Can we talk about the letter from Harvard, and the significance of this letter? Is it a turning point? A tipping point? Pivotal event? A catalyst? Something else?
Tipping Point: The point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change.
Turning Point: A time at which a decisive change in a situation occurs, especially one with beneficial results.
Catalyst: A person or thing that precipitates an event.
Pivotal Event: Of crucial importance in relation to the development or success of something else.
Whatever we choose to call it, or however we choose to think of it, this is an important moment. We need to capitalize on this, make the most of this moment. How do we do that?
New York Times, via Hopium Chronicles
Harvard University is 140 years older than the United States, has an endowment greater than the G.D.P. of nearly 100 countries and has educated eight American presidents. So if an institution was going to stand up to the Trump administration’s war on academia, Harvard would be at the top of the list.
Harvard did that forcefully on Monday in a way that injected energy into other universities across the country fearful of the president’s wrath, rejecting the Trump administration’s demands on hiring, admissions and curriculum. Some commentators went so far as to say that Harvard’s decision would empower law firms, the courts, the media and other targets of the White House to push back as well.
“This is of momentous, momentous significance,” said J. Michael Luttig, a prominent former federal appeals court judge revered by many conservatives. “This should be the turning point in the president’s rampage against American institutions.”
Michael S. Roth, who is the president of Wesleyan University and a rare critic of the White House among university administrators, welcomed Harvard’s decision. “What happens when institutions overreach is that they change course when they meet resistance,” he said. “It’s like when a bully is stopped in his tracks.”
We should all read every word of this letter from Harvard President, Alan Garber
Dear Members of the Harvard Community,
For three-quarters of a century, the federal government has awarded grants and contracts to Harvard and other universities to help pay for work that, along with investments by the universities themselves, has led to groundbreaking innovations across a wide range of medical, engineering, and scientific fields. These innovations have made countless people in our country and throughout the world healthier and safer.
In recent weeks, the federal government has threatened its partnerships with several universities, including Harvard, over accusations of antisemitism on our campuses. These partnerships are among the most productive and beneficial in American history.
New frontiers beckon us with the prospect of life-changing advances—from treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and diabetes, to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, quantum science and engineering, and numerous other areas of possibility. For the government to retreat from these partnerships now risks not only the health and well-being of millions of individuals but also the economic security and vitality of our nation.
Late Friday night, the administration issued an updated and expanded list of demands, warning that Harvard must comply if we intend to “maintain [our] financial relationship with the federal government.” It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner. Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the “intellectual conditions” at Harvard.
I encourage you to read the letter to gain a fuller understanding of the unprecedented demands being made by the federal government to control the Harvard community. They include requirements to “audit” the viewpoints of our student body, faculty, staff, and to “reduc[e] the power” of certain students, faculty, and administrators targeted because of their ideological views. We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement. The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.
The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government. It violates Harvard’s First Amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI. And it threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge. 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.
Our motto—Veritas, or truth—guides us as we navigate the challenging path ahead. Seeking truth is a journey without end. It requires us to be open to new information and different perspectives, to subject our beliefs to ongoing scrutiny, and to be ready to change our minds. It compels us to take up the difficult work of acknowledging our flaws so that we might realize the full promise of the University, especially when that promise is threatened.
We have made it abundantly clear that we do not take lightly our moral duty to fight antisemitism. Over the past fifteen months, we have taken many steps to address antisemitism on our campus. We plan to do much more. As we defend Harvard, we will continue to:
nurture a thriving culture of open inquiry on our campus; develop the tools, skills, and practices needed to engage constructively with one another; and broaden the intellectual and viewpoint diversity within our community;
affirm the rights and responsibilities we share; respect free speech and dissent while also ensuring that protest occurs in a time, place, and manner that does not interfere with teaching, learning, and research; and enhance the consistency and fairness of disciplinary processes; and work together to find ways, consistent with law, to foster and support a vibrant community that exemplifies, respects, and embraces difference. As we do, we will also continue to comply with Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ruled that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act makes it unlawful for universities to make decisions “on the basis of race.”These ends will not be achieved by assertions of power, unmoored from the law, to control teaching and learning at Harvard and to dictate how we operate. The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community.
Freedom of thought and inquiry, along with the government’s longstanding commitment to respect and protect it, has enabled universities to contribute in vital ways to a free society and to healthier, more prosperous lives for people everywhere. All of us share a stake in safeguarding that freedom.
We proceed now, as always, with the conviction that the fearless and unfettered pursuit of truth liberates humanity—and with faith in the enduring promise that America’s colleges and universities hold for our country and our world.
Sincerely,
Alan M. Garber
What happens next is anyone’s guess. What’s your guess?
I think we need a Russian Warship, Go Fuck Yourself moment. Is this it?
We need to capitalize on this, make the most of this moment. How do we do that?
WaterGirl
I know this is a super long post for me – I try to keep them short so they aren’t overwhelming. Maybe you’ll humor me and read it anyway?
Doug R
Who knew that it’d be Harvard first with the elbows up?
J.
About effing time someone with clout stood up to the Orange Clown. Go Harvard! (My stepfather was an alum, taught there for years, and was responsible for the cryptic in the back of Harvard Magazine. He loathed Trump and would be happy to know Harvard stood up to the Orange Clown.) Hopefully, other universities and organizations will follow suit.
eclare
@WaterGirl:
I just finished reading, great post.
I hope Harvard’s decision encourages others to do the same.
Gin & Tonic
@eclare:
Their neighbor just down the river just did.
call_me_ishmael
It is a great letter, but I would have just gone with “I refer you to the reply given in Arkell and Pressdram“
SiubhanDuinne
Are we using the terms “tipping point” and “turning point” interchangeably? The definitions above are identical, but I feel you wouldn’t have offered both terms unless you think there’s a distinction between them.
Xavier
Show up on April 16.
RaflW
“the federal government has awarded grants and contracts to Harvard and other universities to help pay for work that, along with investments by the universities themselves, has led to groundbreaking innovations across a wide range of medical, engineering, and scientific fields. These innovations have made countless people in our country and throughout the world healthier and safer.”
Those innovations have also made many individuals as well as the nation as a whole a lot richer. Heck, a chunk of the wealth of this country can be tied back to the basic science the US undertook for Kennedy’s moon shot!
When the gov’t pays for core science, things that no one company is likely to invest in because profitable returns are too hard to game out in advance, everyone gains (though I’d say that in the years since Reagan fucked our income tax system, too many of the gains flowed up too fast and too far).
Trumpism is murdering the golden goose.
cmorenc
Never thought I would be cheering Harvard University for becoming a key part of the resistance to the establishment.
eclare
@Gin & Tonic:
And that is?
New Deal democrat
@WaterGirl: OK read it (ok ok skimmed the Harvard reply, but I already knew the essence of it) – and MIT has joined them.
Although I can’t find it at the moment, polling out this morning indicates a majority has turned against T—-p even as to his immigration policies.
And several Democratic Congresspeople have asked to join Senator van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador to try to gain Garcia’s freedom.
Beyond that, I think there is a specific leverage point with Bukele: namely, if he fears joining Noriega’s fate the next time there is a Democratic Administration in Washington. I would like to see Democratic Congresspeople and Senators push for a resolution stating that in slightly more polite terms (i.e., foreign leaders who “disappear” people legitimately in the US are designated Unfriendlies who may face criminal charges). It doesn’t matter that it won’t get a majority in either House. The point is to put some fear into Bukele.
schrodingers_cat
The inflection or what physicists like to call a singularity happened when Orange was elected the second time. After his horrific first term, Jan 6 and the race-baiting campaign for President last year. His utter lawlessness was front and center on Jan 6 2020.
I really don’t see an easy way out of the hole we are in. Our earliest chance to right things will come during the mid terms. I am not seeing much action from the universities over deportations of students and scholars. That list has grown to around a 1000 now.
Harvard and the other universities will ultimately fall in line. I have seen this movie before
I will be glad if I am proven wrong.
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
Long?
You sweet Summer Child, you. 8)
New Deal democrat
Also, this morning from The Questionable Authority (anonymous lawyer on Bluesky), summing up my own thoughts as to the recklessness with which the oligarchs and their enablers (including the Supreme Court) are throwing away the Rule of Law:
https://bsky.app/profile/questauthority.bsky.social/post/3lmtewq4cec2k
“I dozed off for a few minutes and dreamed an amicus brief – green covers and all. It was one sentence long: ’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’”
—-
Off topic, but a shout out to YY Sima Qian:
On the subject of the sell-off last week in the US$ and Treasury’s, I have revised my opinion of the cause somewhat. It seems likely that there was one particular sovereign foreign actor involved.
Rather that post a huge long comment, I’ll just link to what I wrote at my economic blog:
https://bonddad.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-us-bond-market-sends-warning-has-us.html
Betty Cracker
Regardless of terminology, I think it’s significant because of Harvard’s prominence, which might stiffen the spines of other university administrations. MIT is also telling Trump to fuck off, so kudos to both.
