Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes
1426 comments
·April 14, 2025kweingar
The aggregate demands of the administration are confusing and contradictory. They seem to be simultaneously asking for:
- an end to diversity initiatives
- a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view
- a new policy of not admitting international students with certain points of view
- ending speech-control policies
- auditing the speech of certain departments and programs
- ending discipline of students who violate policies related to inclusion
- disciplining particular students who violated policies related to inclusion
dspillett
It is easier to understand their thinking when you combine each pair of demands: what they want is reversals, they've just split each into two steps because they think that will be more palatable. It makes it easier to sell to their own base certainly, because they can concentrate on whichever half has the most emotive effect in any given speech, and easier for their base to parrot: they just repeat the half they want and don't need to think about the other.
The end to current diversity policies and the start of others combined is a demand for u-turn: stop allowing the things we don't like, start allowing the things you were stopping.
Same for speech: stop auditing the speech we want to say, start auditing the speech you were previously allowing.
And so on.
In the minds of the administration it makes sense, because they think of each item separately where there is conflict and together where there is not. Such cognitive dissonance seems to be their natural state of mind, the seem to seek it.
Much like their cries of “but what about tolerance?!”¹ when you mention punching nazis. They want the complete about-turn: LBTQ out, racism/sexism/phobias in. You are supposed to tolerate what they want you to tolerate, and little or nothing else.
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[1] My answer there has often become “you didn't want tolerance, you specifically voted against continued tolerance, what you voted for won, intolerance is your democratically chosen desire, who am I to deny the will of your people?”.
fransje26
Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
[..] The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time [..] was that it might all be true. If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?
[..] It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'fuzztester
The quotes seem to be from the famous book "1984" by George Orwell. We had it in English literature class in high school.
There are some other famous quotes from that book or one of his other famous books, "Animal Farm".
Writing from memory and googling, so may be wrong:
"Some people are more equal than others."
The society that Winston finds himself in puts forth the slogan, "War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength." The meaning of this phrase is to force confusion upon the members of the Party. It is a form of propaganda, or misleading information typically given by a political party.
According to the article, the original version with "2 + 2 = 5" suggests complete submission to the oppressive regime, with the protagonist's mind being irreversibly altered.
Technically part of the Ministry of Love, Room 101 is the most feared place in all of Oceania and Winston learns far too well that it is here that the …
What is the final message of 1984? … a warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and the ability of a repressive regime to manipulate and control individuals to the point where they betray ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
Animal Farm is even more creepy than 1984, going by my memory, which may be wrong, since it is quite some years since I read both those books.
varelse
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NoImmatureAdHom
"Men and women are the same, it's all 'socially determined'"
"There are no differences between groups of humans no matter how you divide them"
"Everyone is a blank slate, it's all circumstances"
"Sex and gender are orthogonal concepts"
Under the previous regime, who started this bullshit since we ended it with McCarthy, questioning any of these would get you fired in academia.
belorn
I am strongly reminded of my own governments (Sweden) attempts to introduce diversity programs into the school system, only to have each attempt ending in the court system that then finds the programs as discriminatory. In a few examples where they then went and tried to circumvent the anti-discriminatory laws, those attempts tend to favor the wrong demographic and get canceled shortly after. The very concept of favoring or hindering one demographic over an other in terms of grades or admissions are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which is the basis for those laws. It is somewhat understandable why politicians tries to work around laws that protect human rights, but the rulings of the courts are not surprising in the least. For now it seems that most those initiatives has died off with fewer attempts to challenge the courts on this issue.
Strong fundamental laws such as the European Convention on Human Rights exist for a good reason. It prevents political winds from undermining the very pillars that society is built on. It also forces those that want to create exceptions to design their ideas in general form, which has some nice side effects of illuminating contradictions and false premises. If political demonstration on university grounds are disrupting education, then it doesn't matter what political message they are shouting. Either you allow it all, or none of it. If you want to give women higher admission credits in programs where they are a minority, you got to give men higher admission credits in programs where they are a minority. If the consequences of such general rules are not fitting the political winds then the default is return back to the foundation that is human rights.
amy214
the main thing is that it's acceptable, meritorious even, to resent the privileged white male. But a jewish white male, that's racist. Also most white males in the ivies are jewish - the so-called privileged (non-jewish) white male is in fact underrepresented now vs. the general population.
hayst4ck
Authoritarian governments are arbitrary governments, all decisions are made arbitrarily. Consistency is unnecessary. That's the trouble with choosing power as a guiding principle over reason or consent.
zanellato19
Consistency is undesirable, because if everyone is breaking a law, you apply the hammer of justice only if they aren't a friend.
It's one of the best ways to look good to certain people as well,because you can claim to be just following the law.
elliotec
This comment and the parent’s are the best retorts I’ve seen yet to the “these people are just stupid” idea we hear all the time. These “rules” are not calculated and brilliant, and that’s the point. They’re controlling at any angle they want.
thelastgallon
For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.
aitchnyu
Is there any political tool to prevent rampant rule breaking and making the disliked rulebreaker specially vulnerable? Rule breaking is common and apocrypal form of strike involve following the rules to the letter and paralyzing the business. The prevailing principle is "you cant defend yourself by pointing to other rulebreakers" while reality is "its legal if a hundred businessmen do it".
tmountain
The normative government continues to shrink while the prerogative government grows.
thegreatpeter
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UncleMeat
It makes sense if you understand that they aren't focused on general principles. Diversity is bad when it involves non-whites, women, gay people or research involving these groups. Diversity is good when it involves "race realists." Free speech is bad when students are advocating for divestment initiatives. Free speech is good when a professor calls somebody the n-word online.
The goal is white supremacy and antifeminism.
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anonfordays
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viraptor
> Diversity is bad when it involves Whites, men, straight people or research involving these groups.
If you think that's what the "other side" is saying, then you've completely misunderstood what the diversity idea is about. You can't compare one idea with the misrepresentation of the opposing idea. That's just making things up.
