With Vance on this, Harvard is unironically doomed.
As an initial note, the gov't should be following the law and isn't. This is wrong. Harvard deserves due process like everyone else. But at some point, it will get due process and it will be utterly screwed. A thread:
1. Vance is right about the reproducibility crisis. This crisis is made possible by the academic dysfunction that comes from groupthink. Anyone who's been in academia knows you can't afford to contradict the powerful, because it will end your career. That can be powerful personalities, or it can be those who can wield political power via DEI or harassment claims. The result's the same-knowledge creation is broken. Progress has been massively slowed. Diseases go uncured, useless or harmful "treatments" get promoted, etc.
As a result, you, personally, know someone who has been injured or died because someone in academia got pissy. More to the point, because Harvard is such a big player, you know someone who died because someone at Harvard got pissy and nobody in charge over there gave enough of a crap to fix the environment despite decades of warnings.
Is the existence of such an environment at Harvard a perfectly legitimate reason to refuse to provide future research grants? You bet it is! Not only is it legitimate, it's arguably morally required. 1/
As an initial note, the gov't should be following the law and isn't. This is wrong. Harvard deserves due process like everyone else. But at some point, it will get due process and it will be utterly screwed. A thread:
1. Vance is right about the reproducibility crisis. This crisis is made possible by the academic dysfunction that comes from groupthink. Anyone who's been in academia knows you can't afford to contradict the powerful, because it will end your career. That can be powerful personalities, or it can be those who can wield political power via DEI or harassment claims. The result's the same-knowledge creation is broken. Progress has been massively slowed. Diseases go uncured, useless or harmful "treatments" get promoted, etc.
As a result, you, personally, know someone who has been injured or died because someone in academia got pissy. More to the point, because Harvard is such a big player, you know someone who died because someone at Harvard got pissy and nobody in charge over there gave enough of a crap to fix the environment despite decades of warnings.
Is the existence of such an environment at Harvard a perfectly legitimate reason to refuse to provide future research grants? You bet it is! Not only is it legitimate, it's arguably morally required. 1/
2. Vance is right that colleges most certainly do engage in the grossest kind of unlawful race discrimination. Not just in admissions but in employment. Stories of rejecting white or male candidates simply because they are white or male are legion. This was never legal, and is nevertheless routine beyond your wildest nightmares. It's not even subtle. Very left-leaning faculty members routinely tell me and others at FIRE about it, under promises that we won't name them.
But in academia, it's not secret at all. They will write it in emails, talk about it in meetings, say it on recordings. If the EEOC or DOJ or whoever gets serious about investigating this, Harvard (and, to be fair, nearly any college) is utterly sunk. Colleges rightly figured they could get away with this for the very good reason that they always got away with this. The problem is that they did so much unlawful discrimination that they are basically sitting on huge amounts of blackmail evidence that can be used to destroy them by denying them funding. Again, the admin is ignoring due process and doing this the wrong way. But if they do it the right way, Harvard is going to be totally doomed.
As a note, the "everyone lies" system is particularly hard on people on the autism spectrum, who have a very tough time accepting the idea that a written rule can say one thing and the actual rule in practice means the opposite. I was in private practice for just a couple years and this happened to multiple of my clients who were on the spectrum. I would explain to them that yes, the college said one thing, but it actually meant the opposite in practice, and that everyone around them knew this. They could not accept this. I found that frustrating to deal with, but eventually realized that I can't blame them for not being willing to accept an unacceptable situation. 2/
But in academia, it's not secret at all. They will write it in emails, talk about it in meetings, say it on recordings. If the EEOC or DOJ or whoever gets serious about investigating this, Harvard (and, to be fair, nearly any college) is utterly sunk. Colleges rightly figured they could get away with this for the very good reason that they always got away with this. The problem is that they did so much unlawful discrimination that they are basically sitting on huge amounts of blackmail evidence that can be used to destroy them by denying them funding. Again, the admin is ignoring due process and doing this the wrong way. But if they do it the right way, Harvard is going to be totally doomed.
As a note, the "everyone lies" system is particularly hard on people on the autism spectrum, who have a very tough time accepting the idea that a written rule can say one thing and the actual rule in practice means the opposite. I was in private practice for just a couple years and this happened to multiple of my clients who were on the spectrum. I would explain to them that yes, the college said one thing, but it actually meant the opposite in practice, and that everyone around them knew this. They could not accept this. I found that frustrating to deal with, but eventually realized that I can't blame them for not being willing to accept an unacceptable situation. 2/
3. Vance is also right that professors are wildly more likely to be on the left than can be explained by anything but political prejudice. This doesn't have to be a deliberate plan; people prefer those who seem similar to them and won't rock the boat. Admins are even MORE likely to be liberal.