It’s sort of the inverse of the NYT’s pernicious influence on their industry. The actions of the prestige institutions matter.
WaterGirl
Oops. when I reformatted the top part to take away the black quotes, I accidentally pasted in tipping point twice.
Thanks to eclare for letting me know!
Turning point:
a time at which a decisive change in a situation occurs, especially one with beneficial results.
edit: I’ll fix it in the post itself when I get home from my appointment with Henry. (done!)
edit 2: Thanks to SD, also. eclare had texted me, so I wrote this before I had seen your comment.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: It’s a fine post, WaterGirl. It may be too early to answer these questions but it’s not too early to ask them.
I’ll be watching today for news of Tufts grad student Rumeysa Öztürk’s federal court hearing in Vermont. Her attorneys are asking that she be released on bail.
Ms. Öztürk is being held in a prison near Basile, Louisiana but was able to testify remotely at last Tuesday’s hearing. The judge told her attorneys and the government to submit briefs by last Friday, so I’m hopeful he’ll decide on jurisdiction and the basic question today.
Judge Sessions is a 1997 Clinton appointee who began his legal career as a Legal Aid attorney. That gives me some grounds for optimism; the government will appeal any unfavorable decision but a trial judge’s determination of fact will swing some weight at the next level.
eclare
@call_me_ishmael:
I like Michael Corleone’s response, adapted to FFOTUS
https://youtu.be/wPmTp9up26w?si=Ry23QMnWax7aGz5G
Josie
I was pleasantly surprised to see this from Harvard. I wrote an email to its president thanking him for his stance. Hopefully others will be inspired to follow his example.
kindness
‘Like when a bully is stopped in it’s tracks.’
It’s a very nice notion but you know how many more ‘likes’ a video of Trump getting punched in the face would get?
RaflW
As Maddow notes, one can imagine that Harvard and their joiners also looked at Columbia and said, “Welp, that didn’t work.”
It is ridiculous that a major uni had to FAFO a lesson that has been the case all along not just with Trump, but with any (wannabe) authoritarian or generic bully. You give your lunch money, he just comes back the next day.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: ooh, which neighbor?
exit: ah, MIT
Lyrebird
Thanks, WG!
I confess I figure that answers to this type of question are provided by historians a while later:
It’s a good thing, for sure.
Note: Princeton refused to comply last month (mention in a DKos diary about the Harvard letter)
I don’t think anyone, making their sign, calling their Rep., or telling the Orange Menace “no” in some way, gets to know whether they are doing something pivotal. I do think it’s very important. Those little protests near Wasilla or in rural AK? Will they make much difference? How are we going to know? But they are a big action AGAINST acquiescence. They are different than “okay I guess we have to re-do the whole Bonhoffer learning experience he described so eloquently.”
LeftCoastYankee
I think with the communities mentioned in the first quote (ie the political, legal and media elites) it should be a kick in the pants.
I still think the business community will be last because their MO is me/ours first. Collective action is not a comfortable position for them. But this could be a catalyst to them realizing their self interest and the collective good are aligned.
I don’t think this does much to move the disenchanted orange menace voters directly but if the vibe/tide turns they’ll go with it.
I think we need those folks to be where they understand that impeachment is necessary and is not overturning the will of the people. I’m not saying they’ll become progressive, just that they want the grief and loser stink to go away.
Tim C.
Honestly, I think the best message possible to Republicans at the moment is “Russian Warship, go fuck yourself!” It’s what they are on a metaphorical level.
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
Can Columbia change its mind? It should.
ETA: Grammar
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: maybe I’m super clever and I’m just trying to egg you on into writing something for us? :-)
Belafon
@schrodingers_cat:
Like when New York fell in line after the Fugitive Slave Act was passed? And yes, I know the ultimate outcome of that, but that wasn’t New York’s fault.
No, there isn’t an easy way out. But that’s not the same as no way out.
Scamp Dog
I read the whole thing. I even agreed with it! Kind of impressive, given how skeptical I’ve gotten about our so-called elite institutions. We’ll see if any of this affects the way that the Harvard law school operates, or what its alumni do in our legal system.
rusty
A very good post WG, thank you! Hopefully the Ivies+ all take the same stance. There are only a small number of universities with the endowments sufficient to sustain themselves through litigation on funding, those capable need to do this. As an alum of a rival school, I never thought I would say this, but Go Harvard!
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Marcopolo
Harvard is getting all the attention but there have been some other Unis pushing back. I read somewhere that Rutgers is trying to line up a group of Big 10 schools, Princeton is not complying and there is this:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-universities-sue-energy-department-over-research-cuts/ar-AA1CU1Ld
My alma mater is included in this lawsuit. Anyway, looks like how Columbia has been dealt with—hah, hah, no, you must comply even more—might have been a necessary example for everyone else.
I don’t know if it will matter but the more people & places that fight back the more we put pressure on the administration just to handle all the cases. DoJ does not have unlimited capacity. And no, I have no idea how all the pro bono stuff from quisling law firms will fit into that equation.
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
Touché.
I do want to indulge my rage and clear out the venting tubes, but I’m just so busy at work I don’t seem to find the time. I’m barely keeping the captives in the cellar fed and watered as it is!
Maybe I should just produce a short, bullet-pointed note about UK affairs to keep people informed. Maybe.
(Narrator – This did not happen)
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
The Guardian has a front page article up that Yale has joined Harvard in support. It also mentions that Princeton acquiesced along with Columbia. I hadn’t heard that. If more universities can stand up and push back, maybe it will be a tipping point or a catalyst to other actions.
schrodingers_cat
@Belafon:I was thinking of a more recent example. Modi tried to strong arm universities to toe the RSS line. After some intial pushback they mostly fell in line
But what Harvard is doing is good. Slowing down the buring Orange train is also a small win. Harvard is in a better position to do it than almost any other university.
Tom Levenson
@WaterGirl: From my perch on the faculty at MIT I sometimes refer to our neighbor as the Cambridge Finishing School…but I have to say this letter makes me proud of my alma mater. (And glad that MIT is also on this side of the battle.
dmsilev
Harvard is in a unique position for universities; it’s the oldest and (by far) the wealthiest of the bunch. Arguably the most prestigious. It’s clear that the Trump thugs wanted this fight; their letter last week made demands that were simply impossible to be met, but good on Harvard for not even giving an inch of ground or trying to negotiate.
A bit below the radar compared to the Harvard news, but the other thing which happened on Friday is that the Department of Energy followed NIH by declaring it was cutting “indirect costs” of federal grants to 15%, which is a direct attack on the entire university research system. A coalition of universities and umbrella organizations has already filed a lawsuit, noting that this change flies against established contracts and Federal law dictating how those contracts are negotiated and administered. Oh, and pointing out that it’s a bloody fucking stupid idea beyond being illegal.
cain
I suspect that we are going to see brain drain from academics. It’s not just the attack on free ideas but also grants for research are also being curtailed.
Liminal Owl
@New Deal democrat: Love it!
I posted the relevant movie scene (along with one from Robin Hood) recently.
zhena gogolia
What do you do if somebody shows you a Facebook post in which your hairdresser is showing off her two new dogs, named after two of the most odious figures in the Shithead’s regime?
ETA: And she works out of her house.
schrodingers_cat
@cain: Not everyone can leave. I don’t see where they can all go. Its not like the US has a true counterweight. I am wondering how the states under D rule can resist.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I would change my hairdresser.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I would shave my head.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I think you immediately find a new hairdresser. Tell the hairdresser why you’re leaving and make sure that everyone knows exactly what the current hairdresser is about.
I think I would also phrase it with the current hairdresser in such a way that it’s clear that it’s not about Democrat or Republican. It’s about that you no longer trust her judgment, and you are sad to have discovered that you and she do not share the same values.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Letting your hair grow out is a better option. My hair was waist length during COVID.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: I’ve been with her for 25 years and I hate the way everyone else does my hair. But I guess it’s time. It’s her husband who’s the cult member, but still . . .
@Baud: Thanks for the advice.
debit
@zhena gogolia: find a different hairdresser.
dmsilev
@Marcopolo: My comment just above has a link to the actual legal complaint. Just so that people are aware of what we’re talking about, here are a couple of paragraphs from the brief:
terraformer
This passage in Harvard’s letter is, I think, the primary difference between liberals/progressives and the right/MAGA. They aren’t interested in changing their minds, *ever* and, well, here we are:
eclare
@zhena gogolia:
I would find a new hairdresser. If I went back to her, my blood would boil the entire time I was there.
I think you go to church. See whose cut you like and ask them who they go to.
frosty
@Tony Jay: I LOL’d…. wait this couldn’t be Tony Jay who wrote this. I didn’t have to scroll the screen twice to get to the end!
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: You could first try talking to her. It is possible that you could get through to her since you have had such a long relationship.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Modi didn’t try to trash the Indian economy. Trump doing so might be our salvation.
Bill Arnold
@New Deal democrat:
The advocates for extreme versions of such a fate have been loud on social media. Bukele is a slave trader. So is the Trump administration.
