Said Donald Trump (on Truth Social).
That message follows the news: "The Trump administration says it will freeze $2 billion in funding after Harvard refuses its demands" (NYT).
The demands — in the words of the NYT — are "that the university reduce the power of students and faculty members over the university’s affairs; report foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities; and bring in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is 'viewpoint diverse,' among other steps."
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95 comments:
The "dear colleague" letter is on the other foot now. Blakean fearful symmetry.
Harvard could get revenge by becoming a giant leftie Hillsdale.
JSM
The idea that certain organizations should be free from taxes seems to have arisen with respect to churches. It was extended to "fraternal organizations" and other private associations in a spirit of fairness, and thence to schools and universities on the grounds that they perform a public service. Its effect is to make all such institutions publicly supported, a status they do not deserve. Its effects are pernicious, including Universities that own half the real estate in crowded towns, and NGOs that pursue antisocial agendas. It should be ended. Tax 'em all.
Harvard could get revenge by becoming a giant leftie Hillsdale.
JSM
Too late. They already are.
Universities doing what they want to do, with their own money, is really how it should be. In Harvard's case, there is no real argument, other than "education is good, so give us government money," why they can't be truly "private."
Arguably there ought to be a "transition period," to accomplish this in an orderly fashion.
But then nothing would ever get done. I therefore support Trump's methods.
prince talal will probably chip in, he was a little short on cash for a while, interesting he was a saudi of armenian extraction,
They shouldn't have to do any of that. And I shouldn't have to pay for them, even if they do. Harvard is incredibly rich, and vastly overcharges for it's product, also their right. Just leave taxpayers out of it. In other words, get the government out of Harvard.
Harvard should put their money where their performative progressive-liberal self-entitlement statements take them. Harvard University should be compelled to start spending its enormous endowment, its billions and billions prudently invested, stop expecting middle-class taxpayers who never stepped on Harvard campus to subsidize its fancy-pants operations. The Harvard administrators and tenured professors live like kings upon the serf-funded federal grants and contracts. Time to end this gravy-train to the silver-spoon society.
Pritzker Family plays a predominant role at Harvard; Penny was the Pritzker who picked the fraudster DEI president. Pritzkers can redirect their Pritzker Foundation donations from their pet-project Trans-advocacy organizations, to supplement Harvard's operations. Enough with the poor-mouthing; Harvard and the other Universities should pay taxes on their annual endowment investment income returns, not receive federal funding - period.
"...get the government out of Harvard."
You would think they would want that, but $$$$
What about the fact that their behavior is illegal?
Okay, I understand how satisfying it is to see Harvard smacked around a little bit. However, the real problem with college today is it is way way too expensive primarily due to the explosion of the overhead burden where you have almost as many deans as you have faculty. In addition you have all these new political correct majors that are completely worthless.
Attacking those issues with threats of federal funding would really help the American people. Instead the Trumpsters are going for the easy flash and splash of attacking Harvard. It is really just mere political masturbation to make vengeful scared little peons like you people happy.
Feds should also be collecting income taxes on all major medical hospital facilities, those who pay their administrators and department heads millions each year. These are not struggling non-profit healthcare providers, do little charitable medical care. (Often less than 5% total services) Too many major medical hospital facilities pretend to be charitable non-profits, but regularly bankrupt a large number of American seriously-ill taxpayers each year by their exorbitant hospital and procedure charges. These same major medical hospitals don't pay property taxes, don't pay PILOT payments (payment in lieu of property taxes), and yet cost municipalities significant operating budget dollars for police, fire, building inspection, water & sewer services.
Today, April 15, reminds me every year that we middle-class wage-slave taxpayers are compelled to subsidize wealthy universities, non-profit institutions, and huge army of federal white-collar staffers, funding lifestyles far beyond our own humble expectations.
"It is really just mere political masturbation to make vengeful scared little peons like you people happy."
Spoken like a true fear-obsessed, miniaturized agricultural serf.
Harvard vs. Washington. Oh well. A quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.
The problem with Trump is that he's a threatener.
But everybody knows he never follows through with his threats. He always backs down. And he will never revoke the tax exempt status of Harvard or any other school.
Just ask Hillary Clinton about Trump threats. She knows he never follows through.
