The leaders of academia are not equal to this moment.
Reposted from
Anna Bower
Here’s the email that Harvard University’s president, Alan Garber, sent to members of the Harvard community in response to this news.
Comments
What the fuck?
Special.
Neither the best, nor the brightest.
We will not forget, I will not forgive.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2025/03/wang-raymer-appointment
I don't see Dartmouth fighting fascism, or Cornell or Yale standing up for Palestinians.
Maybe Princeton?
Took a lot of institutional failure to get us to here.
It’s a Proj 2025 goal to relieve these universities of their endowments. These universities are giving them the keys to do so by appeasing.
Nor was it ever.
There is no identity that prevents someone from being a shitty person, that’s just how being a human works.
And Harvard’s been an elite entity for…centuries?
They want to do this.
Harvard: Yes I am a nerd here is my lunch money Mr Trump sir if I try to be less nerdy in the future you'll let me keep my lunch money next time won't you sir Mr Trump sir sir sir sir
Trump: Snicker
Its one of those shit moments where you have to choose which is the greater good: freedom of the self and speech, or research and programs that benefits all of hummanity.
Racism = Unacceptable
Like history professors, or political science or legal professors, who may have some insights on actions to take against authoritarians.
Alan Garber is exactly the type of wealthy, self-centered American that constitutes a plague on this country and enables Trump and his cronies.
Why are we expecting Ivy League to act differently? This is why they exist: Rubberstamping prestige onto white collar criminal frat bros.
Those are more "go along to get along" and "schmooz big donors" roles.
DISGUSTED.
It never came.
The great liberal got up, . . . “Very interesting, Mr. Commissar, . . . will there be more money for research?"
yeah i guess Trump has to threaten Harvard's money since they don't appear to have any principles to threaten
Have you read their endowment stipulations? They and most colleges and universities don't have as much funding as people think from hearing about big $ endowments.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250330180038/https://mailchi.mp/04bd06b0c03c/deans-email-for-march-28-2025?e=2797698bc9
https://www.chronicle.com/article/dei-will-continue-in-his-college-u-of-mich-dean-says-in-since-deleted-post
There are apparently "traditions and norms*" that prevent universities from spending down those fortunes on anything as trivial as protecting academic freedom.
* where have we heard that?
University revenue included just $700m federal grants for 2023-2024 year.
@harvard.edu could have ridden this out for a decade.
MGB also had $4.6b of conditional research grants for future research to be performed as of 9/30/2024—assuming those grants weren’t already canceled.
Source: https://www.mghihp.edu/sites/default/files/2024-12/mgb_report_consolidated_audited_financial_statements_2024.pdf
In the fall of 2020, when universities were constantly stressing the importance of "anti-racism", a lot of people called it "performative BS".
Based on how quickly those universities have been folding to Trump, it was definitely "performative BS".
They were just going with the flow.