"No government, regardless of which party is in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue."
Harvard president Alan Garber
I should explain that the two billion dollars at risk in grant funds that the federal government is threatening to withhold from Harvard is not scholarship money for undergraduates. It isn't "free" money to subsidize Harvard.
Harvard's various graduate programs in medicine and astrophysics and chemistry do theoretical and practical research under contract with the federal government. The National Institutes of Health have areas of interest they want developed. Harvard's great teaching hospitals -- Mass General, Brigham and Women's Hospital, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and others -- carry out direct patient care in the context of cutting edge research advancing medial science. The government helps fund that research and treatment. The U.S. is a world center for research in large part because of the partnership of government and America's research universities.
In the U.S., research, advanced graduate education, undergraduate education, college football, freshman dorms, studies in literature, history, math, and computer sciences combine with working hospitals and government labs into the modern research university. We created centers of learning that combine very theoretical research with very practical health care, with very visible education of young adults getting a "college experience." It creates a messy stew.
The wing-spreading life-exploration part of the college experience created a problem for universities. Politically engaged and passionate youth trying out methods of political persuasion created tent cities and physical obstructions on behalf of Palestinians. This irritated and inconvenienced some people, and it touched a special nerve with some very wealthy donors to both the universities and to the Trump campaign. Billionaires have become open about leveraging their wealth. The donors thought Harvard was tolerating overt antisemitism, and maybe even condoning it.
Trump saw an opportunity. He gets to parade his support for Israel, for which there is a substantial voting and donor constituency. He also gets to present himself as being anti-elite. Anti-snobby intellectual. Anti-university goals of diversity and inclusion. It is a public attack on woke values and policies.
I donate to Harvard annually, and I made a large (at least for me) gift at the 50th reunion. Why would anybody donate to Harvard money that is meaningful for themselves but a rounding error for Harvard? Harvard keeps track of its endowment by noticing the number of billions. In volatile markets like the ones we have had this month, the endowment must fluctuate two to five billion dollars a day. Wouldn't a similarly-sized gift to my local regional state university, Southern Oregon University, be far more impactful? (Yes. So I give to SOU, too.)
I gave to Harvard for the very reason apparent today. I felt a debt to the institution, and wanted to do my part. I joined a 400-year tradition. I presume that somewhere in the back of the minds of Harvard administrators and lawyers was the knowledge that they weren't just acting in a financial transaction for the current moment. They were representing a 400-year tradition of support and trust and expectation. There is a pattern as we tread through life; students attend school, they go on to various careers and find various financial successes, and those people donate over the years, with bigger gifts at certain milestones. It is a soft expectation. It is a norm, not a requirement. Some don't feel it. I do. And the consequence of people who do join that long train of donors is that Harvard has the money to maintain its independence and integrity. It owes a debt to the people who have donated over the years and who believe that Harvard stands for something.
Harvard brings to the table: the credibility that comes from holding a position of visibility and distinction. Trump can squish underfoot a man like Kilmar Garcia who the federal government has illegally sent to a foreign hell-hole prison. Trump and his cabinet chuckle about it publicly. Trump is doing something popular, at least with his MAGA base, by being cruel and dismissive of a "nobody." (Christians should pause a moment at that. Jesus taught that there are no "nobodies.") Harvard isn't a nobody. It has resources.
Back in 2021, at my 50th reunion, I had no knowledge that Trump would do this, but I considered something like this a possibility. I wanted to be part of the financial foundation of an institution that can stand up to a president who refuses to obey the law. I considered myself one of the "ten thousand men of Harvard" a phrase in a song that gets sung at football games.
Ten thousand men of Harvard want victory today. . .
And when the game ends, we'll sing again. . .
Illegitimum non carborundum.[Translation: Don't let the bastards grind you down.]
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19 comments:
Maybe it's better to say, "A president who makes his own law," instead of "...who refuses to obey..." How long does Harvard plan to hold out? Will Harvard find another source of funds to pay the doctors at the hospital while it stands up to President Trump? How is this going to work in Harvard's favor, as a practical matter?
Politically engaged and passionate youth trying out methods of political persuasion created tent cities and physical obstructions on behalf of Palestine. This created some irritation by people inconvenienced, …
People weren’t just “inconvenienced”. Jewish students were threatened, spat upon, and prevented from freely moving around on campus. A hostile environment for Jewish students was created.
There’s a name for that: antisemitism
But since Jews are considered to be white oppressors by the intersectional left-wing woke ideology that pervades American campuses, there was little to no sympathy for them. In some cases, Jewish students targeted by this were advised to seek psychological counseling to help them cope.
Since 10/7, Jews have experienced a massive failure of solidarity at the hands of the liberal left they thought they were part of. It’s been quite the wake-up call.
I don’t like everything Trump does, but I’m enjoying watching the hammer come down on institutions whose left-wing blinders made them oblivious to (and complicit in) the persecution of their Jewish constituents.
Agree with the editorial decision to revise and tone down the characterization of the Kilmar Garcia deportation imbroglio. "Immoral" was arguably overheated.