CBS is required - by law - to act in the public interest also. He's sued them for fraud in publishing fake news stories (of course if he wins, only he gets $$$), so he knows CBS is not acting in the public interest.
But he refuses to revoke their broadcast license.
Trump is a pussy. And everyone knows it.
Call his bluff.
It's funny how private higher education charges consumers top dollar for services and still qualifies as tax exempt.
Harvard's endowment is valued at $53.2 billion, up from $50.7 billion in one year -- another miracle of compound interest made possible by the middle class being fleeced at gunpoint by 80,000 tax-delinquent IRS agents.
Howard - agree. Trump needs to up his game with more precise language. I doubt that will ever happen.
$2.6 billion is already "frozen".
What Jupiter said. Nonprofit status should be eliminated entirely, including for churches but especially for endowments and private foundations, the real richest 1%.
Every year the government creates the "tax expenditure budget," the taxes that go uncollected because of this or that deduction or credit. The tax expenditure of tax free status of endowments, however, has never been calculated. That's how much power they have.
That's the thing about the Trumpenstein Monster. One minute he's dancing around like an idiot at a UFC event, and the next he's actually talking about sensible policy reforms. If DJT did this on a regular basis and limited his remarks to these types of issues (instead of his Greenland Denmark Canada BS that nobody fully understands) he'd be way ahead of the game. Go figure that guy?
Even the USC decision to uphold stripping upstart Bob Jones U of its tax-exempt status over racial discrimination was not unanimous. Good luck stripping the oldest university in the country.
Trump will pahk the gahbage truck in Hahvahd Yahd.
If tax money is going to be spent on post high school education, it should go to affordable trade schools like Waukesha Community Technical College for example. The middle class tax payer shouldn't have to give a dime to Harvard with it's $52 Billion endowment. Such a joke.
Little more than 20 years prior to the founding of Harvard College, during the later years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, Parliament enacted a law exempting a wide array of organizations including churches, schools, hospitals, and other others from taxation. After independence, the United States and most states continued this practice and, over time, enacted statures that codified exemptions with various prerequisites. Tax exempt organizations, generally fell into two categories: nonprofit organizations and foundations.
Up until now, neither the federal government, nor the states have sought to deny tax exempt status to organizations based on the content of their teaching, whether religious, educational or otherwise. Controversies have arisen over the tax exempt status of organizations alleged to have engaged in political campaigns or issues, which are generally outside the scope of activities permitted to tax exempt organizations.
it seems obvious that the Trump administration is unhappy with how Harvard has handled recent student demonstrations regarding the war in Gaza. Harvard has overhauled its approach to student demonstrations and faculty statements that may be considered anti-Semitic or threatening to Jewish students and faculty while also seeking to preserve academic freedom and freedom of speech.
The Administration now seeks to not only regulate such matters but to leverage such regulation into a broader attack on policies, curricula and other university activities that contain or allow viewpoints that the current Administration disagrees with. It has threatened to withdraw federal funding if Harvard fails to align all university policies and teaching with viewpoints that the Administration considers acceptable.
From my perspective, the government has no business dictating what viewpoints or curricula a university can and cannot teach. It seems bizarre that, given the opposition to so-called DEI policies on the basis of viewpoint discrimination, that the Trump administration would insist upon universities adopting policies that dictate political, cultural, and substantive perspectives. Harvard has quite rightly rejected the attempt of the administration to restrict academic freedom to perspectives acceptable to the current administration. The use of federal funds as a bludgeon is disgraceful in so far as those funds are generally used for research outside of the political realm.
There are many issues with respect to abuse of tax exempt status, but, particularly with the reduction in financial assistance for education, social services, arts, healthcare and other areas, the need for nonprofits to step up is greater than ever.
Not Illinois Resident is entirely right. I don't need fancy atriums and seven-figure administrators at my hospital. One example: one of the best gastro people in the country charges $2,000 cash rate for a colonoscopy from fruit to nuts -- including anesthesia and lab testing. It's $22,000 to my insurance for the gastro guy on my insurance, who uses the local hospital, and I pay 7K of that. For those lucky enough to not be self-employed, whose better insurance I subsidize, you feel none of this. A walk-in clinic can do a CAT scan for a couple hundred bucks: it's 3-5K using insurance at a rural health network. The same is true of elite universities and public radio and tv. None should be nonprofit. Let them use their endowments to perform colonoscopies on their students' and listeners' brains.
