This is the sort of thing that explains why the left hates Trump with the heat of a thousand suns, and must destroy him
Trump dares to go there:
President Donald Trump said Friday he is asking the Treasury Department to review the tax-exempt status of universities and school systems, suggesting in a tweet that too many were about “Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education.”
Trump also said he would have their funding revoked “if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues.”
“Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!” he wrote.
I am actually in awe of this. It is exactly where the fight must be carried. I don’t think this move of Trump’s will actually work – although I wish it would, because the universities do not deserve their tax-exempt status, having utterly forfeited their stance as objective seekers of truth and defenders of freedom of expression and having become propagandists for the worst excesses of the left. But whether it works or not, Trump has named what is happening and he has done what the left is usually so adept at doing – moving the Overton Window.
I don’t even think that Trump thinks this particular action would succeed at this point. However, what he and the right need to do is to let people know that the rot in the universities is one of the main causes of the turmoil and riots and craziness that have been going on for the last six weeks or so – as well as of the more longterm cancel culture and the furious debunking of history, of the Enlightenment, and of western civilization itself.
He needs to keep saying this, because that is the real war. The 2020 election is only one battle in it.
Well done DJT !
Imagine Mitt Romney doing this (he wouldn’t in a million semesters).
Yes! And as another shot across the bow, Betsy De Vos’s statement that if schools won’t reopen, maybe the money should go directly to the parents instead.
A good move by Trump. But I’m hoping the Wuhan flu also destroys some schools; my former employer for one. Expensive, tuition dependent budget, and so far gone leftist. Even a 10% drop in enrollment would be catastrophic, and they are not alone.
Interested readers should consult the recent pieces (Campus Reform, Reason, and Quilette) on the shockingly anti-intellectual “list of demands” presented to the president of Princeton by hundreds of faculty and graduate students in the name of “anti-racism”. It is perhaps the most blatant attempt thus far by the forces of the “woke mob” on an elite campus to seize control of the entire curriculum in the name of “social justice.” No-one should underestimate how pernicious an influence is the contemporary American academic world.
First the colleges and universities, then the grammar schools!!
Can only say, it’s about time.
All this rot began with the occupations and trashing of University administrators’ offices 52 years ago. Not one of them stood up on its hind legs – they all played the Mayor Durkan role, abdicated their responsibilities and graciously blessed and forgave the oh-so-moral ‘protesters’.
Now the situation has declined to a state where there are more (very highly paid) ‘administrators’ than professors in some universities, whose duties have nothing to do with education and everything to do with moral bullying.
Time for a change, which could lead to genuine hope. Indeed it is the real war, and perhaps like the illegal immigration issue of 2016 will do Trump more good than harm.
Defund the universities.
A good move by Trump. But I’m hoping the Wuhan flu also destroys some schools; my former employer for one. Expensive, tuition dependent budget, and so far gone leftist.
physicsguy: Just so you know, you’ve got one fan here anytime you want to talk about the university system.
I have great respect for the mission of the university system. I am horrified that not only is that system off-course, it is now weaponized to destroy its original mission.
Bill Ayers, you magnificent bastard!
(Is Trump our Patton?)
I support Trump and De Vos in their acting against the cancer that has grown in the gut of this nation.
I am ashamed of the craven cowardice exhibited by the administrations of two STEM universities that I attended in the period 1960 through 1972. I have instead identified Hillsdale College in my will, as it is one island of sanity in academe.
Defund and Tax them all.
Hooray!
I hope that this is the first shot in what is going to be a major counter-attack by DJT. I have no idea whether he will, or even intends to do this in whole or in part; although I would love to see it.
I just hope that it is a new strategy in which he will keep threatening the sacred cows of the Left and keep them back on their heels. Keep Democrats responding to him; and in many cases, force them to convince the American people that the offal they are defending benefits the country.
The list is endless. For example; sanctuary states and cities; and cities that defund, or divert money from the police. So, says POTUS, if you flout federal law, or don’t spend federal money for the purpose that it was intended, the money will not come. I suppose the courts would align against him; nevertheless, the folks in about 40 or so states would applaud. Then, there is a myriad of 501c3 organizations that blatantly push a partisan agenda. Announce a review of them all; cut off a few choice ones nd enjoy the squeals. Long overdue anyway.