InDubioProRubio
The problem is- they are not anti-racist honest. You are either nurture or nature, but if its all nurture, they refuse to discuss that part, compare those parts, work out the problematic parts and compose better societal models. They just idealise, bigott stay quiet and adverse engage only with those who respond civilized. Its all lies and damned lies and statistics.
explodes
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jgyter
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kristopolous
When these people use "freedom of speech" all they mean is they want to say their vile Nazi stuff without people complaining.
mtsr
Also called freedom from consequences. Free speech makes sense in a free society, freedom from consequences does not. Yet that's what they're calling for.
fuckbrownpeople
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A4ET8a8uTh0_v2
Sigh, no. Obviously, just about any argument from nazi immediately gains credibility nearly instantly. It surely approaches the merit of 'think of the children' in terms of its ease of use while maintaining its flag waving functionality.
And no, when people talk about "freedom of speech", it is not about just saying that. It is about saying anything. The problem is, and always has been, people. Why? Because when you defend it, you tend to defend ones that are, at best, edge cases.
pfannkuchen
Nit: race realists tend to agree with the Palestinians. I’m not sure what you’re referring to?
forty
I'm not sure what "agree with the Palestinians" would mean. Like they are not happy with being genocided? I think that would be most people's feeling in that situation, though that doesn't show any proximity in belief, value or principle.
nineplay
The demands of the administration are the demands of a bully who doesn't want your lunch money, he just wants you to know he can take it away at any time.
hnburnsy
"Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."
Any organization is probably in violation of any number of rules and regulations due to the sheer number of them.
ilrwbwrkhv
Just wait till the sniffling Marc Andreessen shows up to explain why this will save his small town brethren.
TimorousBestie
It’s a good strategy. Even if Harvard had attempted to satisfy every bullet point, the govt could still retort that their demands were not satisfied.
amatecha
Like the whole initial excuse for the tariffs on imports from Canada "because of fentanyl" despite <1% of fentanyl coming into the US arriving via the Canadian border https://www.npr.org/2025/02/02/nx-s1-5283957/fentanyl-trump-...
throwaway48476
If you don't measure you can just assume all valies are 0.
disqard
Hmmm, is this akin to what Russia means, when it says "we do not negotiate with terrorists"?
insane_dreamer
Typical mafia technique ensuring perpetual extorsion.
glacier5674
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glacier5674
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whatshisface
They want to have the old system (deliberate bias and vehement denials of there being any "bias,") but working for them, and the way to demand that without describing it is to require all of the results and "forbid," by name only, the necessary methods.
aposm
Nothing they do makes sense until you accept that hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug, for them and their base. They know that what they're asking for is impossible to meaningfully comply with...
reverendsteveii
You see the establishment of separate, unwritten classes of things here, right? It will be a case-by-case basis which of these rules is invoked, that way no matter what happens they're "just following the rules we all agreed to" but they get to hand-select which thoughts are compulsory and which are forbidden.
bretpiatt
With their endowment above $50 billion, combined with Federal plus Non-Federal sponsored revenue at 16% of operating budget, it makes sense to me they just forgo Federal funds and operate independently.
If all 16% is canceled, then they'd need to draw an additional $1 billion per year from endowment at current budget levels.
That would put them above 7% draw so potentially unsustainable for perpetuity, historically they've averaged 11% returns though, so if past performance is a predictor of future, they can cover 100% of Federal gap and still grow the endowment annually with no new donations.
robocat
Republicans Are Floating Plans To Raise the Endowment Tax. Here’s What You Need To Know : https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/2/11/increasing-endo...
Proposed College Endowment Tax Hike: What to Know : https://thecollegeinvestor.com/52851/proposed-college-endowm...
College endowments are typically tax-exempt, but a 2017 law imposed a 1.4% tax on investment income for a small group of wealthy private universities. A new proposal seeks to increase the endowment tax rate to 14%
proposing an 8.6 percent tax hike
hnburnsy
>A new proposal seeks to increase the endowment tax rate to 14%
That would be great that Harvard pays %14 on investment income on its 50 billion fund, considering I pay a minimum of 20% on my 'way less than $50 billion' in taxable investments, which was funded by my already taxed earnings, where as Harvard gets much of its endowment funds gifted to it.
deepsun
But I don't understand why 14%? It should be the same as you, 20%.
Same goes for religious organizations, but it would be extremely hard to enforce, as they might say "government is interfering us practicing our religion", as practicing religions helps to not pay taxes and protected by the Constitution.
glompers
People already paid their taxes on all of the principal before they donated it to fund education. You and I are not chartered as an educational endowment; things like Roth IRAs exist for us.
yieldcrv
if your argument is "but they're not getting screwed equally" then its a completely flawed argument benefiting the government
you should be questioning why you are getting screwed at all. it doesn't solve the government's revenue problems or even make a dent.
qwertygnu
holy shit dog, you make over $533,000???
Brian_K_White
"funded by my already taxed earnings"
Why did you even try that? Blew your whole argument.
JumpCrisscross
Eh, colleges were originally religious institutions. (Harvard was founded to train clergy [1].)
Converting the Corporation to Harvard Church is about the least shenanigany thing I could think of in this tale.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_University
abirch
This is genius. Next up, Apple could easily convert into a church with its many disciples.
blitzar
If they become a church they will have to buy private jets for the faculty.
adfm
No skin in the game, but curious to know why any Republican would want to raise taxes. Is this some sort of power play like the tariffs? Feels like they’re ghost riding the economy for the lulz.
mmooss
They don't care about taxes - they are happy to implement regressive taxes that disproportionately burden the middle class and poor, such as sales taxes, Social Security, etc. They just don't want to pay taxes themselves.
pjc50
It's about punishing their enemies.
> Feels like they’re ghost riding the economy for the lulz
Yes. The abstract of "the economy" doesn't matter. The priorities are "owning the libs" on Twitter and other media, and their own personal bank accounts which can benefit from insider trading the tariffs, state-sponsored memecoins and so on.
soundnote
Easy, Harvard is essentially a training center for their ideological enemies on top of providing an actual education. They're just putting the boot down and saying stick to teaching instead of implementing and advancing a specific ideology. If taxes are the tools, so be it.
onlyrealcuzzo
LoL - why it makes any sense to do this for universities and not billionaires is beyond me, but I'm sure half the country can explain it to me like I'm 5.