.
Tom Levenson
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): The further south you go in the Ivies the more truckling you get.
Coincidence?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: He did actually with his stupid demonetization.
Tom Levenson
@cain: This.
The brain drain is already happening.
The damage to US science (the source of so much of our wealth and power) is already huge. Much more of this and it will be hobbled for years or decades.
Elizabelle
@terraformer: And then you had morons like the late and unlamented (by me) Villager Tim Russert who were there — see, you said this! Explain yourself, libtard!
I do think we ought to get way better at explaining, succinctly, how the circumstances and facts have changed, and why our responses have changed as well.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Interesting. I thought the Indian economy did well early on under Modi, which is what helped make him popular.
My understanding is that the economy is doing less well now.
lowtechcyclist
@New Deal democrat:
I’ve called Van Hollen’s office to let them know that I am proud to be represented by him.
I’ve called Congressman Hoyer’s office to say that sending people from America to some tinpot dictator’s Third World prison to be punished is a high crime, and it’s time for House Democrats to submit impeachment resolutions to that effect.
Doesn’t matter that there’s no way there’s going to be an impeachment debate, let alone a vote: the resolutions can be submitted, and be discussed at length on the House floor. Hell, on the Senate floor too: just because the impeachment resolution won’t get to the Senate in this Congress doesn’t mean the Senators can’t talk about it.
lowtechcyclist
@New Deal democrat:
Nice one! Props to The Questionable Authority, whoever they might be.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
He is trying to destroy the economy.
The Chinese straight up cancelling those farmer contracts is going to RUIN those farmers. They deserve it because they voted for him, but nothing like losing your family farm that has been in the family for generations to be a good 2×4.
Read last night that China cancelled their Boeing order.
Messing with people’s money has a way of waking people up.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The main driver of Modi’s popularity is that he tells the lies that Indians (especially upper caste and upper caste adjacent) want to hear.
Baud
@rikyrah:
It’s how we got our first and only black president.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Orange 2.0 is not making America great. He is destroying everything that makes this country great.
Jeffro
as I mentioned in the last thread, I can’t understand why anyone would do anything BUT tell trumpov to go fuck himself.
it’s not like he and his evil goons are going to stop once you roll over
(for that matter, it’s not like the tariff insanity and all of its spillover effects on American businesses are going to stop until, at a minimum, Congress reasserts its power over tariff rates)
meaning…the only way out of this nightmare is to beat on Congress to do its job…preferably while telling trumpov to go fuck himself
rikyrah
And, of course, Harvard needs to sue to force the government to fulfill their CONTRACTS.
Scout211
@zhena gogolia: personally, I would talk with her and share your concerns. After 25 years and you loving how she cuts your hair, having different political beliefs (at least for me) doesn’t force me to end a business relationship. If she started talking all through my haircut and spewing her political beliefs, then yes, I would stop seeing her for haircuts.
Even though I live in California, I live in a solid red county and the next county where we have most of our friends and healthcare and other business, is a purple county. If I feel that if people give me good service and don’t push their politics in our appointments, I am fine.
But I am not on Facebook so I am only aware of what people do and say in my presence.
ETA: More clearly, my point is I don’t have the luxury of finding quality professional and service people who share my politics. I go by the quality of their service and the quality of their relationship with me, their customer.
Elizabelle
@Tom Levenson: Catherine Rampell’s WaPost column today:
Gift link:
Trump is killing one of our strongest exports
The president wants to balance U.S. trade deficits? He can’t do it without this industry he hates.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
The tarriffs on the pharmaceutical industry will kill people immediately. 🤔😡
Jeffro
it is HUGELY important that Harvard and MIT stood up to the mango menace…it will give the fascists pause before thinking they can proceed on to the state universities
Elizabelle
In moderation. I put up gift link to a Catherine Rampell column with a multitude of links within.
But it’s on topic: education is a major US industry and export, and The Felon is damaging it badly.
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
Am I the only one getting a bad “Leo Ryan traveling to meet with Jim Jones” feeling about this?
Doug R
@New Deal democrat:
Also, too it puts members of Congress on record for later.
Belafon
@rikyrah: And they, along with Australia, canceled the liquid natural gas orders.
Elizabelle
@Tom Levenson: In event my comment does not make it out of moderation:
Gift link to Catherine Rampell’s WaPost column today on that very topic.
Trump is killing one of our strongest exports
The president wants to balance U.S. trade deficits? He can’t do it without this industry he hates.
Hint: It’s higher education.
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
@Tom Levenson: I’m in Japanese academia. Being responsive to the government is a given. But I thought the US system would be stronger. The number of institutions that have buckled under Trump is truly frightening.
lowtechcyclist
@Tim C.:
Or “Russian puppets, go fuck yourselves.”
The Audacity of Krope
If we’re looking for a way to resist, maybe top Democrats could stop agreeing with Republicans that support for Palestinian rights is anti-Semitic.
Elizabelle
@eclare: Interesting. Danger on a foreign trip.
When the Orange Menace is forcing people to drink the Kool-Aid in this country.
Professor Bigfoot
@WaterGirl: I just got here, and I did (thank you!) and now I eagerly look forward to reading this comment thread.
Whereaway
I generally don’t like Ivy League schools. But – Damn Harvard, keep kicking ass. At this moment, I thoroughly approve.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@cmorenc:
The world’s turned upside down.
bbleh
@dmsilev: It’s clear that the Trump thugs wanted this fight; their letter last week made demands that were simply impossible to be met, but good on Harvard for not even giving an inch of ground or trying to negotiate.
Exactly this. It’s pure kulturkampf for the rubes.
And the Orange people do not care that they’re eating America’s scientific seed-corn — hell, they’re not even eating it, they’re just dumping it out for the birds. They’re Fascists, but they’re the nihilistic strain: burn it all down and then the Leader will raise the glorious New Age from the ashes! And the rubes go along with it because it’s entertaining and they don’t understand how it will hurt them.
So yeah, good on Hahvahd and MIT (AND Princeton, ahem), but whether it will “stiffen spines” of others I have no idea. This will become a grudge-match from which the Orange Guy will never back down — no reason to, unlike, say tariffs on Chinese imports — and I have no idea whether institutions not as wealthy as Harvard will be willing to risk something similar.
Baud
@cmorenc:
Same.
Melancholy Jaques
Ever since I read The Power Elite back in the day, I’ve looked askance at anything political from Harvard or Yale. What we usually get is some defense of the rich & powerful people. So it is good to see Harvard taking on a president who is not a liberal Democrat.
We will have to wait to see if it turns, tips, pivots, or catalyzes anything.
We are just stuck with this asshole unless and until white people turn against him and Republicans generally. He won’t stop, but if enough Republicans think they are going to lose the midterms, they will at least try to slow him down.
We need to identify the vulnerable Republican congress-creatures and start running against them now, every day, every new outrage.
RaflW
@dmsilev: Seeing how Congress reacted to the NIH 10% indirect cost effort in 2017 vs. 2025 is illuminating. In a bad way, of course. In the endless sh*tstorm, I had not realized that this tight capping of indirect costs is a warm-over from 8 years ago. I guess the successful pushback of a less supine Congress back then masked the threats.
Steve LaBonne
@bbleh: Conservative hate science. When reality clashes with their sick ideology, it’s reality that has to go.
Tom Levenson
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): It is.
It should be remembered, though, that US elite higher ed. is actually a tale of two systems: private and public. The publics have to deal with the state government all the time. For those public R1s in red states the difficulty in navigating Trump is compounded by the misrule of their local Gauleiters. The privates have different governance. Still, Columbia should never have attempted to become a fellow traveler.
Doug R
@cain:
It’s happening already:
3 Ivy League scholars plan to leave US and teach in Canada amid Trump administration’s higher education battle
Jeffro
It’s just weird to think that someone would name their two new dogs “Stephen Miller” and “Russell Vought”.
Dogshit, yes. Actual dogs, no.
Steve LaBonne
I have extremely mixed, leaning pretty negative, feelings about my alma mater, but today I am actually kind of proud of being a Harvard alum. That may never happen again!
ArchTeryx
@RaflW: “I have altered the deal. Pray I don’t alter it further.”
I mean, George Lucas got this right. These overpaid, overfluffed university admins need to as well.
Tony Jay
@frosty:
Hey, what can I tell ya, these days I’m a busy, busy man.
But come the Time of Venting. 10,000 words. Infrequent paragraph breaks. Only seven full-stops but commas falling like raindrops on a face of a prison escapee.
Professor Bigfoot
Nominated.
Belafon
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): I doubt there are few education systems anywhere that can stand up to government well. And remember, part of the reason we’re in this mess is too many people think that education is an elitist system.
Dangerman
Better Harvard than me. My letter would be full of 12 letter words, f bombs, gerunds of f bombs (/The Martian and Mark Watney) and otherwise be inappropriate for print except maybe for here.
Taking a break. Running out of soap to wash my mouth out with after one of my tirades. Can’t someone somewhere make some tasty soap (although I guess that defeats the purpose).