"that the university reduce the power of students and faculty members over the university’s affairs; report foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities; and bring in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is 'viewpoint diverse,' among other steps." LOL. Payback. But will be the payback to the payback?
Hillsdale strategy sounds nice but would mean giving up fed grants for research and student loans. Hard to do even with big $$ endowment.
Lifting non-profit status for many "nonprofit" institutions is good goal. Why should high-earning universities and hospitals, with high-earning staff, or churches holding valuable real estate, not pay normal taxes?
Harvard could stop the persecution of the Jews, is that such a crazy notion apparently,
of course subsidies are part of the reason that the tuition has gone sky high, so they look for foreign students of a certain orientation,
the previous Harvard President, was a deep state bureaucrat
World Bank Ex chequer foreign office, who was incentivise to choose these particular students,
The losing the tax exempt status is more of a piece like Trump's third term. But the main deal is that the US does not have to do business with Harvard. If Harvard won't follow the terms and conditions of the grants, Harvard is out.
I heard some NPR apologist claiming that Harvard researchers were going to cure cancer. Ha! The private sector is doing a much better job.
It would be funny if Harvard lost $2b in grants because it hates Jews. I don't think Hamas can make up the difference.
“Perhaps,” such a weasel word. Trump’s grip is slipping, and I predict Harvard will slip away. To be sure, Harvard had some weasel words too:
“Harvard remains open to dialogue about what the university has done, and is planning to do, to improve the experience of every member of its community. But Harvard is not prepared to
agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.“
If my prediction is wrong and we are about to see the Dissolution of the Monasteries all over again, Harvard and its allies have several very good defenses that have not yet occurred to Trump and his supporters. That fight would be momentous.
You don't want viewpoint diversity, you want no censorship. Some points of view are lacking for a reason, namely they're easily defeated.
A university is the place where you can say (profess) anything that you think is true. Pushback sets off thesis, antithesis, synthesis, the process which is in the public interest.
Coast Biound said: "The Administration now seeks to not only regulate such matters but to leverage such regulation into a broader attack on policies, curricula and other university activities that contain or allow viewpoints that the current Administration disagrees with. It has threatened to withdraw federal funding if Harvard fails to align all university policies and teaching with viewpoints that the Administration considers acceptable." Please document where you were protesting the heavy hand of government leveraging funding to force schools to enforce Title IX. This has been going on for years with numerous professors and students punished for wrong-think about gays and trans. The only difference is that the school administrators were happy to go along when the government position aligned with their own political objectives. Use the wrong pronouns and the heavy hand came down on you for creating a hostile learning environment, trap Jewish students in the library, harrass on the campus quad, and apparently the learning environment is just peachy keen.
“Harvard’s fighting the Trump administration harder than it’s ever fought antisemitism.”
https://x.com/HarvardJews/status/1911973328295997921
If you want to encourage college students to do something, demand they not do it.
I wonder if the Trump administration missed a trick here. Similar to the way that DOGE was created out of an old Obama department, I wonder if Trump could have re-purposed all of those nasty agencies that rose under the Biden administration under the guise of fact-checking - the 'Censorship Industrial Complex' as Matt Taibbi calls it. They could be re-purposed to actually do what they were 'saying' they did, as euphemistic cover to censor and condemn. Turn them loose on the Harvard's and the NPR's, and provide a couple of DOJ prosecutors to threaten lawsuits unless they formally retract and re-state what they demonstrably lied about. Take the exacting Stephen Miller approach. What a complete rat-f*cking mess it would turn into, eh?
Here is a report on how Harvard uses its endowment.
Annual revenue from the endowment covers about one-third of their operating expenses.
Many years ago I read Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, the (first) autobiography of the late Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman. He earned his bachelor’s degree at MIT since he could not get into an Ivy university due to being Jewish. Contemplate that — one of the smartest scientists ever produced by this country could not be educated at Harvard because he celebrated Passover instead of Easter.
So Harvard has reverted to form, Jew-hatred apparently being an integral component of its historical makeup, but the rest of us don’t need to pay them for it. And we shouldn’t.