Braxton1980
The current admin is openly anti-intellectual.
Edit:
"We need to attack the universities in this country"
"The professors are the enemy"
Specific clip https://www.reddit.com/r/ABoringDystopia/comments/1ichg58/ya...
If you want the full speech it's on YT so if you reply with "context" you should back that up
gaze
if you hate universities it makes obvious sense
aikinai
I’m not half the country, but I can explain it to you. Billionaires already pay tax on investment income. Universities are exempt but now the proposal is that they pay as well, just like individuals (including billionaires) and other profit-making groups.
VincentEvans
… or churches
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radicaldreamer
Politics of resentment where elite colleges and universities are unjust scams and billionaires are just the pinnacle of self actualization.
pqtyw
Doesn't this tax only apply to "net investment income"/realized gains? Billionaires technically already have to pay it at a higher rate. And well they generally do? I mean when they personally actually sell stock and or receive dividends and interest.
WalterBright
Billionaires do pay income tax on investment income.
__jl__
I think the 9 billion is very misleading. More than half goes to hospitals affiliated with Harvard. I am not sure but I don't think they get anything from the endowment. The impact of loosing this money would be very uneven across different parts of the university and hospitals affiliated with it.
The faculty of arts and science would be fine. Yes, some cuts, a hiring freeze etc. The med school and public health school would feel a big impact. They employ so many people on "soft money" through grants including many faculty members.
The hospitals are a different story and I am not sure why they are even lumped together.
tootie
Yeah this isn't purely a question of Harvard's P&L being dependent on subsidies. The money in question is grants attached to specific practices or research. The money isn't just gratuity for Harvard being so great, it's awarded for specific objectives that Harvard was deemed capable of delivering. Cutting off the money isn't going to hurt Harvard, it's going to stop all the programs the grants were funding.
wmf
Stopping those research programs is a choice. They could also choose to pay for them out of the endowment.
acmj
People here have little idea about how Harvard works. Harvard is financially vulnerable. It is currently running on a deficiency considering the endowment. And Harvard can't freely use most endowment for personnels anyway. If the government takes away funding, Harvard will have a financial crisis. I guess the leadership made the decision in hope someone could stop the government before bad things happen but when bad things do happen, you will probably see mass layoffs of researchers in particular in life sciences and biomedical research.
aoki
I mean, we literally just saw what happened at JHU when their USAID funding vanished. Everybody on that soft money got laid off.
That’s what makes stands like this hard for admin: you’re risking massive layoffs in the programs that are often the least political to defend the academic freedom of the programs that are often the most political. Columbia made one decision. Harvard is making another. You could make Lord Farquaad jokes here, but if it alone loses its federal funding in these expensive research areas, it will lose its preeminence in those areas for a long time.
acmj
I guess Harvard saw the decision at Columbia made the situation worse [1], so they decided to make a different one.
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-freezes-all-rese...
saagarjha
Some universities should make sacrifices for academic freedom, yes. That's what they are there for!
janalsncm
This might be true for Harvard, but I don’t think free speech should only be for those who can afford it. I know my school couldn’t if the government came knocking.
silexia
Harvard is free to say whatever it wants and operate without government funds. A shocking idea may be for a school to actually use the tuition paid by students to educate them.
This is forced speech for all those of us who disagree with Harvard's politics and yet have our tax dollars sent to support it anyways.
NovemberWhiskey
That’s a very odd perspective.
Could you explain how government research funding constitutes forced speech?
If an individual who receives a government tax credit (say EITC) speaks out contrary to your politics, is the government allowed to withhold that credit too?
ericjmorey
1st Amendment is more important than you not liking a specific spending of government funds.
rurp
Somehow I doubt you would apply these same principles to someone who doesn't believe in police and objects to their taxes being used to fund them.
tacticalturtle
I posted this deep in another part of this discussion - but the majority of the money being discussed here isn’t really for Harvard or educating its students - the largest portion are for NIH grants funding to Boston area hospitals, most of which have affiliations with Harvard Medical School.
> The Crimson analyzed the proposed Trump administration funding cuts and estimated that the five hospitals’ multi-year commitment from the NIH is over $6.2 billion and the University’s multi-year federal research funding exceeds $2.7 billion.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/4/funding-review-h...
I’m sure that you have legitimate issues with politics at Harvard, but penalizing a number of independent non-profits that serve the community because they associate with a University that the administration disagrees with also seems to be forcing speech.
jakeydus
That's just how government works, buddy. I disagree with my tax dollars being spent to shoot wild horses and fund Lockheed-Martin, but here we are. It's not forced speech, because you have representatives who (in a working system) you could ask to fight against tax dollars being spent on something you dislike. You have a voice, you just don't get to have the only voice.
throwway120385
Okay, disband all of CBP and then we can talk.
iAMkenough
Just watch what happens when they exercise their Constiutional right to "say whatever it wants."
Stephen Miller made it clear this morning: "Under this country, under this administration, under President Trump, people who hate America, who threaten our citizens, who rape, who murder, and who support those who rape and murder are going to be ejected from this country."
If the government decides you "hate America" or your business supports some hypothetical rapist/murderer they imagined, you're going to end up ejected from this country without due process.
GuinansEyebrows
i disagree with you but i still think you should be allowed to drive on public roads and access publicly-funded health care that are funded by my tax dollars.
gruez
This article lists out why it's not good of an idea as you think.
>Universities’ endowments are not as much help as their billion-dollar valuations would suggest. For a start, much of the money is reserved for a particular purpose, funding a specific professorship or research centre, say. Legal covenants often prevent it from being diverted for other purposes. In any case, the income from an endowment is typically used to fund a big share of a university’s operating costs. Eat into the principal and you eat into that revenue stream.