All this rot began with the occupations and trashing of University administrators’ offices 52 years ago. Not one of them stood up on its hind legs – they all played the Mayor Durkan role, abdicated their responsibilities and graciously blessed and forgave the oh-so-moral ‘protesters’.
I assume you know that a prominent occupier of Columbia’s admin building was Obama’s “wing man,” Eric Holder.
How appropriate that I’m just finishing up Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind.
I suppose Trump’s threat may, as you say, Neo, move the window, which would be good. But I don’t think its actual implementation would be a good thing. Baby and bathwater. This would be an instant death blow to many institutions that least deserve it. The Ivies and their peers would be ok, with their billions in the bank.
However, I have been predicting for 30 years that a shakeout in this “industry” would happen sooner or later. There are many existing reasons why the current “higher ed” sector is a house of cards.
A slight correction that I don’t think you will mind too much. I recently read up on the Overton Window, and the claim was made that while we sometimes say that politicians and other influential types move the Overton Window, they cannot actually do so. What they do is sense where the window has already moved, or at least is moving to, and plant themselves in that place.
I recall in the late 80s and 90s that critics would claim that Rush Limbaugh was bringing in radical right ideas. But caller after caller on his show would say “You are doing a great job of putting words to what I have been thinking for years.” There is something of that in Trump. It’s audacious, but in another sense it isn’t new.
I assume you know that a prominent occupier of Columbia’s admin building was Obama’s “wing man,” Eric Holder.
Mike K: I don’t know that. Though looking it up now, I see according to wiki:
In 1969, while a freshman at Columbia, Holder was one of several dozen students who staged an occupation of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps office, renaming it as the Malcolm X student center.
So Holder missed the big April 1968 protests, which I read chronicled in James Kunen’s book, “The Strawberry Statement.”
In addition to teaching feminism at my college, Robin Morgan organized the women from her feminism class (no men!) to occupy the President’s Office. A list of “non-negotiable demands” were presented. The president took an early lunch and didn’t come back for several days.
I bought some mescaline from a guy whose girlfriend was in the Office at the time. It didn’t impress me much. However, I was impressed that the college president rolled over the way he did.
Maybe it seemed the simple, clever, “no muss, no fuss” thing to do at the time. But fifty years later…
Mike K: I meant to say, “I didn’t know that.” Not intending a flat contradiction.
He’s listening to Victor Davis Hanson.
Good.
Victor Davis Hanson: Five ‘Radical, Long-Term Solutions’ to Leftist Academic Corruption
https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2020/07/10/victor-davis-hanson-radical-long-term-solutions-leftist-academic-corruption/
huxley:
I think the big turning point was Cornell 1969, which Allan Bloom and Thomas Sowell have written about.
Mac:
I would rather that a huge number of people just stopped sending their kids there.
But I think what’s behind the left’s “free tuition for all” agenda is that it would protect colleges from market forces of that sort.
But I think what’s behind the left’s “free tuition for all” agenda is that it would protect colleges from market forces of that sort.
neo: I wonder if that motivation doesn’t also apply to the social service and diversity bureaucracies — white collar jobs in which to place the not particularly talented children of middle and upper-middle-class parents, now that college degrees don’t have the oomph to vault almost anyone with a sheepskin into a nice position.
In 1970 11% of the population had four-year degrees. In 2019 it’s 36%. The competition between college grads has more than tripled.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment-of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/
(I am surprised by this graph in that degreed men and women are about equal, even though, as I recall, the campus gender ratio is now 60-40 favoring women. Does this mean a large number of women aren’t graduating?)
I think the big turning point was Cornell 1969, which Allan Bloom and Thomas Sowell have written about.
neo: Hmm.
Did they make a movie out of Cornell 1969? No.
Does it have its own wiki entry? No.
Was there a bestselling book written about it? No.
Did an impressionable kid in Daytona Beach read about it? No.
Well, there you have it. 🙂
“The Strawberry Statement (1970) Official Trailer”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyl-tIsNEFc
Where are the Republicans?
Why do they hate America? Why won’t they stand up for the base?