Coast-bound: I'm quickly spitballing the 990s, but Harvard ended 2023 with a $53 billion endowment. It makes $2 billion a year off tuition and financial aid and raises more than that each year from alum. The president earns $1.756 million a year: scores of other professors and board members hit the high six figures or more. Other outrageous paydays are hidden in services provided areas of the form.
This is not a non-profit. We should kick all private colleges and universities out of that tax status, make them use their endowments for tuition, and then audit the public ones to lose the administrative and country-club facilities fat.
LOL. The threat, and result, is not important.
The real message is the revelation to low information average person (like me), that our taxes are giving 2 billion to a university with 53 billion in endowments.
This from the individual who founded "Trump University" has the arrogance to talk on what Harvard should do....🤡
As a matter of law, Trump is going to lose and lose badly in the Courts. Also, considering what is happening to the IRS, not really clear who will be around to collect the tax if he wins. Maybe Trump will send his enforcers from ICE or Border Patrol to try to collect.
One thing is true about American life: the rich can steal from the poor with impunity. However, if you steal from the rich, all of a sudden the power of the state tends to swing into action. Trump may control a major part of the state right now, but he is in the process of creating major problems for himself.
Kakistocracy sees Trump creating major problems for himself! Oh no! Anyway, what are they gonna do, gin up some false impeachable offenses or abuse the justice system against Trump? Again? Oh no!
It is worth trying to dismantle the abuse of the government purse by the Left. Root it out, and salt the ground after.
Someone doesn't like being sued.
“Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting “Sickness?” Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST! ~ Donald Trump
Wait until he finds out about churches.
I’m wondering if the State Department will stop issuing student visas for Harvard students.
Left Bank: excellent analogy to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Reinforces my idea that the Tudors have much to tell us about our times.
Upstart dynasty supported by New Men, outraging the old families; lawfare (including death penalty) waged on political enemies; political ideologies held with religious fervor; radically redrawing the map of foreign alliances; and the universities as loci for ideological ferment.
Only big difference is that the peasantry now seems to like the New Men. If there is a Pilgrimage of Grace, it won't be coming for Trump.
Watch Wolf Hall for what happens next.
JSM
Forget the "demands" - provide a solid basis, other than that is how we have always done it, why Harvard and its ilk should be tax exempt.
I've done a lot of business with NFPs over the years, and it's an eye-opening experience to check their financials. The percentage of their total revenues that actually go to their stated mission is frequently amazingly low.
“Annual revenue from the endowment covers about one-third of their operating expenses.“
Harvard uses 5 to 5.5% of its endowment as a contribution to operating costs. But they pay no capital gains tax, no property tax unless they decide to pay a bit as a sop to Cambridge, and the donors don’t pay tax on their donations. They get research grants that pay a portion of university overhead, and if they discover anything they are quickly filing patents to make even more, and the patent royalties are tax free. I can’t understand how the endowment is so small.
"The use of federal funds as a bludgeon is disgraceful in so far as those funds are generally used for research outside of the political realm."
No, it's not. By giving them money for research, the government enables these universities to spend comparable amounts of their own money on other things. Like DEI policies.
I think the demands made by the Trump administration will, to a great extent, prove unconstitutional. However, as an alumnus, I enjoying seeing Harvard called out for the many faults it has allowed to fester over the last 25 years.
The demands are unreasonable. They should continue to resist.
I agree with Coast-Bound's analysis except to say that it has been naive, at the least, for Harvard to assume that there would never be strings attached to government grants. One may remember that during the tenure of President A. Lawrence Lowell in the early 30's admissions of Jewish students were strictly curtailed, a practice that existed at least until the '60's.
Joanne Mason
@JoanneMason11
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In which a former president whose administration sued *nuns* for refusing to fund contraception and abortions, equates a university allowing violence against Jews on it's campus with academic freedom.
Barack Obama
@BarackObama
Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope other institutions follow suit.
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Harvard University
@Harvard
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Apr 1
“make vengeful scared little peons like you people happy”
1. Thank you, we like being happy.
2. Thank you for recognizing the fear: driving a Tesla, wearing a Trump hat, etc.
3. Vengeance? I’d settle for an acknowledgment and an apology for the life destroying Covid response all these sanctimonious academics endorsed and encouraged.
@kakistocracy As a born and bred Episcopalian it would not bother me one bit to see the modern Episcopal church in the Us taxed out of existence.
why ARE the American taxpayers subsidizing a university that has billions of dollars in the bank already?