Steve LaBonne
@Tom Levenson: On the other hand, back when we still had that thing we used to call “law”, public universities were constrained by the First Amendment in ways that private universities were not.
RaflW
@terraformer: That is still a critical stance to retain in one’s openness to life (and to science, social movements, etc) but in politics, it ends up with some significant failures.
I’m not sure how our leaders and institutions square that circle, but I think in broad terms, the Harvard letter is a good step towards saying “this is our line, crossing it won’t work.”
(The flipside is the terrible waffling I see from Sen.s like Amy Klobuchar, who keep reverting to type and passing Admin nominees. It won’t help anything, Amy. Republicans will still stab you in the back the moment you are unguarded.)
Tom Levenson
@Elizabelle: Yup.
There’s also a ton of incentive now for leading US schools/brands to return to the tactics of the 90s and early oughts and open satellite campuses abroad. Which could help the balance sheets of a handful of top institutions but will offer little to no benefit to the US as a whole. Or to the research that could have been undertaken at the home campuses.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: Seconded.
RaflW
@Dangerman: Swear. Gargle with well-diluted Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap in a variety of fresh, minty or other pleasant flavors, and then swear again as needed.
Professor Bigfoot
@New Deal democrat: holy shit.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
More on China and Boeing:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/15/china-orders-airlines-to-halt-boeing-jet-deliveries-us-tariffs
While the stock’s taking a hit, this piece shows that Boeing’s problems with selling planes to China go back to Hair Furor’s first term:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/15/business/boeing-china-deliveries/index.html
It says Boeing’s been effectively shut out of China’s market since 2019.
Belafon
@Doug R: And while I approve of Snyder leaving, he has preached about having to stand and fight, and well…
Tom Levenson
@Steve LaBonne: True dat.
(NB: wasn’t making a values statement.)
RaflW
@Belafon: While the GOP has been after education for it’s “liberal” effects for a long time, I think that – in a vein similar to Obama becoming president making cons insane – when unis mostly tipped over into greater than 50% women enrollment, the conservative manosphere lost it’s shit. Badly.
Doug R
@schrodingers_cat: He will not pass up any opportunity to not do something when Hindus riot about Muslims.
Pandering to a large “religious” group. Where have we seen that before?
Steve LaBonne
@Tom Levenson: I mean, it really is moot now that the Constitution is a dead letter.
Doug R
@Scout211: I think you’re missing the point. She didn’t have to name her dogs after those odious people. She didn’t have to post that on Facebook. She made a deliberate choice and that’s on her.
Betty Cracker
@eclare: No. I’m worried about Van Hollen too. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) offered to go with him. They’re brave to do so, but it’s not without risk.
lowtechcyclist
@eclare:
I’m sure Sen. Van Hollen is smart enough to not travel without some sort of security.
Also, Bukele has to know that doing any harm to a U.S. Senator would unleash a firestorm. Jim Jones didn’t really have to worry about consequences.
prostratedragon
@tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): The president of Princeton was making nonconcilliatory noises late last week. Has his trustee board pulled the rug from under him? Has he resigned?
Sister Golden Bear
@rikyrah:
More than that, China banned its airlines from accepting any Boeing deliveries, including parts.
No spare parts means that all the Boeing aircraft currently in service by Chinese airlines will eventually be grounded if they can’t do required maintenance.
schrodingers_cat
@Doug R: These “riots” are usually started by RSS affiliated organizations.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: It’s her husband. I don’t think she has any politics at all separate from him.
Gin & Tonic
@Belafon: Snyder has very publicly admired Ukrainians, but it appears he has actually learned nothing from them.
zhena gogolia
@Scout211: But there’s always a moment at the end where I interact with her dogs. Now that she has two named [insert worst Trumpers here], I don’t see how I can continue that.
Doug R
@Belafon:
I know, but we all have to make our own choices and he won’t have much of a voice in an El Salvador gulag.
And an academic leaving may help more students decide to leave too.
lowtechcyclist
@bbleh:
They’re nihilists, and they follow the tenets of National Socialism. It’s a twofer!
Take that, Walter Sobchak!
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro: Haha. Not those two. Two who have very distinctive first names.
Belafon
@lowtechcyclist: I suspect the plane won’t be allowed to land, and there’ll be some noise about Congresspeople trying to interfere with the Executive branch’s authority.
schrodingers_cat
Bingo. We need white elites to turn against him. So good on Harvard.
WaterGirl
@Tom Levenson: It is heartening, even if I have come to realize in recent years that many attorneys who graduated from Harvard were covering themselves in shit as they represented the twice impeached guy.
TaMara
@Tony Jay: So good to see you!
Professor Bigfoot
@zhena gogolia: My last barber was a Hebrew Israelite, and I’d rather cut my own hair than listen to that drivel.
New hairdresser time.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Is it Ivanka and Jared?Who btw are nowhere to be found in the 2.0 version of this train wreck.
suzanne
I vote for “catalyst”. Honestly, I think the influence of the Ivy League is dramatically overstated, but maybe it helps give flagship state universities a spine.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: I would find a new stylist. And if you see her again before you do, ask her “why no love for Elon?”
Those dog names were chosen to be provocative. There can be a cost to that.
Betty Cracker
@lowtechcyclist: Are we sure it would cause a firestorm, or at least one that mattered to Bukele? Trump and Co. would probably applaud if Bukele locked Van Hollen up in that same hellhole. I’m not sure his R colleagues would object either.
Doug R
@Gin & Tonic: Here’s a Timothy Snyder interview with the CBC posted this week:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/on-freedom-timothy-snyder-1.7509105
It’s a radio interview and the story has a transcript.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: If she’s naming her dogs after the FFOTUS henchmen, it’s not just her husband.
She has agency, and she’s using it. Clearly pro-Trump if she’s blasting the names of her new pups on Facebook.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: No, it’s not Ivanka and Jared. I might be able to stomach that. It’s Kash and Tulsi.
Anyway
@zhena gogolia: Elon and Barron?
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Eeww. Is her husband a RWNJ Indian American or something.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: How strange the dogs are named after two Trumpsters of Color. Very interesting.
Doug R
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, but no matter how much Trump wishes, he’s not going to be around forever.
What happens to Bukele then?
Bupalos
I’ll take what I can get but this isn’t quite “Russian Warship Go Fuck Yourself.”
To be that, Harvard would need to explicitly address the government’s actual intent here. The way this was phrased is pretty much “they have some good points about the antisemitism, but go too far and infringe our rights.” The corresponding response to the Russian warship would be “while we have been meaning to demolish some of our dilapidated structures and see your point, you can’t just come in here and dictate how and when that gets done. Unfortunately your shelling violates a principle that is higher than proper building maintenance.”
They didn’t say fuck you or even call bullshit. They more or less did a Bartleby.
But maybe that’s the right approach? Dunno, if so, let 1000 Bartleby’s bloom.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: No, totally WASP.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat:
Not so different from what is happening here.
Doug R
@Elizabelle:
It does fit with supporting Trump AND being racist.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl:
Really good advice, and applicable in many situations.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: Nope. Not at all. RWNJs have a formula, it was perfected in Germany and Italy in the interwar era
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
I think the larger world would notice, and El Salvador would find itself a pariah nation pretty fast.
I think it would also wake up a lot of normies here into realizing that things have gone much further than they’d realized. And only the serious MAGAts would want to see the U.S. kicked around by the tinpot dictator of a tiny Central American banana republic.
RaflW
Interesting bit of recent history here. I have seen a fair bit of critique of the Columbia board in that it contains no people who operate in academic settings. Building a board for its donor-links is so common in the nonprofit world, but it has serious risks.
RaflW
@lowtechcyclist: Not to be too creepy, but I at least briefly thought about Congressman Leo Ryan and his trip to Guyana.
WTFGhost
Not a catalyst, because a catalyst remains unchanged in the reaction – a key component of catalysts, according to high school chem (which *has* been wrong before).
Harvard is making a change, and doing so over a principle, academic freedom, that is vital to a flourishing democracy. It would be nice to imagine people who’ve been indoctrinated their whole lives are just as mentally flexible as those who’ve been encouraged to explore real ideas, but it doesn’t actually happen. That’s why you see people in the Trump administration doing stupid things, over and over.
It’s good, but, unless the other Ivies stand their ground as well, it won’t be a turning point or a tipping point.
Random thought: over a Digby’s, I think I followed a BlueSky link that mentioned something I had forgotten… it’s not the 14th Amendment that grants fundamental rights to people, from the federal government – the *5th* Amendment does that. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process. Not “no citizen”.
Alas, there’s a problem. For some SCOTUS judges, “due process” just means the law must be followed, not that the law must be, in some way, serving justice. Scalia, I think, once wrote that the nation has the right to execute a provably innocent person, so long as the courts provided a legal process to refuse to consider the proof, and execute the prisoner.
So some courts think, so long as Rubio signs off on revoking a visa or green card, due process has been followed, even if an immigrant has done nothing wrong, nor even gets informed of the changes in immigration status.