>What is more, eating into the principal is difficult. Many endowments, in search of higher income, have invested heavily in illiquid assets, such as private equity, property and venture capital. That is a reasonable strategy for institutions that plan to be around for centuries, but makes it far harder to sell assets to cover a sudden budgetary shortfall. And with markets in turmoil, prices of liquid assets such as stocks and government bonds have gyrated in recent days. Endowments that “decapitalise” now would risk crystallising big losses.
More worrying is the fact that the federal government can inflict even more harm aside from cutting off federal funding:
>the Trump administration has many other ways to inflict financial pain on universities apart from withholding research funding. It could make it harder for students to tap the government’s financial-aid programmes. It could issue fewer visas to foreign students, who tend to pay full tuition. With Congress’s help, it could amend tax laws in ways that would hurt universities.
hnburnsy
>...much of the money is reserved for a particular purpose
I would assume that a tax on an endowment would be like a capital gains tax, i.e., taxed on the investment growth. Is the growth 'reserved for a particular purpose'?
gruez
It's reserved because the donation was earmarked for a specific purpose (eg. a business program or whatever), not because they reserved 30% on tax owing.
>Is the growth 'reserved for a particular purpose'?
It's probably safe to assume donors are competent enough that such glaring loopholes don't exist. After all, the concept of endowments being used as long term savings, rather than spent immediately, isn't exactly a new concept. Failing to take this into account would mean any earmarks are void after a few decades.
firesteelrain
It’s never a guarantee when it comes to government funding. It can come and go at any time. Take the politics out of it, Harvard has been operating at risk with this funding source for some time.
forrestthewoods
if a $50,000,000,000 endowment can not be used to smooth things over in times of need or turbulence then the endowment managers need to make changes.
You can not possibly convince me that Harvard’s endowment doesn’t trivially have one year of liquidity in it.
I’m sure it’s not structured to handle a 7% annual draw down for the next 30 years. But it’s got plenty of time to restructure if needed.
crazygringo
The point is, it's eating your seed corn.
Spending a billion of it is not just spending a billion. It's spending the many billions it was meant to provide, in interest, over the next decades.
It's extraordinarily expensive to spend it directly, as opposed to spending the income it generates.
You can certainly do it, in a true emergency. But you certainly don't want to make a habit of it.
pc86
Not to mention all those legal covenants have another party to them - they're not written in stone. I'm sure a good number of them would be willing to considering loosening legal restrictions if it would really help.
beerandt
They made a big fuss a few years ago about what I read imo as over investing in foreign farm land, esp south America and Africa. Which seems to have completely flopped, if not yet realized.
At this point, you really do have to question whether each university hire was merit based or not, including the fund managers.
Finnucane
To some degree it already has been. After the economic genius Larry Summers paid for the Allston campus expansion with some dodgy loans that blew up in their faces during the 2008-9 financial crisis, there was some attempt to reform the endowment, back off some risky investments, and build up more of a free-cash emergency fund. This actually paid off during the Covid lockdowns, which the university was able to weather without too much disruption.
The other oddity of Harvard's endowment is that each school at the university basically has it's own fund--so that for instance, the Business school and the Law school don't have to worry about money the same way that FAS (the main undergraduate school) does.
Obscurity4340
He's not gonna be happy they can operate financially without his assent
bilbo0s
He still controls the congress, the white house and the supreme court. So he could potentially pull a completely illegal fast one and freeze their accounts. Since rule of law seems on fairly shaky ground right now in any case.
alabastervlog
He may issue an EO against them similar to the ones he's successfully used to bring major law firms he doesn't like to heel: ban consideration of former Harvard employees (... maybe also graduates?) for Federal jobs, revoke clearances held by anyone employed by Harvard, and ban them from Federal property. Maybe with some other creative terms thrown in to mess with universities in particular.
JumpCrisscross
> he could potentially pull a completely illegal fast one and freeze their accounts
Harvard (and most institutions and powerful individuals) would be smart to maintain liquid assets and a bank account outside America’s control.
qingcharles
I mean, it turns out the fed has the power to pull any money from any account they wish, at any time, like they recently did with NYC.
benrapscallion
Harvard affiliated hospitals are dependent on NIH funding for survival. Wonder if they are included in the scope of this.
mikeryan
NIH falls under HHS, and the HHS acting general counsel was a signatory on the original letter.
That said, affiliated hospitals are not owned or operated by Harvard.
The affiliates could be pushed to drop their affiliation if NIH wanted to play hardball with Harvard.
benrapscallion
According to NYT, “ of the $9 billion in federal funding that Harvard receives, with $7 billion going to the university’s 11 affiliated hospitals in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., including Massachusetts General, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.”
inglor_cz
They could also possibly fire some administrators. Not every vice-provost out there is strictly necessary.
Just a few years ago, Harvard Crimson carried an op-ed complaining about the bloat:
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/11/29/anderson-burea...
inglor_cz
Cannot edit my original comment, because I wrote it 16 hours ago, but I am somewhat surprised by the fluctuating up/downvote count, going from 0 to 6 and back.
It seems that the very idea that some employees in academia might be superfluous is very disagreeable for some HNers.
Why? Institutional bloat is a well known problem, it happens in private sector, public sector, churches, military, wherever you can think of. It probably already happened in Ur and Nineveh. Why should academia be somehow immune from this problem?
And if it is not immune, shouldn't it try to do something with it?
There was a massive increase in tuition in the last generation or so. How much of that extra money goes to the core mission of the universities, and how much is spent on "nice to have extras", starting with opulent campuses and ending with "Standing Committees on Visual Culture and Signage"?
Everyone has to trim the fat down a bit from time to time. Even Google and Meta. Why not Harvard.
oldprogrammer2
People are reflexive. In a different context, driven by someone else, many of the people currently defending Harvard would instead be pointing out that Harvard and the other elite institutions are part of "the problem". In general this year, it's been interesting to me to see Republicans become protectionists and Democrats become neoliberal free traders, both parties flipping their talking points to either align or disagree with Trump.
kashunstva
From the United States government letter to Harvard: "Harvard must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious and immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension."
So if a student has, say, an immunodeficiency syndrome and wears a mask to protect their health during the riskier seasons of the year, they would face dismissal from the university? (Or worse - whatever that is - according to the letter.)