Harvard is a political organization..
They are entitled to Free Speech..
BUT, why should donations to this political organization be treated different than a donation to the Republican Party, or the NRA?
Broaden the base and you can lower the rate….
The demands are unreasonable. They should continue to resist.
I concur- they are unreasonable. Nix the demands and just cut off the funding…
To paraphrase Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Harvard should be compelled to pay its fair share in taxes.
I agree with Howard. Get rid of the Deans of the pop machines
There is probably concern for progress of another 911, BLM, Antifa, etc. hidden cell. As for Diversity, DEI under Critical Diversity Theory (CDT) it is an umbrella religion for class-disordered ideologies, including racism, sexism, genderism, abortionism, etc. As for the demands, they are neither novel nor extraordinary, but, in fact, a change of pace (or shoe) from the established tradition in liberal sects.
Let the Congressional hearings begin! Sunlight being the best disinfectant and all that.
I'm particularly interested in why there are no core requirements for Harvard's undergraduates?
Why no history of Western civilization explaining where I our liberal ideals and institutions came from? I would like to see Harvard's president grilled on that point.
Enough of pretending you can teach "critical thinking" skills in the absence of historical knowledge!
Confront him with the observation that a culture--any culture--that is not transmitted from one generation to the next will quickly disappear. That'll make him squirm.
Start with Harvard, but don't stop there.
To paraphrase Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Harvard should be compelled to pay its fair share in taxes.
The Ivy League is an oligarchy.
Here's a theoretical for you...
Substitute Klan for Gaza.
Tighten the screws further. Fire everyone in the federal bureaucracy who has a degree from Harvard.
Annual revenue from the endowment covers about one-third of their operating expenses.
Yet it continues to increase.
Why are any of these Universities receiving millions of $ in federal aid anyway, regardless of political activism? They have billions in endowments, and charge hundreds of thousands for worthless degrees. And if anyone should be “forgiving” student loan debt, it should be them, not taxpayers.
This is an interesting issue. The defenders at the walls are crying out that it's about free speech, but it isn't. It's about abiding by the policies of the Administration that's in power, even when they don't like it. Fine ! They're free to spend their money as they wish. They are not free to spend the taxpayer's dime as they wish. Simple ! If you're confused, just think back to all of those conservative institutions that were forced to hold Drag Queen Story Hour, because the pervert's free speech was more important than the institution's charter principles.
Kevin - if you are paraphrasing Brooklyn Bernie, then it’s:
The Oyvy League is an Allah-gaw-kee.
"and charge hundreds of thousands for worthless degrees."
I suspect that wouldn't be happening if it weren't for extractions from the taxpayers' wallets. It's clear that neither the school nor the students are interested in paying for it.
If Hillsdale can “go Hillsdale,” then so can Harvard. Reject every dime of federal funding, direct and indirect, and blaze your own path. What Harvard does when it stops taking my money is not my business.
By the way, I support Hillsdale financially because I believe there should be at least one institution of learning that stands outside the regulating grasp of Behemoth.
The Trump administration could have, if it was sophisticated about it, have gotten to the same result with Harvard with little risk that Harvard could overturn the decision. But statements like the President's just reinforce that the decision is based on the content of speech by Harvard employees and students, and that's not something the federal government can punish.
Let's change the research grant rules to (1) only fund research that furthers actual science, including fully funding reproducibility studies, and (2) reduce the amount of administrative funding to be limited to 15%. Congress probably has to ultimately decide on those choices.
Universities need to understand that the alternative to reduced research budgets is probably no research budgets. The US has overspent for far too long, and we have to pare back almost everywhere at the federal level to get back to a budget deficit of 3% of GDP or less.
Higher education in America has been a scam for 30 years. People in buildings without windows, who suffer no consequences for their ideas or their actions. It is a very expensive bubble to live in, and they will do everything they can to keep others out.
At some point there existed a level of competency in our elites.
Now, our elites and their institutions are renowned for their lack of intelligence, and inability to exist in the real world.
Behind every foreign policy failure of the last 50 years, you will find Harvards imprint.
Trump, nor any republicans will do anything, so all of this bullshit is just that.
The next Dem president and admin will continue the current policy of Universities being paid propagandists for the left and Islam.
