As a scholar of comparative and international education, I study how academic institutions respond to authoritarian pressure – across political systems, cultural contexts and historical moments. While some universities may believe that compliance with the administration will protect their funding and independence, a few historical parallels suggest otherwise.
Yeah, see, who needs history, just a bunch of woke nonsense, right… not like it can offer guidance to us in difficult times or anything like that… better to spend all that money that funds historical education and give to AI companies… /s
“1) Abolish all ideological litmus tests! 2) Establish new ideological litmus tests that favor us!”
Hahhahahahah. We must start a DEI program, but this time a good patriotic one!
First, on the new splashpage, Harvard publicizes how gov’t-funded scientific research benefits the general public. Headlines: “Regained mobility for stroke survivors,” “Lowering prescription drug costs,” “Keeping kids in school.” There’s barely a whisper about the humanities or social sciences here, but in my view, that’s OK–the point is to make the most compelling argument to the general public (not to represent the breadth of Harvard’s value). The FIRST link on the splashpage is labeled “Learn more about Harvard’s research funding.” Click that link, and you’ll access Garber’s letter. That’s followed by a pointed engagement with the federal threats to academic funding: what’s at stake, what Harvard has done to address anti-semitism, and links to news articles about the threatened defunding.
Back to the new splashpage: if you click on the first-level menu in the upper right corner, the first choice is “Academics.” Click there, and this phrase pops up: “Learning at Harvard can happen for every type of learner, at any phase of life.” The page then emphasizes Harvard’s openness and opportunities–including, prominently, online learning and the extension school. This is important because these aspects of Harvard are non-elitist (in some cases open literally to all) and genuinely affordable. The page also emphasizes financial aid. If you click “about” in the first-level menu, you will immediately see a link for “Diversity and Inclusion,” which leads to a robust page headlined “We All Belong Here.”
So to sum it up: the new website prioritizes these claims:
- Government-funded research (primarily scientific) serves the public. You–the website reader–benefit from it and would be hurt by its loss.
- Harvard is for everyone. You–the website reader–have a place here.
- Harvard will not back away from diversity and inclusion.
Check out the new website. Cruise around. It’s brilliant. It’s just what I hoped for.
Can we at some point START making the case FOR the fucking humanities.
Just so we are clear, this is not Chris Mooney’s book from years ago. It’s a rightwing rage fest. On the upside, it does give us a nice list of folks who can safely be ignored.
5 arrested violently at NC Central University for holding a speak-out about dorm conditions.
Umm friends if what happened yesterday at NCCU isn’t on your radar, allow me to bring it your attention.
North Carolina Central University is Durham’s HBCU. It is a great school and a great pride of Durham.
Yesterday, 4 students* and 1 faculty member were arrested on their own campus, by campus law enforcement, for holding a speak-out about the conditions in their dorms.
The speak-out and march through campus was student-led.
Its goal was to bring attention to issues with student housing - black mold, roaches, rodents, constantly breaking-down elevators, washers & dryers that don’t work, flooding in basements.
Admin says the speak-out was “unsanctioned.”
I mean … OK. And? So what? Since when do students of a public university need an official permit to express their views on their own campus? Ridiculous.
Admin says they were “outside agitators.” Sure. Watch my eyes roll. That is the oldest trope in the book: discredit a movement by calling folks “outside agitators.” As predictable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.
I was not at the speak-out or march, but I did talk with student organizers when I showed up to provide jail support.
According to the student leaders I spoke with, the arrestees were all affiliated with NCCU. They told me that *one of the people detained was not currently enrolled but was enrolled last semester and is still active with campus activities. They said others were students and a faculty member.
Students and a faculty member.
These are young people speaking out on their own campus about their living conditions on said campus.
Even if you do not believe the students — which you should, I do believe them, I was VERY impressed with them — tell me why a faculty member would be arrested. Make that make sense.
They were taken to the jail to go before the magistrate. After several long hours at the jail, they were released with a promise to appear in court.
None of their supporters were allowed into the [public, taxpayer-funded] waiting room to sit, warm up, or use the restrooms.
The “Durham 5”’s charges include:
— 2nd degree trespassing (ON THEIR OWN CAMPUS)
— resisting a public officer
— failure to disperse
I believe our Durham community, and all people of good will, should stand with these young people. The arrests were completely unwarranted.
All charges should be dropped.
Take a look at some stills from videos that keep getting taken down from social media. You will see that officers held these young people off the ground, pushed them in their faces, slammed them into the cement sidewalks and glass walls. One video apeared to show a particularly egregious action: a very petite (folks said, “tiny, about 100 pounds”) student being punched repeatedly in the head. But that video seems to have completely disappeared.
This was a disproportionate, inappropriate, unnecessary use of law enforcement.
All charges should be dropped. And these students deserve acknowledgement of what they were subjected to, and an apology. Likewise, the officers should be held accountable for their actions.
Link to donate for legal fees and other expenses in the comments.
I really fucking hate when leaders of Black spaces/places use that term. It’s bad enough that it’s a common trope for white politicians, leaders, or what have you to use it… it’s unconscionable for Black leaders to do so. Andre Dickens (ATL mayor) used it to discuss the cop city protesters. I lost pretty much all respect for him after that.
When the spring semester began, Southwestern College professor Elizabeth Smith felt good. Two of her online classes were completely full, boasting 32 students each. Even the classes’ waitlists, which fit 20 students, were maxed out. That had never happened before.
“Teachers get excited when there’s a lot of interest in their class. I felt like, ‘Great, I’m going to have a whole bunch of students who are invested and learning,’’ Smith said. “But it quickly became clear that was not the case.”
By the end of the first two weeks of the semester, Smith had whittled down the 104 students enrolled in her classes, including those on the waitlist, to just 15. The rest, she’d concluded, were fake students, often referred to as bots.
“It’s a surreal experience and it’s just heartbreaking,” Smith said. “I’m not teaching, I’m playing a cop now.”
The bots’ goal is to bilk state and federal financial aid money by enrolling in classes, and remaining enrolled in them, long enough for aid disbursements to go out.They often accomplish this by submitting AI-generated work. And because community colleges accept all applicants, they’ve been almost exclusively impacted by the fraud.
I have not seen that over here… I guess it’s another thing to be on the look out for… 
[ETA] Not exactly related, but sort of?
I wonder what his angle is…
“If any of us want to do the things that we want to do for our country,” Vance said, “and for the people who live in it, we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.” Or, as conservative activist Christopher Rufo put it in a New York Times piece exploring the attack campaign, “We want to set them back a generation or two.”
Well, there you go…
Exactly. Cowardly appeasement and compliance of the sort that Columbia has so famously and shamefully demonstrated will not work.
Exactly. All it got them was more demands without restoring the grants withheld. I like to think this played a part in Harvard’s decision, and the Big 10 colleges’ mutual defense pact, but I guess we shall see.