This is how we know that the Republican party has no interest in freedom as the word is conventionally defined.
Loughla
They want freedom for themselves. They're free to impose their will on others without judgement. That's the purpose.
tines
I wrote this on another thread recently, reposting here:
Things started to make more sense to me once I realized that by nature, human beings hate freedom and love tyranny. Once you accept this, it all falls in place. Deporting citizens to foreign prisons? Sounds great. Incoherent foreign and economic policy? Love it. Freedom of the press? Who needs it! Destruction of democracy? Own the libs! Legalize bribery of foreign officials? Even the playing field! And finally, words don’t need to mean anything because they are simply evocations intended to stir up certain emotions. They are more akin to a hunter’s duck call. The hunter doesn’t speak duck and doesn’t care whether that sounds he’s making have any meaning, he simply makes noise and looks for a result. Not getting the desired result? Just change the noise a little.
This is why democracy will eventually fail and autocracy will rise in its place. And no one will ever learn.
nsingh2
Seems like this could also be explained by short memories. Most westerners, me included, have never lived through true tyranny, we don't know the signs and probably are just too comfortable coasting along, thinking what we have now won't suddenly disappear [1].
We can read history, but it's nothing compared to actually living through it. And I think most American voters don't know their history, and don't bother to inform themselves either, which makes things much worse.
0xbadcafebee
Autocracy, or some form of it, has been the dominant form of governance throughout the history of human civilization. That's not gonna change just because we got Apple watches. Democracy was a really nice experiment, but it's over now.
EasyMark
The current regime in Washington is clearly fascist, there is nothing democratic at all about them. They want to banish Americans to foreign concentration camps for torture, he said that just before his interview with the El Salvador President who is hosting at least one of said concentration camps. Yet the media says little.
Papirola
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martin82
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Fraterkes
Do you have a source? You can have mine: https://www.phc.ox.ac.uk/news/comprehensive-review-confirms-...
Vilian
Dumbass
NoImmatureAdHom
A "comprehensive mask ban" would presumably include exceptions for people who are immunocompromised, actively sick with an upper-respiratory infection, etc.
Steelman, don't straw man.
EasyMark
"presumably" is carrying a lot of water here. For instance women are bleeding out in Texas parking lots because doctors are afraid to give abortions even on women who could potentially die from complications because it's not a sure thing. This is the MAGA mentality
chneu
That's open to interpretation. That's the problem. We've seen how Republicans treat anything that deals with nuance.
NoImmatureAdHom
I mean...the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is really clear, and the Democrats have weaponized it to help the constituencies they're pursuing. Whether that's morally correct or not is beside the point, because that's not why the party machine is doing it. They've institutionalized racism and sexism at a scale we haven't seen since the civil rights movement brought merit ("...by the content of their character.") to the fore.
greasegum
It's just words, obviously contradicted by many of Harvard's recent actions, but all I can think is what a fucking lay-up. If only Columbia's administration had half a spine they would have responded similarly.
t0lo
Columbia's administration obviously has no issues silencing free speech and dissent based on their actions though.
bpicolo
Seems like it could mean death for Columbia as a desirable college honestly
t0lo
Probably not, they'll just pump up international student numbers to recoup and basically gut the domestic student experience. There's near infinite demand for American universities overseas even now.
EasyMark
they probably don't have a $50 billion endowment to weather Dump's petulance.
bhouston
> all I can think is what a fucking lay-up
I am nervous about the US right now. So many cases are going to end up at the Supreme Court that is controlled by conservatives. It may not be the lay-up you think it is.
Also what happens if Trump just decides to ignore a court loss as he did with the recent deportation of Kilmar Garcia?
janalsncm
I don’t agree with Roberts but he isn’t a hack. For what it’s worth, he also went to Harvard.
munchler
I think conservative Harvard graduates are among the most eager to impose their will on Harvard. Look at Harvard grad Elise Stefanik, for example.
catlover76
[dead]
Loughla
It will take a majority of states, and their military backing, forcefully overthrowing Trump.
I really hate to be alarmist, but it does feel more and more that we're headed to massive, coordinated state against state violence.
t0lo
Believing that something is inevitable is the first step towards it becoming inevitable. But there feels like there is a momentum in people, and in society as a whole that only ends one way, and we need to release and explore. I don't know if once society gets the "bug" to tear it all down there's any going back.
I feel like we're destroying our societies and getting into wars out of curiosity, and because we've forgotten how it hurts more than anything else.
intended
Or you could find illegal conduct for congress people, have them sued in criminal courts, and then hold elections to elect people (republican or democrat) who will make congress function as it is meant to.
Perhaps someone can provide security services to republican congress people who are threatened with violence if they dont toe the line, so that they are safe enough to stand up to trump. (This is an actual reason given for their cowardice)
munchler
From a geographic standpoint, the conflict isn’t state vs. state this time around, though, it’s rural vs. urban. Blue cities in red states. Red counties in blue states. Not very conducive to conventional military conflict.
Sabinus
Perhaps. The Courts and the Legislature have yet to defend their powers, but the crunch point to do so is approaching. When we get past the stage that they have fully capitulated to Trump then it'll get truly ugly.
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petesergeant
The biggest irony here is that after Roberts, the justices Trump appointed are the conservatives most likely to do the right thing. Gorsuch and Barrett are fine justices (even if they have opposing views to mine), Kavanaugh could be worse. Hopefully he doesn't get to choose another one or we'll get another Alito or Thomas.
arp242
So first they demand "Merit-Based Hiring Reform" and "Merit-Based Admissions Reform", and then it continues to demand "Viewpoint Diversity in Admissions and Hiring".
I can't even engage with these levels of cognitive dissonance. Or bad faith. Or whatever it is.
saalweachter
Never mistake a man's rhetoric for his principles.
jdthedisciple
If you genuinely cannot distinguish the two then that's about equally as bad as cognitive dissonance:
Phenotype diversity != Viewpoint diversity
The former is what current academia and DEI focus on, the latter is what the administration demands.