Harvard has the right to say what they want, do what they want, and spend what they want, but not on taxpayer money. May the ivory towers mold, vegetation take over the grounds, and the those passing by spit on the gate.
"Harvard has the right to say what they want, do what they want, and spend what they want, but not on taxpayer money."
What really grinds my gears is that they're whining about being limited in how much government "research" money they can to confiscate in order to spend on other things (read: DEI and administration, for two).
to the left - harassing and threatening Jews... is free speech - and our tax dollars must fund it. right leftists?
A couple of things to point out that might be helpful for understanding private universities.
Almost all the federal money that goes to them is for science, largely medical research. These are competitive grants, and top researchers are heavily recruited for the research dollars they bring. These university then tax these grants at a rate negotiated with the government, to pay for facilities and administration. About 60%, meaning Govt pays the researcher $1 for research and then an extra 60 cents to keep the lights on. This “overhead” is an important source of revenue for any research university. I don’t know the specifics of the accounting, but in some sense science and medicine are profit centers. Back in the 70’s overhead was about 100% until a scandal at Stanford on the abuse of overhead funds lead to it being lowered. It has crept up again. What is a fair number? More than 10%, but probably less than 60%.
The humanities on the other hand operate with a permanent structural deficit. The tension, suspicion and simple envy between science and humanities faculty should not be underestimated. The Gov't is decimating science as that is the leverage they have, but it is the humanities people who are the real target. Tenure means though there is no real transmission of the pain from science to those teaching anti-colonial theory etc. Hence the turmoil within the Columbia faculty.
Joseph Stieglitz is of course correct that endowments should be used to buffer exogenous shocks to revenue, but the fact he has to say this tells you everything you need to know. This is another financial crisis and each one has been met by “belt tightening;” operations are cut to protect the endowment. To be fair, endowments tend to be invested in illiquid assets, but still. A good model for an Ivy league University is that it is a hedge fund that maintains an educational arm for favorable tax status, and medical research arm for generating IP and spinoffs.
Like minimum wage, the real government grant is $0.
I'm curious. Since Althouse is a former Professor of Law at Madison, has there been any talk about Trump taking away federal funds from the University of Wisconsin/Madison? There were a lot of Pro-Palestinian / anti-Israeli protests at Madison.
Harvard believes that they are entitled to abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her "burden" of evidence, and have her too.
How is this any different than people on welfare being told that if they want govt. money they have to play by govt rules?
“Wait until he finds out about churches.”
You forgot your signature 👉 🤡
"Wait until he finds out about churches."
The government shouldn't be making $$$ contributions to churches. And any churches getting themselves involved in politics should be taxed.
Since 2014, when academia started going even more bonkers than usual, I have been warning of the potential for a "Dissolution of the Monasteries" in American academia (one reason the warning has been ineffective is that something like 90% of the professors and 99% of the administrators don't know what the dissolution was, and 50% of those who think they know are actually confusing it with the English civil war).
I've always thought, though, that the Distribution of the Endowments would start at the local level, possibly in New Haven: poor town gets itself into even deeper financial mess and just can't resist the money it would get from putting a property tax on Yale. Since the voters resent the hell out of Yale, and since academia has collectively spent the past 25 years arguing that Western culture is evil, it's an easy sell.
But maybe the push will come from the central government. The Trump administration could block all student visas for Harvard, which would cost them immense amounts of money both in tuition and in the donations that those families have paid to get their kids admitted. The excuse could be not just anti-semitism, but also foreign students taking away opportunities from American students (remember, the Secretary of State doesn't need a reason to refuse to issue a visa).
Add that to the withholding of research funds, a few tweaks in various student loan regulations, reduction of Medicaid payouts to the Med School, eliminating much USAID money, and a big old intrusive investigation by the IRS into political activity (such as giving students extra credit for phone banking for Democratic candidates in New Hampshire, for instance), and it might be possible to push over the $56 billion house of cards.
Despite knowing how corrupt much of academia is--particularly "elite" academia--I do not want to see an equivalent of the Dissolution, which was one of the greatest cultural disasters to befall a European country. We need a lot of the infrastructure of the universities just to preserve the knowledge base. Burning it all down to try to destroy the rot may be emotionally satisfying, but the lesson of the Dissolution is that it takes centuries to recover and even then, much is lost forever.