Neo, yes, the free tuition thing is definitely in part a Full Employment Act for college administrators. And to a lesser extent faculty. And left-wing activists. What’s needed most of all, I think, is a move away from the whole idea that everybody or even most people need to go to college. I was glad to see Trump’s step in that direction. The whole concept of higher education has become warped beyond recognition, and the idea that literally everybody should have a college education is just…”all have won, and all must have medals,” or however that goes. (Alice In Wonderland?)
Tangentially related.
I have long advocated the complete elimination of the deduction for contributions to “charitable” organizations (a/k/a 501c(3) organizations), for several reasons, including:
1. The Clinton Foundation is a tax-exempt organization.
2. The IRS determines* who qualifies. “[A]ll section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.** Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.*** Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.”
* Lois Lerner made certain determinations for the IRS.
** Trump announced his candidacy for the 2020 election on the day he was inaugurated. The prohibition
*** I think a case can be made that many colleges and universities have made public statements in opposition to Trump’s candidacy for the Presidency.
2. The IRS determines whether or not an organization qualifies for 501c(3). The IRS is clearly part of the Deep State. Do we want them to decided who is eligible?
3. I submit that many large contributors to left-wing organizations are motivated by the availability of the tax deduction, which provides them with a huge discount on the cost of signalling their virtue.
4. People contribute to their church, not for the tax deduction, but as a matter of faith.
But what will the country do without innumerate mathematicians, gender studies majors – “major” implies a ranking or hierarchy, the students of subjective sciences where all answers are equally “correct?” The products or Woke U (Inc.). What will the country do without these seekers after wisdom and enlightenment? Where will Xi Jing ping send his thieves?
When downtown Portland is totally razed where will the “students” at Portland State University go to play?
@Assistant Village Idiot:
Anyone looking to understand how the Overton Window moves is advised to read Curtis Yarvin / Mencius Moldbug on what he calls ‘The Cathedral’.
GIYF.
He can be hard-going and prolix but it takes a lot of words to paint an image of something so pervasive that we have difficulty making it out in daily life. Imagine a visionary fish trying to explain water to the other fishes.
Also worth looking on YouTube for Eric Weinstein interviewing Peter Thiel, plus generally anything by EW. Some good stuff on where pretty much all our institutions have lost the plot.
A very recent supreme court ruling makes me think that President Trump can indeed get this done. Supreme Court ruled recently that the United States government does not have to fund anti-American activities. One or more of George Soros foundation tentacles was ruled against this week. Stage set?
@Mike K – I didn’t know that about Holder and the 69 occupation at Columbia and I’m Colombia ’64! Interesting sidelight. During my Freshman Week in the Fall of 1960 we were all presented with a copy of CP Snow’s Two Cultures and our first issue of The Spectator – the undergraduate student newspaper of Columbia College. The front page story in that particular issue was about student opposition to Columbia building a new high rise gymnasium building in Morningside Park. The building was to have its foundations down in Harlem with some facilities for the people of Harlem but completely sealed off internally from the luxurious facilities intended for us young gentlemen and the greater ivy covered community up on Morningside Heights. That was one of the major issues that triggered the 1968 student riots at Columbia which I can now see as just another microaggression in the Gramscian long march through the institutions.
What’s needed most of all, I think, is a move away from the whole idea that everybody or even most people need to go to college.
I’ll suggest what’s needed is for the current model of tertiary schooling to be revamped, ideally parallel with that of secondary and primary schooling. We can set up joint-service corporations to maintain the extant campuses. These corporations would then host several institutions. Institutional types:
1. 2d chance high schools
2. Occupational institutes: holding companies of occupational schools which would provide administrative support. Each school would be autonomous, and would provide trade programs of a sort you see in community colleges and baccalaureate-granting schools alike as we speak. Course of study would be in a discrete subject, 48-60 credits in length, and spread over two academic years or a single calendar year. An internship would commonly be appended.
3. Preparatory institutes: these would provide standard courses of study as a screen for certain occupational / professional schools and tailored programs to fill in a particular person’s gaps. Content would be academic, with some business courses as well.
4. Arts institutes: Structurally similar to occupational institutes, but trading in impractical subjects (studio art, music, theatre and dance, film and photography).