Does this simple logic need to be expressed in Rust for HN folks to wrap their mind around it?
enaaem
I have never been a "woke" person, but Trump really makes me doubt the meritocracy argument. If Trump was a black woman he would never get away with half the things he is doing now.
mtalantikite
As others have pointed out to you, "woke" is just from AAVE, meaning to be awake to the racial prejudices and social injustices of the world. Leadbelly used it at the end of his "Scottsboro Boys" [1] in 1938, and it likely was in use many years before that. Erykah Badu's "Master Teacher" also uses it prominently, which probably helped bring it out of AAVE into more mainstream use [2].
Anyway, that's all to say I find it sad and funny that people are all up in arms about being "woke" these days. It's like stating "I'd prefer to be ignorant".
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrXfkPViFIE&t=249s
[2] whole song is great, but I forgot about this second section of the song: https://youtu.be/Dieo6bp4zQw?si=fCPJpWIbQV_g5yx3&t=203
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nailer
> "woke" is just from AAVE, meaning to be awake to the racial prejudices and social injustices of the world.
Yes, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a democracy that serves the people of Korea.
Sometimes expressions have meaning beyond what advocates for the related concepts claim. For example, as I’m sure you are aware, ‘woke’ viewpoints repeatedly advocate for racial discrimination in American universities.
baked_beanz
You have come to the realization that systemic racism exists, and it grants privileges to the dominant socioeconomic groups. Congratulations, you are now "woke"!
That's what the term originally meant, before it was turned into a strawman for "anything I don't like" by the conservative media machine and weaponized to divide people.
insane_dreamer
> If Trump was a black woman he would never get away with half the things he is doing now
If Trump were a black woman (or man), he would have never survived the release of the Hollywood Access tape and therefore would have never gotten elected.
koolba
Yes a black man can only (politically) get away with something less risque like smoking crack cocaine on video during an FBI sting:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/local/fbi-video-of-unde...
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overfeed
> If Trump was a black woman he would never get away with half the things he is doing now.
It sounds like you're aware of the present reality of race and how it impacts how one is treated in America just for being who they are.
> I have never been a "woke" person
I have news for you!
Edit: to be clear, I'm certain you don't match the the adversarially bastardized caricature of what a "woke person" is, but it sounds like match the original, well-meaning definition.
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NoImmatureAdHom
It's not cognitive dissonance, or bad faith. Of course.
If you let Harvard do "merit-based hiring", they'll move a little in the direction of actually complying with employment law, but not much. If you institute a regime such as the one that existed for race and sex for decades (i.e., if you don't have "enough" black people, you need to show how your recruitment pipeline means that's necessarily the case, like not enough get the required type of degree), you'll get much better compliance.
sys32768
Harvard admitted it needs to "...broaden the intellectual and viewpoint diversity within our community..."
This is a no-brainer considering only 2.3% of their faculty identifies as conservative.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/5/22/faculty-survey-...
pesus
How is this a no brainer? How many of their faculty identity as believers in a flat earth? Are we concerned about that viewpoint being underrepresented as well?
fisherjeff
Well, 2.3% of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. I would bet that, say, the business school has a slightly different makeup…
NoImmatureAdHom
We're talking about going from 2.3% to maybe 13%. And this isn't a reflection of attitudes among people who are potentially employed there, it's a reflection of overt, rigid filtering on the basis of political beliefs.
BobaFloutist
And I bet that the % of their faculty that identify as flat earthers is even more egregious!
arp242
So pick one or the other: having a broad representation from many walks of life is important or it's not. You can't mix or match depending on which group you like.
And that is what I'm commenting on. I'm not a fan of Trump's "war on DEI" but if it was applied with some consistency I could take it as a genuine difference in viewpoints. That would be okay. But the movement is railing hard and vitriolic against anything with even a whiff of "DEI" while applying wildly different standards to themselves. This is hard to take as a genuine difference in viewpoints.
const_cast
Conservatives will make observations such as "the most educated people are almost never conservative" and they will conclude that it's not their ideology that may be on shaky grounds, but rather the concept of education itself.
inglor_cz
"Most American academia" !== "most educated people" (much less so if taken globally).
Many Americans would be seriously surprised by the balance of left and right at continental European universities. It is nowhere near as one-sided. And Asian universities are a completely different world.
Generalizing from the extremely lopsided ratios in academia of the Anglosphere to the global educated class is somewhat unreliable.
Der_Einzige
[flagged]
LPisGood
American conservatives are increasingly not grounded in facts and reality. This isn’t partisan, it’s just an observation of reality. I used to identify as a conservative, but they have become less and less grounded as a party.
rstuart4133
> This is a no-brainer considering only 2.3% of their faculty identifies as conservative.
That's true now. It wasn't always true. From: https://www.aei.org/articles/are-colleges-and-universities-t...
- In 1989-1990, when HERI first fielded this survey, 42% of faculty identified as being on the left, 40% were moderate, and another 18% were on the right.
- in 2016-2017, HERI found that 60% of the faculty identified as either far left or liberal compared to just 12% being conservative or far right
Now you say it's 2.3% conservative.
The universities argue they haven't changed, it's the politics of the right. I'd say they are correct as the right now to disavows and ridicules the output of universities on things like climate change, tariffs, vaccines, health, voter fraud in US elections ... well it's a long list. It wasn't like that 30 years ago.
The universities are supposed to be intellectual power houses fearlessly seeking out fundamental truths and relationships, regardless of what the people in power might think of their discoveries. Both sides of politics once celebrated that. Now one side wants to control what types of thought the universities allow, demanding they monitor, snitch, report, and police the on ideas the conservative base don't like. That's directly opposed to how Universities operate. They allow and encourage all types of thought, but insist they be exposed to a torrent of opposing thoughts so only the soundest survive.
Frankly, I'm amazed 2.3% still identify with a mob that clearly wants to undermine that. I'm guessing it will drop to near 0% now.
toofy
that’s the faculty of arts and sciences—is this administration going to mandate university economics and business schools —which likely lean heavily capitalist—demand ideological diversity and bring in more communists?
priyadarshy
The wildest thing I read was:
> Harvard will immediately report to federal authorities, including the Department of Homeland Security and State Department, any foreign student, including those on visas and with green cards, who commits a conduct violation.