After the hideous embarrassments of the past 10 years, you'd think that there would be some desire for reform and self-cleansing in academia, but there is none. Sadly, what is likely to happen is the adoption of ridiculously ineffective corporate (or more accurately, governmental) "best practices" that empower petty administrators--many of them failed professors--to impose standardization and centralization, thus crushing the last bits of life out of the universities.
Churches do good works in communities. Nothing to do with Jew-hate at universities.
The Babylon Bee suggests that Harvard needs the government’s $2.3 billion to help them find a final solution to the Jewish problem. In that case suppose Harvard could see whether Starmer of the UK, Macron in France, Merz in Germany, and the mullahs of Iran can get together and make up the shortfall.
Drout - excellent treatise on the Dissolution. I would quibble on a few points, though:
In the 1500s, so many of the English monasteries and convents were tiny. One dozen members or fewer. And so many of the members were the younger children of notable families. So many resources tied up for so few.
The social functions of the monasteries? A big chunk of that was the exhibition of relics, in exchange for donations. More resources pulled out of the working economy. Even Henry VIII, never really a Protestant, didn't approve, and backed the drive to bring all the relics back to London and destroy them.
Intellectual functions? The monastic model, based on handcopying and memorizing texts, was out of date since the invention of the printing press. All factions - religious and political conservatives and reformers - relied on the press. Even for their illiterate audiences - they published engravings satirizing their enemies and saluting their allies, with attributes (Pope's triple crown, etc) everyone could understand.
Finally, the monasteries, run by international orders who reported directly to the Pope, undermined the embryonic nation-state.
So the monasteries were sucking resources out of the economy for the benefit of a few and facilitated foreign meddling, while pursuing an outmoded form of information exchange. Sound familiar?
Dissolving the monasteries helped build an independent English, then British, nation-state and started remodeling society and the economy for the Industrial Revolution.
Doing something similar to the universities today will do similar for our country and civilization.
JSM
Even the USC decision to uphold stripping upstart Bob Jones U of its tax-exempt status over racial discrimination was not unanimous. Good luck stripping the oldest university in the country.
Weak sauce Reader. Bob Jones is precedent! The violations were lesser than Harvard's and "America's oldest university" has been warned. Maybe YOU should review the entire Bob Jones case before slinging any other sub-par take. Did Harvard's general counsel weigh in on it with an amicus brief? Did the other "prestige" colleges?
"and bring in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is 'viewpoint diverse'."
So who gets to choose this outside party? And what kind of power do they get to have?
Kak, is your math correct? "About 60%, meaning Govt pays the researcher $1 for research and then an extra 60 cents to keep the lights on."
Or is it 60 cents out of every dollar goes to overhead, and 40 cents goes to the research? 60/100 is 60% overhead, yours is 60/160 or 37.5% overhead.
Asking as a person who has written and obtained federal funding for research, at an institution that only charged 25% overhead, IIRC.
John Mosby: I agree that there were huge problems with the monasteries by Henry VIII's time, mostly that a large fraction of the monks weren't doing what people thought they should be doing--praying, studying, teaching, healing, etc.--but were engaged in luxurious living and undisciplined behavior. That's one reason why nobody really kicked up a fuss when Henry closed the monasteries and pensioned off all the monks.
But we lost 90% of 500+ years of literature and culture when the monastic libraries were abandoned to rot after the lead was stolen off the roofs of the monasteries and the ceilings fell in. Or the libraries were looted and the parchment used to wrap vegetables, stuff boots, and for toilet paper (John Bale, who HATED the monks has a good polemic on the loss of knowledge and culture).
(Perhaps ironically, since they hate him so much, it may be Trump's anti-war stance and anti-inflationary economic approach that is standing between the universities and a large-scale Dissolution of Endowments, because one of the reasons Henry seized all the land was to pay for his various wars after he had so debased the currency that rampant inflation forced him to seek new sources of funds).
If private donors are permitted to restrict how their donations are spent, why can't the government? "100% of any public money must be spent on research and the school will cover the administrative expenses."
If the research is as important as it's being made out to be, how could anyone complain? It's not like the schools don't have the money, right? Anyway, you'd no doubt see the schools exerting some effort at economizing on administrator expenses, when it's their own money they're spending.
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