What this means is that groupthink rules, and that there is literally nobody left on most campuses, at least with any influence, to say "hey, this might really piss off at least half the people out there, maybe we should consider that before we do it." Look at the clumsily tone-deaf responses to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel to see how this manifests itself.
This isn't itself a reason to cut funding to Harvard or anywhere else. But colleges have forgotten that they are part of a civil society and require the support of that society to function. This means having a constituency that will come to your defense. Who's coming to Harvard's defense?
This morning, Pres. Trump suggested taking billions more from Harvard and giving it to trade schools. Go ahead, try arguing against this and not sounding either totally clueless or like a pompous ass. If Harvard and other colleges had been properly doing their jobs, you'd be able to do so. You could credibly argue, "Sure, trade schools could use the money, but look at all the well-meaning, public-spirited, high-integrity researchers at Harvard that would lose the money they need to cure yet another form of cancer, like the cure that saved your mom." This argument is a good one and might even be true. But it lacks any rhetorical force because the message coming from Harvard and the Ivies for decades has predominantly been "Drop dead, America." 3/
truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTru…
What this means is that groupthink rules, and that there is literally nobody left on most campuses, at least with any influence, to say "hey, this might really piss off at least half the people out there, maybe we should consider that before we do it." Look at the clumsily tone-deaf responses to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel to see how this manifests itself.
This isn't itself a reason to cut funding to Harvard or anywhere else. But colleges have forgotten that they are part of a civil society and require the support of that society to function. This means having a constituency that will come to your defense. Who's coming to Harvard's defense?
This morning, Pres. Trump suggested taking billions more from Harvard and giving it to trade schools. Go ahead, try arguing against this and not sounding either totally clueless or like a pompous ass. If Harvard and other colleges had been properly doing their jobs, you'd be able to do so. You could credibly argue, "Sure, trade schools could use the money, but look at all the well-meaning, public-spirited, high-integrity researchers at Harvard that would lose the money they need to cure yet another form of cancer, like the cure that saved your mom." This argument is a good one and might even be true. But it lacks any rhetorical force because the message coming from Harvard and the Ivies for decades has predominantly been "Drop dead, America." 3/
truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTru…
4/ Again, none of this justifies not following the law in going after Harvard. And I note that these are my opinions, not FIRE's. But Harvard and all of academia is sitting on a huge amount of unexploded ordnance that relied on widespread, nonpartisan goodwill to prevent an explosion. And instead of shoring up that goodwill, Harvard and others did everything they could to destroy it.
Now they are stuck appealing to the very principles - free speech and due process - that they are famous for ignoring when it gets in the way of their own political interests. It is not in the least surprising that America's reaction is basically to yawn.
But even if Harvard wins all its current court challenges, without massive, internal change it will continue to give its opponents all the ammo they need to attack it. People on the right have been mocking Harvard prof Steven Pinker for his oped on Harvard Derangement Syndrome, pointing out that all of his legitimate and entirely reasonable efforts to try to reform Harvard didn't seem to have any effect. Their implication is that this justifies extralegal activity by the Trump admin to beat Harvard into submission. That's not true, but the fact is that if Harvard was even partially capable of normal functioning, Pinker's efforts would have succeeded because they are so obviously needed and correct. Harvard needs America. But how badly does America need a Harvard that doesn't work? /end
nytimes.com/2025/05/23/opi…
Now they are stuck appealing to the very principles - free speech and due process - that they are famous for ignoring when it gets in the way of their own political interests. It is not in the least surprising that America's reaction is basically to yawn.
But even if Harvard wins all its current court challenges, without massive, internal change it will continue to give its opponents all the ammo they need to attack it. People on the right have been mocking Harvard prof Steven Pinker for his oped on Harvard Derangement Syndrome, pointing out that all of his legitimate and entirely reasonable efforts to try to reform Harvard didn't seem to have any effect. Their implication is that this justifies extralegal activity by the Trump admin to beat Harvard into submission. That's not true, but the fact is that if Harvard was even partially capable of normal functioning, Pinker's efforts would have succeeded because they are so obviously needed and correct. Harvard needs America. But how badly does America need a Harvard that doesn't work? /end
nytimes.com/2025/05/23/opi…
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