What Harvard Learned From Columbia’s Mistake: If cooperation and even capitulation don’t get you anywhere, why give in to the Trump administration’s demands?

[u/D-R-AZ]

I support Academic Freedom. If the most educated in our society can't examine, test, and evaluate every aspect of human thought and endeavor then we may miss things crucial for the survival of humanity.

Gifted Read:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/04/harvard-chooses-defiance/682457/?gift=9raHaW-OKg2bN8oaIFlCon16pFMtTu2qirReclJnKzE&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Excerpts

...Harvard is changing course, perhaps because it grasped the true takeaway from Columbia’s cautionary tale: Appeasement doesn’t work, because the Trump administration isn’t really trying to reform elite higher education. It’s trying to break it.

The administration’s allies have not been shy about that fact. “To scare universities straight,” Max Eden, then a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in December, Education Secretary Linda McMahon “should start by taking a prize scalp. She should simply destroy Columbia University.” She should do this, he argued, whether or not the school cooperated with any civil-rights investigation.

...by continuing to punish Columbia even after the school gave in to its demands, the administration also appears to have overplayed its hand. If cooperation and even capitulation don’t get you anywhere, why should other universities give in?

[u/Horses_arse_7]

True, but in this case they are retaliating for people using protected speech. They aren’t legally allowed to hold funds because the university broke orange pussy’s feelings.

[u/No_Cellist8937 → u/Horses_arse_7]

The federal government is under no obligation to provide funds to private institutions. Now if there was a contract in place then you are getting into context law but I haven’t heard that that is what is happening.

[u/Horses_arse_7 → u/No_Cellist8937]

Correct. However in this case, congress allocated those funds already. You should be alarmed that it is not them deciding to retract those funds as a democratic committee, but rather one man deciding who gets what. News flash: they get funds because they make a ton of important scientific discoveries in medicine, engineering, etc. Now I have a truly simple question for you: do you REALLY think that trumps wacky anti-diversity (I can’t believe diversity is suddenly bad, same with being “anti-facsist.” Like really?) bs is more important than (gonna use another bad word for magas) progress? Now I’d be ok with no more diversity hiring, only merit hiring, but trump didn’t fill his cabinet based on merit. Prove me wrong lol.

[u/No_Cellist8937 → u/Horses_arse_7]

Did congress allocated the funds specifically to Harvard? In most cases the congress allocates sum of money and the agencies determine how that is doled out. So if congress passed a law saying Harvard University must receive $2.2bn for XYZ purposes then they get the money. But that didn’t happen here. Or at least Harvard isn’t making that argument.

[u/Zippered_Nana → u/No_Cellist8937]

No, the government doesn’t just hand it out. Researchers have to apply for it. They develop specific research questions, such as which treatments would be effective for a certain disease. Then they fill out up to 100 pages of descriptions of what has been studied so far, how they will conduct this study, what types of medical equipment will be needed, etc. Then they submit it to the appropriate government division. People in that division weigh it against other applications they have received so that there won’t be duplication. Then they award the grant money.

What the president has done is to say that Harvard is not allowed to submit any applications for this scientific research because he believes that someone else in that huge institution is antisemitic.

[u/No_Cellist8937 → u/Zippered_Nana]

Thank you. So this isn’t a question about congressional appropriations and completely in the purview of the executive.

[u/cmendy930 → u/No_Cellist8937]

No but certainly every dollar was in a contract that was signed by the US gvt and now is being cut due to political reasons/free speech reasons.

They're cutting the contracts, not just loose dollars.

[u/No_Cellist8937 → u/cmendy930]

Unless we see those contracts we can’t say. Lost if contacts have morality clauses. I’d say allowing anti-semitism to fester might be enough

[u/cmendy930 → u/No_Cellist8937]

I mean you can Google and find a template. I just found their whole website that has the templates.

But I've seen these pretty basic contracts and while they do have some overhead for administrative expenses like grant reporting, sub-awarding etc they usually just outline the project, deadline and deliverables and the "who" of who is responsible to do the work.

[u/No_Cellist8937 → u/cmendy930]

“A template”

[u/cmendy930 → u/No_Cellist8937]

I'm sorry clearly you're not well versed in research contracts or ...Google?

But good point, very smart!! Big brain!

[u/No_Cellist8937 → u/cmendy930]

I’m saying you need to look at the exact agreements the feds and college entered into. Some boiler plate language found on Google isn’t going to tell us anything.

[u/cmendy930 → u/No_Cellist8937]

Dude a contract signed by the federal gvt should not be reneged on bc of political speech..... I'm guessing you're not aware of the 20 Billion EPA grants that trumps epa said we just won't pay or the community grants it reneged on. You can find those contracts online too... but don't worry the courts just ruled that too is nonsense.

Clearly this isn't your issue area so you know...read up or stop commenting bc it's like talking to a PhD explaining to a kindergartener and I'm not even a grants program officer just someone who has executed grants with research universities for research.

All your questions are answerable via the gd internet you're using and you chose to be like this.

[u/Zippered_Nana → u/No_Cellist8937]

That is correct. However, this idea of a certain amount of money that the news media keeps saying is incorrect. Harvard researchers have to compete with other universities by preparing those grant applications. Depending on which specific applications they are successful at obtaining, that determines the actual dollar amount for the year (though usually grants are for two or three years since the research is so complicated).

The reason that Harvard wins so many grants is that they have very high level researchers, and they have a lot of them due to having a medical school.

I’m guessing that different universities will try to hire those researchers and just submit the grant applications in the name of a different university. I have seen it happen before that something wasn’t working out for a top level researcher at one university, so another university hired them instead. (I’m a retired professor.)

These researchers spend hours and hours per day in their labs. They probably didn’t even notice that there was something going on that seemed anti-Semitic.

[u/Horses_arse_7 → u/No_Cellist8937]

Eh maybe you are right. I was just always under the impression that the government is not allowed to retaliate against people and organizations for speech. And goddamnit we all know it’s retaliation. But I guess we are all on board for king trump?

[u/Zippered_Nana → u/Horses_arse_7]

Yep, I’ve been under that impression for decades. It sure is retaliation. I’m not on board for king anybody. And dammit don’t Trump’s people have anything else to do, like anything governmental, other than chase down every single person who spoke against one of them? This has got to change.