Do you mean a member of staff from Harvard's English Department disinvited Devin Buckley from a colloquium?
Is that what you are referring to, Galaxy?
Word pairs. New game 9th November
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Trump versus Harvard - and freedom to learn
(98 Posts)The universities aren't interested in free speech either, that's the point.
Cutting government money from universities is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The scientific and technological advances that have helped to make America rich have frequently come from the very programmes that Trump is targetting. Trump is not interested in free speech, quite the opposite, he wants to shut down anyone or any institution which challenges him and his view of the world. I don't see "irony" I see an authoritarian POTUS exceeding his power and testing every measure put in place by the founding fathers to protect democracy.
So the universities have let us down with regard to free speech, it is I am afraid too big an ask to ask us to help them out now. Harvard for example was disinviting feminists for their speech, in this country legislation had to be introduced to ensure the universities supported free speech. Those of us who support free speech warned about what was happening, but no one listened. There is a certain irony in what is happening.
Could you explain your point more fully Galaxy?
I think you are wrong Galaxy - the lecturers are subject specialists and want to teach to their passions. If they can't do this many of them will up sticks if a job comes up elsewhere.
No they don't. They believe in the speech they agree with. That's different. I am not interested in helping to fight for that.
Well obviously universities do believe in it.
Some may be a bit on the "wimpy side" but who can blame them.
Do you think those who believe in free speech will be interested in helping Harvard, sorry but the progressives lost that group a long time ago.
Well if Vance tries to lecture us again on Free Speech....😡
No Wyllow - surely not?
He is the protector of Free Speech!
Censorship.
He is targeting colleges for teaching what he doesn't like.
He is also targeting the media for reporting what he doesn't like.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/trumps-fcc-chair-threatens-comcast-demands-changes-to-nbc-news-coverage/
The research funding cuts are really stupid in my opinion. Trump just expects everyone to roll over.
I hope their Alumni associations help them out short term...
There's a group of universities, including Brown, Princeton, MIT, California Institute of Technology, and the University of Illinois, who have legal challenges against the administration's cuts to federal research funding. I shall be following these with interest.
www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/04/brown-other-universities-sue-department-of-energy-over-research-funding-cuts?hl=en-GB#:~:text=
Also, regarding international research he has already frozen a number of extremely prestigious and competitive scholarships - the Fulbright Awards for example. This has left postgraduates mid-study with no funding to complete.
It's extremely difficult if you are in a foreign country and your visa says you can't work - so to take away your income is just wrong. In many cases it could mean that a family has no income, no way of earning one, and no plane ticket back to their home country.
www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/fulbright-freeze-immoral-and-self-destructive?hl=en-GB
www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1egdy24v7po
Threatening a ban on foreign students.
Grannylynj
You have a lot to say
There is a lot that needs to be said.
This results from the response to Campus demonstrations held in a whole number of universities and whether or not the authorities adequately protected Jewish students and came to a head in January 2025, when Harvard agreed to a definition of anti semitism that would mean no more protests would be allowed to protect its jewish students. Right and proper..
However - Trump is using accusations of anti semitism as one of the reasons for its attempt to intervene in all areas of the curriculum but also cancelling its DEI policies
These policies have been instrumental in widening the base of people who get into Harvard (and other universities) including women and people of colour over the years. Its the result of long struggles which started years ago as regards men only or white only students over the country and I think most valuable.
I would think it was a compliment to be refused by harvard to be fair. The first thing that comes to mind is antisemitism.
And worth every word. People in the UK need to know what Project 25 ideology means in real terms, a shutting down of access to freedoms to learn widely and think critically. Its being watched closely.
You have a lot to say
Well, following the great traditions of their founding fathers(!) Harvard's high standards did not allow Mr Trump through it's hallowed portals.
This is a fight they must win.
Forgive the long start, but it does outline the struggle against a state controlling education and learning
On one side is Harvard, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, with a brand so powerful that its name is synonymous with prestige.
On the other side is the Trump administration, determined to go further than any other White House to reshape American higher education.
Both sides are digging in for a clash that could test the limits of the government’s power and the independence that has made U.S. universities a destination for scholars around the world.
On Monday, Harvard became the first university to openly defy the Trump administration as it demands sweeping changes to limit activism on campus. The university frames the government’s demands as a threat not only to the Ivy League school but to the autonomy that the Supreme Court has long granted American universities.
The federal government says it’s freezing more than $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard (and other universities including other elite ones, but most have caved in - until now.
Already, Harvard’s refusal appears to be emboldening other institutions.
After initially agreeing to several demands from the Trump administration, Columbia University’s acting president took a more defiant tone in a campus message Monday, saying some of the demands “are not subject to negotiation.”
Harvards refusal has now been met with further Trump action
Trump threatened Tuesday to escalate the dispute, suggesting on social media that Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status “if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness’
Sickness?
Thesis their attitude to education from schools to universities, to education in the military, and libraries so far in institutes like the Naval Institute - how long before all libraries.
Burning books next?
Back to Harvard:
“The impasse raises questions about how far the administration is willing to go. However it plays out, a legal battle is likely. A faculty group has already brought a court challenge against the demands, and many in academia expect Harvard to bring its own lawsuit.
In its refusal letter, Harvard said the government’s demands violate the school’s First Amendment rights and other civil rights laws.”
More in the article, ie what is supposed to be “sickness”
But this little quote “took the biscuit” in a way for me.
Obviously some republicans at Harvard are in a complex situation, but
A statement from Harvard’s Republican Club implored the university to reach a resolution with the government and “return to the American principles that formed the great men of this nation
Great men of the nation? Are we in the 1950's?
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