5. Eccentric programs: these would have similar aims as the occupational institutes, but not precisely compatible with their structure and culture. Among them would be service academies, agricultural schools, and institutional diploma programs in hospitals, museums, archives, and libraries.
6. Professional institutes: engineering, medicine and allied (with teaching hospitals), law, and veterinary medicine. These would commonly have affiliated research centers.
7. General research institutes: a holding company of research centers devoted to occupational subjects like public policy and business administration. Train faculty.
8. Academic research institutes: ditto, but for the academic arts and sciences, music, and theology
9. Colleges: provide 1, 2, and 3 year courses of study in the academic arts and sciences, music, and theology.
10. Stand alones e.g. conservatories, divinity schools, and seminaries.
A narrow conception of ‘university’ would encompass just 8 and 9. A broader conception would encompass 6-10.
In such a system, perhaps 55% of each cohort would have some sort of tertiary schooling. The modal program – six months at a preparatory institute, a year or two at an occupational institute, and and internship – could be completed in about three years. About 12% of each cohort might complete an academic degree (of 30, 60, or 90 credits), but without the tremendous waste of time and effort which goes into today’s baccalaureate degrees. Elongated occupational programs would be limited to the 3-4% of each cohort necessary to staff those professions.
As for financing, public institutes could be financed through voucher redemptions with a fixed ration of vouchers distributed via competitive examinations. Private institutions would charge tuition and room-and-board which families could finance through household resources, philanthropic grants, and unsubsidized bank loans.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests you might be able to staff the bourgeois labor force with about 5 million enrolled in tertiary schooling at any one time – or about 60% lower than is the case today.
I remember reading a Canadian professor saying that if you came from a conservative and/or religious family that you precisely were type of student they needed to change.
Dennis Prager has been addressing this exact issue for decades. I first heard him declare it in 1990, on AM radio in Los Angeles, CA. It was the first time I witnessed the notion put into reasoned thought. Other conservatives were later to be heard with similar sentiments.
Donald Trump has also brought national attention to the incredibly dangerous behavior by China. Stealing our I.P. Injecting thousands of Chinese spies within our university systems; particularly research, science, and technology departments.
Who is responsible for having welcomed the Communist Chinese into the World Trade Organization in the late 1990’s?
And for rewarding them with “favored nation” status?
And for advocating for them to produce, along with India, well over 90% of our pharmaceutical products?
And for pushing industrial manufacturing facilities to be built there so as to “take care” of America’s endless consumer needs and wants?
How I recall Bill Clinton and Madelaine Albright being at the forefront. Along with other politicians of many stripes. And the corporate titans.
Donald Trump has upset the apple cart. He is vilified on the Left. Hated by RINO’s. Crucified by Never-Trumpers.
The best at sharing stories of the assault on conservative thinkers in academia and the hell they were put through was one erstwhile tenured English professor at, UPenn. Erin O’Connor blogged on it for years. Jaw-dropping anecdotes from the inside. Damn, she was good. Then, years ago, she faded from blogging and academia. I think I found evidence that she entered the corporate environment. It is not certain, however, I wish her all the best wherever she is. God bless her. Even though she is an atheist. Raised by two parents on the west coast who were also atheists.
“Going there” by an elected official is a crucial first step. When that official the President, so, so much the better!
I’ve been in and around academe for most of my thirty-plus-year career. Neo, physicsguy, and Art Deco are absolutely right: higher ed is the source of the rot, with a big assist from public K-12 (whose teachers go through “colleges of education”–read: left-wing indoctrination). Trump’s order to Treasury is excellent news and shows that he, like U.S. Grant, understands how to attack the enemy’s center of gravity. I just wish he had done it sooner in his term and hope he gets another term to follow through on it. This is where the battle needs to be fought, so “let the thing be pressed”.
Clarity: I was a big fan of Erin O’Connor. Her academic blog was called “Critical Mass” and yes, it was spot-on. She left Penn to teach (briefly) at a private school in Massachusetts, then joined the Moving Picture Institute (MPI), a conservative/classically liberal movie-making outfit. She’s no longer listed on the MPI masthead. Not sure what she’s doing now.