If Due Process has no interest in justice, then eventually, the law can come for any enemy of any person who has sufficient power. Too many people are okay with this, because they don’t think they have enemies; they don’t realize this government doesn’t even need enemies – just victims they can lie about!
oldgold
In response President Garber’s letter, Trumplethinskin has issued a new threat against Harvard.
Betty Cracker
@Doug R: I’d love to see Democrats make that point out loud. Maybe some have — I’ve been avoiding the news, mostly. Not sure how much of an effect it would have. I don’t know much about Bukele, but despots tend to have an après moi, le déluge mindset. Trump certainly does.
Belafon
@oldgold: Cool, time to tax the churchs.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: You can almost hear that fascist press secretary saying “Van Hollen chose to go of his own free will. We can’t jeopardize our super secret international dealings over his foolishness.”
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat: Thanks for the fascinating analysis! But are you sure the PRC was the only major actor in last week’s drama? I thought the semi-consensus speculation was unhedged (against rise of Yen vs. USD) Japanese investors in USD assets dumping Treasuries to cover their positions?
Anyway, Brad Setser (who follows every country’s foreign reserve holdings closely) does not detect significant changes in the PRC State Administration for Foreign Exchange (SAFE)’s official USD reserves. However, both SAFE & the PRC’s state owned commercial banks are suspected to hold hundreds of billions of Eurodollars in Benelux (Belgium & Luumbourg) accounts, & possibly Ireland, too, all w/o much transparency. So, they do have the infrastructure to execute such an operation w/ plausible deniability.
Perhaps that explains Bessent’s seeming about face in the past 24 hrs (which certainly raised my eyebrows):
Bessent was responding to the PRC government calling the Trump tariff rates on the PRC a “joke”, & that the PRC will stop at 125% retaliation since anything above that is meaningless, but the rest of the language seemed to signal wanting to compromise.
The PRC government’s line is that the US needs to remove all of the current & planned tariffs in return the PRC to remove its retaliatory tariffs. It does seem Xi wants to force an unconditional surrender in the economic war, rather than a deal that dramatically lowers the mutual tariffs from current levels, but still elevated relative to pre-2025 or pre-2018, which a lot of observers are expecting. Probably to deter Trump from ever reopening this war w/ the PRC again, & destroy the US’ credibility as a financial great power in the eyes of the ROW.
The temporary ban on processed rare earth minerals & rare earth magnets, the halt in Boeing shipments, & the prohibitive tariff on US fabricated & patterned semiconductor wafers, not to mention halt in purchase of all US commodities (agricultural products & fossil fuels), & no response to Trump’s cave on consumer electronics, could be seen as part of that strategy. Alternatively, they could just be the inevitable consequence of the prohibitive retaliatory tariffs that amount to embargoes on imports from the US.
I guess we will see. Trump still plans to play the Section 232 card of tariffs on semiconductors, electronics & drugs, as well as delisting the ADRs of PRC companies from US markets, but they will probably prove just as self-damaging.
Bupalos
@WaterGirl: Can I ask what you’d be hoping to accomplish with that action? Do we ask that kind of thing around here?
Steve LaBonne
@Belafon: The churches that get taxed will not be the conservative ones.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: I believe the American people are so used to freedom that it will be a lot harder than they think to impose an authoritarian government. I know some people think they want that, but they also think none of their freedoms will be limited, only those of “those other people”.
Sister Golden Bear
Speaking of turning points…. This will brighten your day.
More details at this Bluesky thread, which unfortunately is only shareable to logged in users. But more here’s more general report.
Ruckus
@RaflW:
Trumpism is murdering the golden goose.
shitforbrains knows no other thing or way.
He’s a pompous, arrogant 4 yr old in an almost 80 yr old body. And has been since he actually was 4 yrs old.
dc
@New Deal democrat: Bukele is doing what Trump wants him to do. It also happens to go with what he would like to do, but if Trump said to send those people back (the whole group regardless of status, etc.), he would waste no time in getting them on a plane back to the U.S. In fact, every single one of those kidnapped people should be sent back here, given due process, and then move on from there. And regardless of the outcome of a fair process, not one of them should be sent to a prison in El Salvador where not one of them has committed a crime or was even accused of a crime.
YY_Sima Qian
@Sister Golden Bear:
@rikyrah:
I replied below to Anyway’s question on the PRC’s alternatives to Boeing, in a previous dead thread:
Geminid
This morning’s Politico Playbook had an article on the administration’s demands and Harvard’s letter:
William Burch was Deputy White House Counsel under George W. Bush and is a Fox Corporation board member. He also defended Steve Bannon in his border wall fraud case. Robert Hur was the special counsel who investigated Joe Biden’s retention of some classified documents.
Playbook also had a short item about today’s special election for mayor of Oakland. Former Rep. Barbara Lee is thought to be running ahead of her major rival, former City Council member Loren Taylor. Readers were referred to Politico’s California Playbook for more details.
ArchTeryx
@Sister Golden Bear: If they do the same to 8chan, I’ll celebrate. The Mos Eisley of the Internet needed so very badly to get taken down about a hundred pegs.
You want the supreme irony, the only other thing that actually took down 4chan was My Little Pony’s G4 series. Yes. MLP took down 4chan, and they were forced into ignonimous retreat.
They’re pro-fascist to the core. They NEED to get compromised.
Josie
Progressive Turnout Project is having a zoom call tomorrow night to discuss plans for post card possibilities. Go to https://mobilize.us/s/MHmMrR to sign up if you are interested.
Gin & Tonic
@Sister Golden Bear: Looking for my violin, can’t find it anywhere.
BellaPea
@Scout211: True story: I have a wonderful hair stylist. One day when I came in for an appointment, she was talking very intensely with an attractive older woman. When the woman left, my stylist looked at me and said “You’ll never believe who that was.” Turns out it was Fred Trump’s wife. They moved to Tennessee several years during Dump’s first term and bought a farm. Fred died during the early days of COVID, although it was hushed up. My stylist is like me, a complete Dump hater, and said she tries not to talk politics with this woman. She said occasionally the woman will bring up something about the family and has praised Melania for being “so beautiful an intelligent.” I was totally floored!
suzanne
I would ghost the hairdresser, BTW. No unpleasant conversation needed. She picked provocative names, she’s got to expect that has consequences.
Tony Jay
@TaMara:
Thankee. I’ve been around, just sitting in the corner nursing a bottle of warm lager and eating salted peanuts while the ruckus on the dance floor works itself out.
YY_Sima Qian
@YY_Sima Qian: It seems that Vietnam is getting ready to purchase the C909 or C919 (after Laos & Indonesia), & also high speed rail:
jonas
@cain: A few superstar academics like Timothy Snyder have options abroad. Most don’t. Universities in Canada, Australia, and Europe run on shoe-string budgets that can’t absorb whole new cohorts of refugee scholars right now. Maybe the EU will come together to establish a fund to recruit and support ex-pat American scholars, but I haven’t seen anything like that discussed. And they’d probably prioritize computer engineers, business, and biotech types, not English Lit or LGTBQ Studies professors.
Geminid
@Tony Jay: Sounds like you might have hit the tippling point.
YY_Sima Qian
This is not going to get anywhere w/ the EU:
Bupalos
@Elizabelle: I think this kind of thing is closer to the root of the problem than the solution. “Your husband is a Trumper so I don’t trust your judgement about my hair” is the kind of obvious lie that undermines the position.
Maybe be honest with her and yourself about it since she’ll take this message anyway: “I can’t stand the sight of a Trumper and I consider anyone who tolerates one to be an untouchable by extension. This is how I believe we’ll improve things.”
Sure Lurkalot
@zhena gogolia: Yikes, those aren’t good pooch names without the fascist association.
I dumped my hairdresser (she was also my former aerobics instructor and friend) after 30 years mid Covid. She started railing about vaccination—how all vaccines were poison and while she got one shot because her family insisted upon it, she would never, ever, ever get another vaccination again. Her clientele…90% high risk due to age…nary one whit of concern. Apparently, her iron clad immune system would protect everyone, I guess.
TS
@Tom Levenson:
It would seem trump wants this drain to happen – he wants the country to be full of white uneducated men who think he is dog’s gift to the universe. Dumbing down while the world watches in bewilderment.
Ruckus
@LeftCoastYankee:
I still think the business community will be last because their MO is me/ours first. Collective action is not a comfortable position for them. But this could be a catalyst to them realizing their self interest and the collective good are aligned.
If business owners see what shitforbrains is actually doing, which is nothing good for anyone, at least most of them will align. Because in some ways this type of bullshit hurts business. Do you want to go out and spend money? I had to go out and buy a new printer because my old one crapped out. Did I want to spend money at this time and lend any credence to shitforbrains that business is good therefore he must be doing the right thing? Sure it’s only one printer, but every little bit helps with the economy – and in some spaces that makes shitforbrains look better. Sure that is the wrong response here, all he’s doing is screwing up, it’s all he knows.