The Salvadoran national, an illegal immigrant, was deported to his own home country after two U.S. judges in 2019 approved removal and a foreign gang connection.
He'd forestalled removal only by claiming danger at home from another Salvadoran gang. His deportation's illegality springs only from El Salvador as the destination.
The "nobody" is now a national legacy media and Democratic cause celebre. His family here already has a few hundred thousand dollars in donated resources. Stay tuned.
My mother was Jewish and grew up in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. She passed away in 1998. She was a very passionate anti fascist. She was appalled at the anti Palestinian policies of some Jews in her lifetime and would probably have joined in the protests against the Jewish states genocide against Gaza today. She could hardly be called “antisemitic”. To be disgusted with the policies of the present Jewish state government is not antisemitism. There were many Jews who joined these protests. I have relatives in Israel who are similarly disgusted with their government’s actions.
If “Anonymous” is actually being truthful here, he or she represents only a tiny minority of Jews.
And if Israel had actually been conducting a “genocide” in Gaza since 10/7/23, there would now be no living Palestinians in Gaza.
Hamas hides behind and under Palestinian civilians, using them as human shields. Hamas bears the responsibility to the harm suffered by those human shields. Israel makes enormous efforts to avoid harm to those human shields while still being military effective against Hamas.
Calling Israel‘s military campaign against Hamas a “genocide“ is a vicious act of antisemitic propaganda.
You conveniently overlooked one small detail:
The federal judge presiding over his case has said Mr Ábrego García has no criminal record in the US or El Salvador, and has called the gang ties "a singular unsubstantiated allegation".
Pro-Israel students have a right to be outraged over the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis and Pro-Palestinian students have a right to be outraged over the Israeli response that has killed 50,000 Gazans – and counting. But Trump’s demands of Harvard are purely ideological, as in White Wing Whacko. They have more to do with targeting ideas that aren’t in agreement with Trump’s than with keeping anybody safe.
A criminal record is not dispositive. My understanding (such as it is) is that Illegal presence alone is sufficient for removal. On the gang affiliation, two other federal judges ruled as I noted already.
Personally, I do not believe Trump cares one way or the other about antisemitism. It seems to be merely a hot-button issue or an excuse for him to target elite universities, which he perceives as bastions of thought and reason. As you form your opinion, consider how he continues to employ distractions to seize control of any opposition to his grip on power.
Probably around half of the Gazans killed by Israeli action were Hamas fighters. Killing the enemy is what you do in war, and they started it.
Student outrage over Israeli action against a terrorist aggressor is misplaced, and a result of the woke intersectional propaganda they have been subjected to courtesy of their leftist educational institutions.
Criticism of the Israeli military's wanton slaughter is no more antisemitic than criticism of Hamas is anti-Muslim. Anybody who thinks Israel makes any effort not to harm civilians need only look at the data and see the pictures of the rubble that is now Gaza to disabuse themselves of that illusion.
Wrong. The only way to hit Hamas was through those human shields, under those buildings. Who created that situation? Hamas.
Calling what the Israelis did “wanton slaughter“ is just as vicious a lie as accusing them of “genocide“.
According to court records from 2019, an informant identified Garcia as a gang member, but there has never been any evidence presented. Nor is there any record of him having committed any crime either here or in El Salvadore, other than crossing the border illegally, which is a piss poor excuse for deporting him to some hell-hole from which he'll never again see the light of day - although I can see how a psychos like Trump and his cult would get a kick out of it.
The Supreme Court ruled that Kilmar Garcia should not have been deported to El Salvador without due process. This is the point that you and the Trump administration appear to be missing. Whatever you think about Garcia or the Supreme Court, they have the last word.
The administrative mistake was acknowledged. No deportation….to El Salvador. Deportation itself? Fine. The error was both minor and, ultimately, procedural. Not “Maryland father” snatched with no basis, as the legacy media has dishonestly or ignorantly cast this. But SCOTUS will tell, eh?
Wrong. Israel has destroyed 92% of the housing units in Gaza, and Hamas wasn't hiding in them. Israel It's pretty obvious that Netanyahu's goal is to make it uninhabitable and then seize the land. Over half those killed by Israel are women and children. Those who weren't killed are being starved. To claim that it's somehow justified or unavoidable is a vicious lie. Even the Israeli military is demanding that it stop.
We may not have all the facts or the skills to fairly judge the legality of Trumps actions around any of these things. The issue here is whether he will abide by court rulings and what will happen when (not if) he doesn’t. According to the SCOTUS ruling about Presidential immunity, I suspect nothing will happen. They might as well all retire because they gave their power and relevance to him.
According to at least one article I read in the Forward, both President Trump and Elon Musk are antisemitic. As for Harvard, are the research contracts cancelled? Is the research supposed to continue, but the government won't pay for it? Whiskey, tango, foxtrot!
LD says the error was minor. Here we have a human being who as far as we know has cause no more harm than LD himself, sent to a hellhole maximum security prison by mistake, and Trump refuses to make any effort to have him released. Trump delights in causing such misery. Those who don't care aren't really any better.
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