Yes, yes, yes!! They’ll tar it as Trump “hating education,” but many Americans are seeing now that a university education does not necessarily indicate any actual knowledge. It doesn’t even seem to inoculate grads against bad ideas (I say this as a college grad who sees her peers career off the cliff of Woke madness). These college students and grads have been fomenting revolution to destroy our government and social system; why would it be in taxpayers’ interest to subsidize them?
——————-
Neo, here is an essay that explains how Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity training classes in businesses are frauds, which equivocate on common definitions of words in order to take advantage of peoples good intentions, in order to institutionalize Critical Race Theory into private businesses. I thought you might find it interesting. https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/diversity-delusion/
All right, Universities, those places where really good football coaches are paid the highest public salary in some states to run the farm teams for the NFL and what’s wrong with that as long as all of the facilities are paid for by donations where the names of donors are enshrined forever or until something else comes along. Places where dingbats and marginal disciplines have become factories for enslaving young folks who have been conned into living well on student loans with promises of a wonderful life ever after until the graduate and go to work for Starbucks for health insurance and live on frozen burritos so they can pay their share of the two bedroom apartment where five of them are living while they get a start on their lives.
That takes in most of those under 35 years old who see no hope ever getting out of debt, as for those older up to about 60 years old a lot of them did not fall for the cheese in the trap and they are building lives with equity and want to protect what they own and raise their children with decent values and perhaps they are offended when the are told they are oppressors of those less fortunate because they understand that they have paid the price of working hard to own property and build equity for their future because that is called responsibility.
My hope is that when it comes time to vote this fall with each person in this nation, who is an eligible voter, will once more exercise the right of the secret ballot and surprise the hell out of the newscasters and the nation who thought Hillary was a shoo in. It could happen once more and if it does not then we will have a lot more stuff to deal with and we will, in the meantime the professional sports might discover their confusion of politics and sports has totally destroyed their entertainment value and the line men might have to start selling used cars to make a living. I don’t know, I don’t make the rules.
I would bet that this is either
1. A big first “ask”, to be followed up with a “reasonable compromise” that gets Trump everything he really wanted from the start, or
2. A maneuver to get everyone concentrated on screaming about an issue of relatively minor importance while he quietly goes about some unrelated but relatively major goal.
Trump does both of these things over and over and the Democrats/left never catch on.
“Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!” he wrote.
America’s world really is coming to an end when Trump is speaking in Ymarisms.
Imagine Mitt Romney doing this (he wouldn’t in a million semesters).
I don’t imagine anyone here capable of doing that, except Ymar.
Someone above mentioned Hillsdale College. I don’t know if y’all are aware, but Hillsdale has a free On-Line Course program. My wife and I have already finished “The Great American Story: A Land of Hope” (25 roughly one-hour lectures) and “Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitution” (12 lectures). We’re taking “Winston Churchill and Statesmanship” (six lectures) at present. All are excellent, and if you have children at home, this is wonderful supplement to their education. We’ve also taken a couple other courses that we just thought sounded interesting, and we weren’t disappointed. The first two of these courses go into great detail about how we got into the mess we’re in now. I’d encourage everyone to enroll and take these courses, and to pass the word on to others. Why wait until you’re dead to support Hillsdale College? They could use the support now so they can put out more of these kinds of classes.
I majored in History back in the 70s, and lived through and remember the 60s. These courses filled in a lot of blanks for me, and I use the info I gleaned from them in discussions with friends and acquaintances quite often.
Full disclosure: I receive nothing from Hillsdale College except free on-line education.
https://online.hillsdale.edu/#course-offerings
Waidmann
That is only a start… How many more need to be banished from the public trough?
The current tax-exempt laws, which I’m almost totally ignorant about, might be usable to challenge colleges today.
Also, maybe not.
Or, perhaps challenge the tax-exempt status and get a ruling result that the tax exemption continues.
Who does that ruling? Based on what criteria?
Only if Reps win AND decide to change the rules will the current colleges start actual reforms.
Plus on-line “education” needs to result in better testing and more acceptable credentialization.
Plus more folks need to go thru Euro-style apprentice programs, rather than college, to learn how to do a complex job.