But of course his only path is to screw up, he knows no other way, because he only thinks of himself. And that is 180 degrees opposite of being presidential.
prostratedragon
@zhena gogolia: Yuck! Yeah, new hairdresser.
ArchTeryx
@Tony Jay: Yeah, it’s been a pub brawl around here for a while, but it seems to finally be sorting itself out. Not at all unlike the British military when France was captured by the Nazis. There was a whole lot of headless chickens running around during the early part of the Blitz, until organised resistance finally started appearing and rallying.
jonas
@BellaPea: I think you mean Robert Trump, the younger brother. The older one, Fred Trump, Jr., died back in the 80s of complications related to alcoholism.
zhena gogolia
@Sure Lurkalot: It’s so painful.
I guess I’m going one last time and when she asks how my week was I’ll tell her — watching retirement savings decrease, dealing with students who are afraid to go out on the street for fear of being picked up and sent to Louisiana, etc. Then I’m done.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Professor Bigfoot: seconded!
I’m finally proud of my alma mater.
I’m also glad that Harvard finally got in touch with its roots. Boston was the center of abolitionist fevor, and Charles Sumner – the senator who was canned on the Senate floor by the bozo from South Carolina for his anti-slavery speech — represented Massachusetts and was a Harvard-educated Boston Brahmin.
Of course, there’s a darker edge: Harvard’s relationship to the Jewish community has not been that of Columbia’s. After all, the oldest “finals club,” the Harvard frats that predate the Greek system, called itself the Porcellian because they served pork at every meal. Guess why.
Bokonon
I know … saying “go Harvard!” kind of sticks in my throat. But they did the right thing, and they did it correctly.
Hopefully, this will stiffen some spines. When you consider the list the Trump Administration’s insane demands – sort of right-wing Maoism with a political commissar overseeing the university – there was no other rational response, because the only other position was surrender.
The Audacity of Krope
@YY_Sima Qian: Reasons I’ll be boycotting all new electronics. See also, Ukraine mineral deal.
First lifestyle casualty will be my disposable vape. So, good thing to start. I don’t know what I’m going to do once my phone breaks or even my chargers.
Belafon
@YY_Sima Qian: Speaking of high speed rail, Trump killed the federal funding for the rail that was going to run from Dallas to Houston.
TaMara
@Tony Jay: Same
Doug R
@Betty Cracker: Bukele is in his early 40’s. Maybe he needs to read more about Ceaușescu and Amin and the Shah?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
If my feckless alma mater (CU-Boulder) is any indication of how typical Enormous State Universities (ESU–it’s an old Tank McNamara reference) will be, they’ll roll over and play dead because they dread losing a dime of money as they don’t have a $50b endowment like Harvard.
Earlier this year after Hair Furor listed CU on his DEI hit list, they pulled their DEI web page and renamed the DEI department to the “Office of Collaboration”. Of course, CU being feckless CU, they said that had *nothing*, nosirreeeebob, *nothing* to do with what was coming out of the Orange Fart Cloud’s pie hole.
Collaboration. Perhaps ESUs should look up what happened to collaborators after WW2.
Ceci7
@suzanne: Agreed. It’s a form of shunning. I don’t believe it’s a good use of time or energy to try to reach out to people like the hairdresser. They’re grownups and can live with consequences. And I don’t believe they’re owed *any* benefit of the doubt with choices like naming the dogs Kash and Tulsi. They know what they fuck they’re doing.
prostratedragon
@RaflW:
I was just looking at the current Columbia board and noticed that. They’re mostly finance and corporate law people, with 3 or maybe 4 — what is a “social entrpreneur,” anyway — media people. No career educators, though one member has a company that is contracted for training programs, and as he is a Pritzker cousin that could also be about seeking donations. Two who have government experience, including Jeh Johnson, who is also a partner at Paul, Weiss. All have at least one Columbia degree.
Doug R
@Bupalos: The hairdresser chose to FA
Now it’s time for HER to FO.
Jackie
@Belafon:
THAT will only happen to certain churches.
Just as with colleges and universities who disobey FFOTUS.
suzanne
@Ceci7: I also don’t think there’s much value in letting MAGA people know why one doesn’t want to do business with them anymore. The only reason to do so would be for their benefit, but, like….. anyone who is engaged in business knows that they have competitors and that people can choose to do business with you (or not) for any reason, which can be irrational and that’s perfectly fine. You’re a customer in this context, not an educator. Too much emotional labor.
prostratedragon
@Gin & Tonic: Well, my inner playlist jumped to an “Alleluiah” for a moment.
Betty Cracker
@Bupalos:
I don’t think it’s usually that simple, though there are definitely folks who think that way.
lowtechcyclist
@Belafon:
Because of course he did.
When I leave this mortal coil, 25 years or so from now, this country still won’t have any HSR at the rate we’re going. Assuming this country is still in one piece then.
WaterGirl
@Professor Bigfoot: Which part was the holy shit in response to?
lowtechcyclist
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Impressively bad choice of wording on their part.
ETA: I miss the norts spews. ;-)
Geminid
@Doug R: This question raises another one: what is Bukele’s popularity like in his own country? I do not know the answer, but I don’t assume he is in fact unpopular among El Salvador citizens.
LeftCoastYankee
@Ruckus:
I was thinking that small business owners and bigger companies would react differently but sacrificed making that distinction for length.
I think smaller businesses are already pissed off by the uncertainty. As in your example (also if I wait to get that printer or equipment will it be crazy expensive or unavailable by summer).
Big businesses will hedge as long as they can if history is any indicator.
There go two miscreants
@zhena gogolia: you could always interact by saying: “Fuck you, [insert name here], and fuck you too, [insert other name].”
WaterGirl
@Bupalos: Feedback. Consequences. Maybe a wake-up call.
zhena gogolia
@There go two miscreants: The dogs are innocent!
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
I hit the tippling point a loooooonnnnnng time ago. This is a world best viewed through the medium of beer-goggles.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Did you by any chance happen to find some noisemakers or other paraphanalia typically used for celebrations?
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Finding someone who cuts your hair just like you want it, is not easy for me. So I feel your pain. Good luck.
WaterGirl
@Bupalos:
If that phrase is in response to my earlier comment, I should point out that I didn’t say a thing about not trusting her judgment about HAIR.
I wouldn’t trust the hairdresser for any safety-related issues. Or for not cheating her suppliers, or anyone else for that matter. Once you don’t trust someone’s judgment, all bets are off.
RaflW
@YY_Sima Qian: Those CFM engines are from a final assembly line in Villaroche, near Paris. Parts likely come from a variety of sources including from US jv-partner factories.
So what the Trump Admin may decide about all that is I’m sure an open question. Trump’s peeps are pretty clumsy and inept, so expect disruptions!
eta: That’s gotta sting a bit for Arbus, but they’re also basically sold out of production slots for their workhorse A320s for 10 years, so if customers in Asia want earlier deliveries, Comac is basically it. Boeing is a mess, and yet also has a big backlog (we’ll see if global customers start deferring or even cancelling Boeing contracts if Trumpist tariff shenanigans bite harder).
montanareddog
@Tony Jay: And a couple of hours after the tippling point is when one hits the gurning point.
There go two miscreants
@zhena gogolia: Just say it nicely!
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@eclare: I regret to admit I had the identical thought.
MisterForkbeard
@Sister Golden Bear: Oh wow. That IS excellent.
4chan is/was kind of fascinating. There’s a few interesting boards that’s outweighed by a huge amount of awful people, threads and content. I had a few videogame threads I used to check on because they’d sometimes get (legit) leaks, but you’d have to wade through hip-deep misogyny and awful people to get there. I’m really glad I never made an account or posted there.
But it’s a real view of how conservatives want the internet to be. It really revels in how awful they can be about everything.
ExPatExDem
Harvard tried bending the knee first by firing their Middle East Studies department chairs for being insufficiently Zionist.
I guess they learned that fascists see any capitulation as the starting point for the next round of demands.
While their initial reaction was cowardice, I’m glad they found their institutional spine.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Dictators are often popular. It’s not hard when you control the media and it’s dangerous to criticize you– you have to work at being unpopular. If Trump has confined himself to just persecuting sufficiently small and powerless minorities he’d probably have soaring popularity right now.
Ruckus
@kindness:
You don’t have to punch him you only have to show everyone who and what he is. Of course some will not change their minds, they are incapable of it. But likely a fair number will because they see that it can affect them greatly.
As the old saying goes the ship has set sail – and shitforbrains is back on the dock still trying to figure out how to tie the knot that will stop the ship from leaving. A dollar short and a day late is really all it takes.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Tom Levenson: the old joke in Boston is, when a college kid has eleven items in the supermarket “10 or fewer speed checkout line,” the cashier asks the kid, “Do you go to MIT and can’t read, or Harvard and can’t count?”
Ruckus
@LeftCoastYankee:
What some need to learn is that being an ignorant, pompous arrogant ass really does not work in some situations. Especially one where to gain power one is supposed to show that they are not pompous arrogant assholes. That of course is not every country but it is in this one.