Conduct violations at Universities are a pretty broad set of rules at universities and don't necessarily line up with what's legal or not but more with the university's cultural and social norms.
cypherpunks01
Another good one, "Reforming Programs with Egregious Records of Antisemitism or Other Bias .. The programs, schools, and centers of concern include:"
> Harvard Divinity School
> Graduate School of Education
> School of Public Health
> Medical School
> Carr Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School
> Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic
(partial list)
I must have missed the time when the Medical School racked up a record of egregious antisematism.
brigandish
The Crimson, among others, have reported on the allegations.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/8/hms-investigatio...
stevenwoo
Some of those international students with their visas revoked apparently only had traffic violations according to what I read in the Texas Tribune. They are going after any level of law breaking in order to match their stated goal of kicking out criminals, since they are having trouble reaching the numbers promised in campaign speeches.
searealist
> only had traffic violations according to what I read in the Texas Tribune
I don't think that is true. Do you have any examples?
stevenwoo
I misremembered - it was in the source for a sentence in the Texas Tribune article six days ago: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/educatio...
Those are just the ones where they think they have an answer about why. ICE just refused to respond to requests for specifics otherwise.
The article: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/04/09/texas-universities-i...
duxup
From the feds documents they describe the federal government as thought police:
>Viewpoint Diversity in Admissions and Hiring. By August 2025, 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.
Even ICE had a deleted tweet that makes it clear the thought police are active:
https://i0.wp.com/www.techdirt.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/0...
NoImmatureAdHom
I prefer these thought police to the thought police we had previously.
The "diversity" thought police had very strong views about what the only acceptable thoughts were. These people are like, "if we could get it up to 30% that would be a huge victory". Actual diversity in thought at top American universities would be a boon.
snowflakez
[dead]
porphyra
Merit-based admission sounds good to me. Harvard is vigorously defending its "right" to continue to deny admissions to highly qualified Asian applicants out of nothing but pure racism, and somehow they are the good guys?
os2warpman
Merit is not easily definable.
Standardized tests are bullshit, IQ tests are phrenology, class rankings are not comparable across school districts. Someone who was president of every club at school may be less able than a kid who had to flip burgers in the evenings to help make rent.
Merit to a university may mean "someone whose charisma and social connections will bring great repute to the institution" more than "a child prodigy who will burn out at 27 and end up fixing typewriters in his parent's garage because they actually had an undiagnosed mental illness growing up".
Merit may mean "a middling student smart enough to pass who will stick around working as a post-doc temporarily forever because they have no ambition beyond performing slave wage labor in exchange for the cold comfort of the known and familiar".
Any definition of merit is going to be irredeemably faulty. Like recruiting sporting talent based solely on stats without considering if the talent is an asshole who will destroy the atmosphere in the clubhouse and immediately get arrested for DUI after being signed.
I thought we wanted to let the market decide?
The government funding aspect is irrelevant. Nearly every business in the country receives some form of government funding either direct or indirect and they hire based on a wide variety of criteria. I was once hired to a position I would need time to be a productive in because I am a ham radio guy and my boss wanted someone to talk radios with.
impossiblefork
Standardized test reliably predict academic success. IQ tests similarly.
Here in Sweden, if you do well enough on the entrance exam, we simply let you in, even to the best universities. This means that people other than hoop-jumpers have a chance.
kenjackson
Academic success isn’t what Harvard cares about. They want leaders, not kids who are great at “school”.
Put it this way they’d much rather have Roberts or Obama as alumni than your typical 1600 SAT quant.
Whats the best metric to find the people they are looking to educate?
viraptor
> Standardized test reliably predict academic success. IQ tests similarly.
So do home addresses. And skin colour. And parent's money. There are issues with all of those for different reasons. People saying IQ is problematic don't mean there's no correlation at all. Just that they can be culture / approach / etc. specific and we shouldn't treat them as an objective measure.
stackedinserter
If you think that Ivy League cares about academic success, you're out of touch of how US universities work.
jmye
Y'all have a lot of inner city neighborhoods that have been systematically destroyed over decades due to redlining, Jim Crow laws, lynching their inhabitants or just outright burning them to the ground, or is “but we do it in Europe” maybe frequently as stupid a comment as “but we do it in America” and is best kept to one’s self, if one doesn’t actually understand how it might be applicable?
Also, bullshit on IQ tests. They do reliably predict a number of socioeconomic factors, so I suppose they’re a great way to keep the poors out. How very “enlightened” of you.
gazebo64
I fail to see how the lack of a perfect quantifiable metric of merit logically flows down to "stop admitting Asians because we have too many"? Whatever the university's method of determining merit is, it should be applied to everyone equally, and racially discriminating because one group historically performs well is indefensible imo
kenjackson
It’s also not what they’re doing. Seems like you’re arguing against a strawman.
bananalychee
Both standardized tests and IQ highly correlate with success in higher education and career over a lifetime. Harvard's performance and reputation have tanked as a result of its anti-meritocratic policies, and the market is indeed responding, slowly but surely. You are making things up and conjuring nonsensical hypotheticals to deny the evidence that's right in front of our eyes.
chipgap98
> Harvard's performance and reputation have tanked as a result of its anti-meritocratic policies
Do you have data to back this up?
Zamaamiro
> Harvard's performance and reputation have tanked as a result of its anti-meritocratic policies
[Citation needed]
s1artibartfast
Sounds fine, test for those things and admit the best. Or do a random lottery.
Just dont pick and choose students to disqualify based on race.
renewiltord
Yeah, it's like how when they wanted to put in a Jewish quota at the university it was struck down and then they found that the same percentage of Jewish applicants were well-rounded coincidentally so they just stuck to determining if they were well-rounded. Today's folk may call it anti-semitism but really it was just that Jews Were Square.
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brigandish
> I thought we wanted to let the market decide?
That sounds like an excellent reason to remove government funds.
