DEI. They enjoy their independence, as most of them are researcher who require independence to do meaningful research. They most likely went along from a combination of slick salesmanship, bribery, threats (funding will be contingent on compliance), and fear of being slandered as "elitist" since that's what they are and have no defense against such an accusation. But I agree
that DEI must DIE. It will be a slow and painful death. Let's hope that those who went along with such crap, and vaccine mandates get their just deserts.
I have no problem with Harvard teaching, influencing and indoctrinating their students who knowingly accept this. As a private institution they can do that. But funding them with tax payer dollars I do have a problem with. And it’s not just Harvard. Why are colleges and universities across the country receiving federal funding? When President Biden tried to forgive student debt under the guise of tuition being expensive there was no discussion of why. The entire higher education system needs an economic overhaul.
Harvard is so corrupt, they have professors involved in pharma ripoffs.
One of them was the former "head" of NIBR, behind ripping medicare of for billions.
Harvard refuses to respond to it, letters to the president fall on deaf ears.
Aren't we supposed to be able to count on these "higher learning" outfits to look out for such things and help to protect the public, not use their haaavvaard smaats to rip us all off?
Eliminate much of the charitable deduction and money flows into the IRS without raising personal income tax rates.
But the donors in both parties won’t allow this to be discussed, though JD mentioned it in passing.
Any organization or city-gov or state-gov that enters DEI-mode ceases to be professional. Rules and procedures are abandoned and replaced with ideological dictate. Let all the DEI-universities crumble. I am trying to ban DEI in California and the cities within.
Good Lord, we don't need all of these words. We just need to cut the funding of private universities. Done.
I agree 100% everyone is tired of this fringe of very weak woke wimpy wellness bitches an America looks bad to anybody who is sophisticated and has common sense