Scout211
No, I definitely did not miss that point. It’s one of the many points that come up when we realize that people we have been doing business with for years are MAGA Trumpies. But it’s not the only factor that determines how we choose to handle that discomfort. For many of us in red states and counties, it’s complicated.
zhena asked for input regarding her own situation and many jackals replied with their opinions and I expressed my opinion. My opinion is based on me and my situation alone but I did not miss the point you are making.
In the end, zhena will make her own decision based on how she feels and what is best for her.
I wish her the best.
Ruckus
@Belafon:
Is the way out actually that much of a hard road?
Because I do not believe it is. At least for most people. Now of course there will always be some that only know the hard road. They never figured out that not everything in life is all that tough a decision, one just has to be a part of the bigger rather than standing in a field shouting at a cows. (That’s not a hit at ranchers/farmers it is a hit at the pompous, arrogant assholes that demand that their pompous arrogance gets them the front of the line)
Bupalos
@WaterGirl: fair enough, but does that actually create any daylight between this idea and the idea of being an untouchable because she hath fluttered too close to the Trumpist flame?
I don’t really mean this as kind of objection to not having the right moral posture. I think this kind of thing very practically assists the Trumpist agenda. It’s blindly insisting on a world of us and them and going out of your way to draw increasingly unrealistic lines. If she’s non-political but has a husband who goes on and on about MAGA, there’s a really good chance she just heard “Kash and Tulsi” and thought those names sounded cute. All you’re likely accomplishing with the attempted FAFO about picking dog names is convincing her you’re an equal and opposite kind of ideological lunatic to her husband. Just one that cares less about her.
“Reduce the grey zone” is a terrorist tactic to defend political space. Don’t empower it.
artem1s
great Harvard is admonishing the WH. Now do a letter to your alum sitting on the SCOTUS. Remind them that they are the reason the country is having a constitutional crisis.
Bupalos
@Betty Cracker: Complicated or simple, I think “I can’t use your services anymore because your dogs’ names remind me of your husband’s politics” is, very practically, a disaster.
This couldn’t happen without the internet and the retreat into the bubble of our own brains it encourages.
Martin
I don’t think it’s any of those things. It’s a response, but I think it only means Harvard is picking a side.
In 1990, my university skipped classes for 2 days so students could attend a series of talks set up by the president of our school. He was a German political scientist and apparently pretty well connected. This was in the period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. We had a bunch of talks and panels with Eastern European government officials and opposition party individuals, think members of parliament, maybe some equivalent to a state dept official, etc. In some cases it was the opposition leader. The whole thing was really fascinating because it was an experience you couldn’t have in the US otherwise, and I don’t think you could have now anywhere – it was a product of that 2 year period of time.
We learned so much about Europe in that. Countries that had been carved up after WWII (or before) suddenly had some rope to operate and we were exposed to these conversations – no debate really – regarding how the countries viewed themselves internally, exposing some resentments toward the powers that carved them up (including the US, Britain, France) and the internal conflicts that weren’t really allowed to play out while the USSR had their thumb on them, but which still brewed, and how it was going to affect their path going forward. There were multiple panels with government officials and opposition leader very calmly talking about how and why the country was going to break apart. That this minority group was handed power by the USSR and they maintained that power through coercion, violence, economic favoritism, etc. and now the majority after decades of resentment were going to retake control via one means or another. In some cases it was presented as a hopefully mutually agreed breakup, and in other cases both the officials and the opposition were explaining how they expected a civil war (with the people on the panel on opposite sides).
What was so hard for us 20 year olds to wrap our heads around was how they were so matter of fact about it. There was no emotion or alarm, just an inevitability that both parties were unable to avoid. They were both hoping to avoid that outcome, but had varying degrees of faith they could. And in some cases they did, and in some cases things played out pretty much exactly as they predicted (Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, were all there as were east and west German representatives as they were going through the process of reunification and were telling a contrasting story, but with most of the same beats otherwise – the lack of agency on borders, etc.) But it was really unnerving how quietly and orderly these countries were sliding into conflict. We had all expected there would be this sort of linear escalation and that’s apparently now how it works. It’s very much a ‘gradually then suddenly’ scenario.
And my sense is that we’re on that same trajectory. The US and the UK are on some path toward civil war, which we can choose to get off, or choose not to. I think we’re also on a competing path to military conflict with China as China makes long-term strategic decisions around this trade war and the US gets increasingly desperate to bring China to heel, unable to anticipate pretty obvious retaliatory measures because they’re just that dumb.
So I think all we’re really seeing now is a choosing of sides, because while there is posturing as opposition of power as Harvard is doing, that requires some institutional mechanisms that allow that opposition to have traction, and it’s unclear if that exists. If the courts demand that Trump restores Harvards funding, there is no mechanism to enforce that. If it happens, it’s largely voluntary on Trumps part. There’s no credible threat of impeachment or imprisonment. The only threat can be violence. The problem then is that looking for a tipping point or catalyst either takes the form of that institutional mechanism starting to work again (the GOP signaling an openness to impeachment) or the suddenly part beginning which is some form of violence against the state – riots, assassination, etc.
I’ve never felt this troubled before. I hope I’m all wrong.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: These observations are relatively true in a general and abstract sense, but I was wondering if Bukele was in fact popular or unpopular. So when I checked, it turned out Bukele is very popular among El Salvadorans and consistently polls at around 90% approval.
This could be as you assert, because he controls the media, but it might also be due to the fact that the murder rate when Bukele took office was among the highest in Latin America at 38 per thousand annually, and is now among the lowest at less than 2 per 1000.
The way Bukele is enabling Trump’s assault on civil rights here certainly is hurting US citizens, but when people compare him to Ceausescu, or the Shah of Iran, I think they may be projecting their own feelings onto El Salvadorans who have their own lives and priorities.
zhena gogolia
@Scout211: I cancelled for today and will have to think about it.
Ruckus
@Martin:
This is history repeating itself. The major difference between then (whenever then was) and now is that we have far better open communications. Sure not all countries are going to have that but many do and that makes a big difference because everyone can see more than the side presented to them almost after the fact. IOW it is far harder to lie about things. Sure in some countries it’s still difficult to see the bigger picture as it happens, but it’s often not impossible. And that can change how people react to most everything.
Now I’m not saying there is any guarantee that it will all go according to plan, or that the plan is a good one, it is after all humanity
And I hope you are wrong, but what guarantee do we actually have about, well anything
Other than the most popular plan is often the worst one.
WaterGirl
@ExPatExDem: Glad you shared that! I had a sense that Harvard had not covered themselves in glory recently related to FFOTUS, but I couldn’t recall details. Glad to know I wasn’t crazy, and even more glad to see them stand up like this.
WaterGirl
@artem1s:
I just wanted to see that again. Yes. Absolutely that!
WaterGirl
@Martin: My unstated assumption is that this could be the beginning of more institutions standing firm. That’s what I was talking about in the discussion of tipping point, turning point, catalyst and pivotal event.
I think if there is enough opposition, FFOTUS will have to back down on a lot of what he is doing.
He’s been testing his boundaries, and having found very limited pushback, he continues to push the boundaries. At some point we as a nation have to very firmly say no.
edit: oops, thread is dead, and I’m still replying.
Miss Bianca
@Doug R: And the thing about being a well-connected historian is that you get to jump ship to another country when you see how things are going.
Martin
@Ruckus: I’m not sure more communication helps. Just look at how rapidly we are choosing sides and distancing ourselves from the other – even with hairdressers, etc. There is no non-political space left. Even if you are silent on politics you become an enabler of Trump. More communication allows that process to happen faster. All of my non-political communities now have lists of businesses to boycott. All are drawing sides. And some of these places had explicit no-politics rules that completely broke down in the month. They are all political spaces now.
But one catalyst for these events is the majority group falling into the minority, and that happened in the US for the 2nd time back in 2012. The first time was the culture war around slavery marginalizing the pro-slavery side, and they kicked off a civil war to reclaim their cultural majoritarian role. They lost (mostly). And in 2012 white christians (best defined as Trumps electorate) fell into the minority and Democrats sided with the non-white, non-Christian majority, in short wokeism. And we now have Trump reasserting that white Christian majoritarian role which Democrats are having none of, despite having the growing demographic advantage. That’s not a guarantee for conflict, but the ‘Appeal to God’ flag was one of the most prominent symbols on Jan 6. I would argue the conflict has already started and we are trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle – and maybe we can – but nothing in this moment is working toward that goal and I don’t see this pattern of escalation lasting 4 years without things breaking open even more.
TONYG
I’m obviously glad that Harvard did this — and I’m glad that Harvard could afford to do this. Whether “less well-endowed” institutions can afford to do this I don’t know. Given the depravity of Trump and his minions, I’m afraid that a cutoff of federal aid might be only the beginning of their revenge. I can see them cancelling green cards for professors and cancelling student visas. Childish revenge. Why wouldn’t they do it?