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const_cast
When the "other side" is pretty much evil, yeah, you are the good guys. Like, by default. I would even go so far to say Harvard could do much, much worse and they would still be the good guys.
On a closely related note, you are legitimately out of touch with reality if you believe any part of this is done with the intention of "merit". This is done to strengthen allegiance to MAGA and conservative ideology.
Does that sound a bit scary and fascist-like? You decide. But it's explicitly stated as the goal of this constriction on higher education in Project 2025. So, take it up with them, not me.
Zamaamiro
Merit as defined by an administration whose cabinet is composed of Fox News personalities, DUI hires, and some of the least qualified people for the jobs they were given.
This administration has ZERO credibility to define what "merit" is.
koolba
> Merit as defined by an administration whose cabinet is composed of Fox News personalities, DUI hires, and some of the least qualified people for the jobs they were given.
Are you referring to the defense secretary Pete Hegseth? He also attended Harvard so clearly there's some intersection in how both Harvard and the Trump administration evaluate candidates.
Yeul
Merit is what allowed women and non whites to attend university.
I don't believe for one second that conservatives care much for it.
Vilian
because the answer for the racism against admissions from asians is deny admission and deport everyone that isn't us-american
renewiltord
[flagged]
Bluescreenbuddy
Or maybe there are better applicants than your highly qualified asian applicants. But sure, an Asian canadian came over here, helped kill AA, and nothing's changed. Well done Asian community. You fucked over a tiny fucking minority for nothing.
thrance
Do you seriously believe MAGA has any interest in fair access to education? Or are you just saying that as a disingenuous talking point?
TrackerFF
If the Trump admin could directly control admission, I truly believe future classes would consist of close to 100% far right leaning ("anti-woke") WASP types.
casey2
It really isn't. Harvard used to be a special cultural institution now it's just another research institute. Whoopee, nothing can be special, everything has to all be the same gray sludge cause otherwise it isn't """fair"""
rocqua
Harvard just earned some reputation with me. It was already a place with great research. But now, it is also in institution with actual moral fiber.
hn_throwaway_99
While I agree with this, if you read the letter of demands from the administration I don't think Harvard had any choice. I think the letter was much more egregious than what the Columbia demands were (at least from what I read about the Colombia demands). I think if Harvard had acquiesed it wouldn't have much reason to exist anymore, and I say this as a Harvard alum who took plenty of issue with the direction of the university in recent years.
In contrast, most of the demands I read for Columbia, except for the one about putting the Middle Eastern studies department under some sort of "conservatorship", seemed relatively reasonable to me if they hadn't come from the barrel of a gun and from an administration who has clearly defined any criticism of Israel and any support for Palestinians as anti-Semitism.
palmotea
> Harvard just earned some reputation with me. It was already a place with great research. But now, it is also in institution with actual moral fiber.
I'm not so sure. The Harvard endowment is huge. I might not be so much "moral fiber" as having enough fuck you money that risks don't matter as much as they do to others.
kenjackson
No. This fight will be much bigger than money. It’s true they have money, but this will be a literal fight of academic freedom against authoritarianism.
tines
I guess the nice thing is, the bad guys picked a fight against Harvard Fucking Law.
1970-01-01
More of that! When a mountain of old money is suddenly put at risk, it can easily be mistaken as moral fiber. We will see if Harvard suddenly decides to defend others, or just fend for itself.
apercu
> actual moral fiber.
Maybe? Or maybe they realize that they will lose all future credibility with students, government and NGO's if they bow to the conservative & Christian right?
There are two outcomes for the the current American government situation - a slide in to authoritarianism (it's right there in Project 2025), or these wackjobs get voted out because they are destroying global financial stability.
If it's the former, Harvard eventually has to cave because literal Nazi's.
If it's the latter, Harvard is screwed if they capitulate.
throwway120385
The thing is there's really no choice. The version of Harvard we get if they cave is the same as burning it all down. It would be dead as an educational institution and would only serve to foster the same kind of insane doublethink that leads people to ask for "diversity in viewpoints" at the same time they ask for the removal of the viewpoints they disagree with.
oehtXRwMkIs
I don't know, is it moral to give legitimacy and a platform to someone like J. Mark Ramseyer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Mark_Ramseyer)? Less clear example would be keeping around Roland Fryer.
arp242
I find that very few people and even fewer institutions are consistently always on the right side of things morally, even in very clear-cut cases (never mind that what exactly the "moral thing" is, is a whole discussion in itself). It's probably better to look at the overall pattern rather than a incidents (either good or bad).
I have no opinion on Harvard myself by the way; I don't know enough about it. I'm just saying this is not an especially good criticism.
ghusto
This is the only correct response, but I don't think I'm being overly cynical in thinking they're being opportunistic either.
They're quite happy to turn a blind eye to unfashionable political views being silenced, so there's a pinch of hypocrisy in making such a show of standing for openness.
All in all though, I'm happy to see this.
stemlord
It's my understanding that the issue is not that they're "espousing the right views" but rather that they have the constitutional right as a private institution to espouse whatever views their students and faculty want under the first amendment.
darioush
right, freedom of speech is free as long as it agrees with the viewpoint of who's in power. similar to how history is written by victors but this part is conveniently ignored. it's just facts in the open marketplace of ideas yay!
hn_throwaway_99
I mean, while this is the only correct response, it could still cost Harvard around $9 billion, which isn't chump change, even for Harvard.
And while I agree and have been disgusted with Harvard's slow slide to demanding ideological conformity over the past decade plus (e.g. https://www.thefire.org/news/harvard-gets-worst-score-ever-f...), I believe they have made some belated changes in the right direction over the past year.
pjfin123
The Federal government making funding to a university contingent on them "reforming" specifically named departments whose foreign policy views the executive branch disagrees with (Israel/Palestine policy) seems like a clear violation of the First Amendment.
cma
They are deporting permanent residents for op-eds.
One permanent resident was sent to a concentration camp in El Salvator without due process, none over speech yet that I know of but his was for being spuriously labeled a terrorist.
nailer
My understanding is that racial discrimination is forbidden under title nine at least.
Related ongoing thread: Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684386