Martin
@WaterGirl: But institutions standing firm doesn’t necessarily lead to better outcomes. Not that Harvard is trying to make things worse, but they aren’t an institution that is able to address the problems before us. I was often in their role, but mostly just serving as hammer to bang against anvil. That doesn’t cause the anvil to change, it just clarifies the role of the anvil.
Maybe Harvard has enough legal pull to shape the views of the courts. If anyone does it’s them. But I think we’re beyond that now because the authority of the courts is now being challenged and if their authority is not reaffirmed, then it doesn’t matter what they think. The left has a lot of faith (almost desperate) invested in the courts, and if the courts can be ignored, that all vanishes. Getting John Roberts on your side will be as valuable as getting Hawk Tuah girl (possibly less valuable). All that’s left is Congress and there is no faith placed there, and I don’t see Harvards institutional stance having any impact there. Massachusetts doesn’t have Republican members of Congress we need to win over, and most Republicans have been wishing harm on Harvard for some time, so their stance has almost no political impact in that way. In short, who cares?
It’ll inform other educational institutions, but I don’t think it does anything more than establish which side Harvard chooses to be on.
TONYG
@TONYG: Hell — given the direction that the fascists are going, I can see them sending American-born professors and students to a foreign gulag in El Salvador or elsewhere. Why wouldn’t they?
Gloria DryGarden
That would be an important awareness. I’m gonna hope for it. Anything we can do to nudge that forward?
pajaro
@Bupalos:
The Government’s intent is to use the anti-semitism claim to take over direction of the University. The school is not arguing the limits of student speech in the abstract, it is arguing that it gets to decide what is taught, who to admit and who to expel. This is about the Trump Administration’s effort to control the university, and Harvard’s refusal to let it do so.
Look at what has happened at Columbia: Trump has used threats of cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars of scientific research having nothing whatsoever to do with Israel/Palestine in an effort to, among other things, force Columbia to give them the right to decide what is being taught and who can teach in the Middle East Studies Department. Columbia’s sin isn’t making judgments I might not like on how it handled the protests last year, it’s giving to Trump the right to make decisions about how the University is governed and how its subjects are being taught.
pajaro
@TONYG:
I’d say the abduction of American Professors and students and their transportation to a Gulag is when we have to go with our red, white and blue color revolution, led by the students at those and other schools. This time it’s about us.
pajaro
@TONYG:
They are already cancelling student visas. It’s started with those who had some online presence that said something wrong, and has expanded to individuals who came to attention of the police at some time in their time here, even if they were never charged with anything, as well as random students whose visas have been cancelled for no discernible reason. There’s a Guardian article from a few days ago about this.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Bupalos:
I don’t see any moral problem with calling people out for awful choices. Honestly, people like this have been treated with kid gloves since the tea party; maybe some shaming might actually make them reconsider some things, if only for convenience’s sake.
TONYG
@pajaro: Stupid, ignorant hate-filled people — led by their God-King Trump. By cancelling visas of students and professors they satisfy two types of ignorant hatred — hatred of “foreigners” and hatred of education. To the degree that they think at all, they seem to think that universities are nothing but Marxist-feminists taking Transgender Studies. Yeah, there’s a little bit of that, but most of the students on university campuses are studying and doing research in fields like science and medicine. I had a (minor) outpatient procedure in a New York City hospital this morning. The physician and most of the nurses were from other countries. By attacking this they are weakening the United States — not that they care.
Ruckus
@Martin:
I do not disagree with you.
Most of us have the power of the election. After that we mostly watch and wait.
Now if this is a take over of our democracy that will not go over well with a significant percentage of the population. However if it is just a majority of people willing to believe that white power has to come back, we could be looking at a lot of actual trouble. This is supposed to be a democracy for ALL, not just the pale, pasty side. HOWEVER, I don’t believe that a majority of white people think that way. In some parts maybe, but is it a majority?
sab
@Miss Bianca: Probably off topic, but if Tim Snyder hadn’t gone to Canada he would probably have been on the next plane to El Salvador.
My husband disagrees ( failed to fight for us) but I think he was in serious danger, and what about his grad students? He has an international reputation. He couldn’t be bringing foreign grad students into our environment. They would all be in danger.
I am so very glad my sister retired last year. China Art professor. Harmless stuff but innocent foreign students.
Bupalos
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: I’m not suggesting a moral problem, I’m suggesting a practical one. When you shame non-political people that are culturally finlandlzed to MAGA for “decisions they’ve made,” you aren’t being immoral. You’re just doing Trump’s work for him.
I can just about guarantee you “you can’t do my hair if your husband is a MAGA and you don’t sufficiently object” isn’t going to “work” in any sense other than the feeling of superiority. They have no idea what you’re talking about, it’s like trying to beat a dog today for having disobeyed yesterday. They aren’t going to process this as you delivering a “consequence of their decision,” because they don’t think they really made any decision. All they’re going to process is that you aren’t letting them in your club anymore.
Martin
@Ruckus: No, not a majority, not remotely. Democracy was only ever a means to an end with them. Now that it’s not serving the end, time for it to go.
sab
@Ruckus: I am in Ohio, a blood red state. But our founding fathers came up with all the baggage of two hostile parties and corruption. And they cleverly built in protections.
In Ohio, every county board of elections has equal membersip between the two parties. The Sec of State is the tiebraker. And every tie he breaks gets noticed statewide.
That limits voter suppression and other games.
We are red because we are red. Sad to say, but there we are.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: On the possibility of Sino-US great power war, I am less fearful than at the start of the Trump 47 term. The über-China Hawks he surrounded himself w/ made me extremely fearful, especially given how vulnerable he was to manipulation in the 45 term, due to his ego & his ignorance. However, in the current term it seems clear that the only “China Hand” he truly listens to is himself, which means all of the ego, ignorance & chaos that we are seeing, but it also means Trump’s cowardice & “transactionalism” will probably avoid an actual kinetic war. Trump will fold before it gets to that point. It will be Taiwan & Philippines that will pay the price. Seeing the über China Hawks in action, I am starting to suspect that many (not all) are cynical charlatans performing as hawks for career advancement & to advance the cause of white Herrenvolk ethno-nationalism in America, & they are not interested in losing it all on a kinetic great power w/ the PRC. There are millenarian true believers, but not as many as I feared. Chinese nationals & Chinese (+ East/Southeast Asian Americans) will be among the chief victims of their reactionary project, though.
The root of my critique of Biden’s foreign policy (& the economic nationalist aspects of the domestic policy) was/is that he & his team were doing little to arrest the slide toward great power conflict (even if non-kinetic) abroad & reactionary politics at home, & the toxic interaction between the two, sure to be taken advantages of & further advanced by the reactionaries (as we are witnessing). I was not fearful of great power war, if nothing else the Biden Administration (or any Dem administration) are competent crises managers. Despite what I said earlier, risking great power war remains much higher today than under Biden (or a theoretical Harris) Administration. The risk comes more from miscalculation & miscommunication, due to MAGA’s arrogance, ignorance, incompetence & malice, than perhaps by design, especially if they overplay the Taiwan card w/ the PRC, the 3rd rail in PRC policy making where the CPC regime & much of the population have the potential of behaving irrationally. The risk will also go up exponentially if a truly believing reactionary succeeds Trump (more Josh Hawley/Tom Cotton than JD Vance).
As for civil war in America, the longer this goes on, the higher the likelihood. It does not have to be the apocalyptic American Civil War or Chinese civil wars. It could be along the lines of the Irish Civil War, wanton political violence punctuated by the occasional pitched but small scale battles between opposing armies. Trumpian MAGA makes me more confidence that this reactionary counterrevolution will eventually be defeated, either via mass civil disobedience or low to medium intensity civil war, as opposed to becoming entrenched in America, but the road through gets uglier & more damaging the longer this goes on.
Ruckus
@sab:
I lived and worked in OH for ten years. I worked in my spare time to elect Democrats because I’ve been one since before I could vote and believe in at least 99.9% of what Democrats believe in. It was seemingly hard core red out in the boonies but in the bigger cities there seemed to be a fair number of democrats in office. Also we hadn’t gone down the shitforbrains alley yet, there was room for growth. But the far right has seen their power drop in many places in this country and I believe, are trying to build back up for the worst reasons. Which in my opinion humans will flock to if they see it at least seemingly gives them power. And in my mind a lot of the republican party is looking at this as a disaster, mostly because they care most about their power and money. And screw everyone else.
I think it’s possible we are seeing a push back to a lot of the steps to making this an actual democracy – at every level, because of racial equality. Which is another reason we have to win. Racism sucks. It is absolute crap. And always has been.
BellyCat
@Tom Levenson: Spoken like a Bostonian!
BellyCat
Well stated and agreed.
BellyCat
@RaflW: This. Donor boards should be advisory to and below Faculty boards at all universities. Full stop.
Kayla Rudbek
@cain: I think that Mandarin Chinese will be the language of 21st century science
Msb
@zhena gogolia: it doesn’t necessarily mean admiration. There were Allied generals in WWII who had dogs called Rommel and Hitler.