1. The colleges will not retreat without a fight. Many have “eliminated” their DEI offices by just renaming and shifting admin titles. They really think we, and Trump, are that dumb.

2. New schools are aborning well below the Universities, and there is where great differences will be made, I hope.

   For one instance, see: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/back-to-basics-chabad-tamim

3. DUI?
   IUD?
   DUD?

   Pretty crafty, those guys…

4. Let these universities get what is coming to them. The product they provide is not worth nearly what they charge.

5. Personally, I think the first step would be to make certain there’s not a line on student applications for “race”. Just eliminate it. Then maybe remove the line for “sex” as well. They no longer have dorms for males or females these days. Might as well eliminate photos…what’s the point for supplying a photo until actual enrollment?

6. The universities are a wasteland and need to be closed down. One way to do that is to make them justify their cost to the students. Government guaranteed student loans are a huge subsidy to the universities.

   According to this, in 2024, Americans owed about $1.74 trillion of student loans. Since the loans are all government guaranteed, that is essentially all subsidies from the taxpayers to the universities. This would be a great target for government spending reduction.

   https://www.lendingtree.com/student/student-loan-debt-statistics/

7. Due to obscene costs, politicization, demographics, poor results, questionable degree value and AI, higher ed is facing a cataclysm.

   The university system may not be recognizable in ten years.

8. What neo is saying is that now no one believes anymore in free expression or merit hiring. Jews are now a protected class, like blacks and gays, and you can’t say anything that hurts their feelings, and hiring must include proportional representation for conservatives. Whatever: it’s a sad world that neo and I are leaving to our children, though she has done more damage than I.

9. What neo is saying …

   y81:

   Someone hasn’t been watching Jordan Peterson carefully…
   __________________________

   Cathy Newman to Jordan Peterson: So you’re saying that…

   –Cathy Newman, “Jordan Peterson debate on the gender pay gap, campus protests and postmodernism”
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54
   __________________________

   Straw Man Fallacy / Loaded Question / False Attribution. Classic stuff.

10. @ y81 – you forgot your /sarc tag again.

11. From Rufo’s post:

    Several years ago, the author Christopher Caldwell changed the conversation with his book The Age of Entitlement. The book argued that the civil-rights regime established in the 1960s marked a fundamental departure from America’s constitutional tradition. Though launched with the noble intention of stopping racial discrimination, Caldwell argued, the Civil Rights Act–and the bureaucracy it spawned–gradually consumed core American freedoms and became a vehicle for entrenching left-wing racialist ideology throughout American institutions.

    In the decades that followed, the Right’s response was marked by ambivalence. Some libertarians called for repealing the Civil Rights Act, but—like many libertarian proposals—this was never a political possibility, given the Act’s broad public support. The establishment Right, meanwhile, largely suppressed its private misgivings. Republicans repeatedly voted to expand the civil-rights regime, further embedding dubious concepts like disparate-impact theory into law.

    Goldwater was right.

    https://www.thornwalker.com/recoveries/goldwater.html

    Why I Won’t Vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964
    Sen. Barry M. Goldwater (June 18, 1964)

    There have been few, if any, occasions when the searching of my conscience and the re-examination of my views of our constitutional system have played a greater part in the determination of my vote than they have on this occasion.

    I am unalterably opposed to discrimination or segregation on the basis of race, color, or creed, or on any other basis; not only my words, but more importantly my actions through the years have repeatedly demonstrated the sincerity of my feeling in this regard.

    This is fundamentally a matter of the heart. The problems of discrimination can never be cured by laws alone; but I would be the first to agree that laws can help — laws carefully considered and weighed in an atmosphere of dispassion, in the absence of political demagoguery, and in the light of fundamental constitutional principles.
    …

    I realize fully that the Federal Government has a responsibility in the field of civil rights. I supported the civil rights bills which were enacted in 1957 and 1960, and my public utterances during the debates on those measures and since reveal clearly the areas in which I feel that Federal responsibility lies and Federal legislation on this subject can be both effective and appropriate. Many of those areas are encompassed in this bill, and, to that extent, I favor it.

    I wish to make myself perfectly clear. The two portions of this bill to which I have constantly and consistently voiced objections, and which are of such overriding significance that they are determinative of my vote on the entire measure, are those which would embark the Federal Government on a regulatory course of action with regard to private enterprise in the area of so-called public accommodations and in the area of employment — to be more specific, Titles II and VII of the bill.

    I find no constitutional basis for the exercise of Federal regulatory authority in either of these areas; and I believe the attempted usurpation of such power to be a grave threat to the very essence of our basic system of government, namely, that of a constitutional republic in which 50 sovereign states have reserved to themselves and to the people those powers not specifically granted to the central or Federal Government.
    …

    My basic objection to this measure is, therefore, constitutional. But in addition, I would like to point out to my colleagues in the Senate and to the people of America, regardless of their race, color, or creed, the implications involved in the enforcement of regulatory legislation of this sort.

    To give genuine effect to the prohibitions of this bill will require the creation of a Federal police force of mammoth proportions. It also bids fair to result in the development of an “informer” psychology in great areas of our national life — neighbors spying on neighbors, workers spying on workers, businessmen spying on businessmen, where those who would harass their fellow citizens for selfish and narrow purposes will have ample inducement to do so. These, the Federal police force, and an “informer” psychology, are the hallmarks of the police state and landmarks in the destruction of a free society.
    …

    And so, because I am unalterably opposed to any threats to our great system of government and the loss of our God-given liberties, I shall vote “no” on this bill.
    …

    If my vote is misconstrued, let it be, and let me suffer its consequences. Just let me be judged in this by the real concern I have voiced here and not by words that others may speak or by what others may say about what I think.

    My concern extends beyond this single legislative moment. My concern extends beyond any single group in our society. My concern is for the entire nation, for the freedom of all who live in it and for all who will be born into it.

    It is the general welfare that must be considered now, not just the special appeals for special welfare. This is the time to attend to the liberties of all.

    This is my concern. And this is where I stand.

12. huxley on April 16, 2025 at 9:44 pm:
    “The university system may not be recognizable in ten years.”
    Your comment led me to consider a likely outcome will be more of a “gig type” of education. The students will be required to select and design their educational materials with more options and perhaps less guidance than previous practice. This will also place demands on students and hiring managers and others to gage an individual’s capabilities and potential future contributions on that “individuals” ability to convey such abilities going forward. Such “self selling” will become even more important a skill than it otherwise has always been, even when not promoted explicitly as such. Learning this often comes as part of attending the “school of hard knocks”.

    Traditionally we looked to the experts in a given field (literature, engineering, et al.) to develop and select the content of an educational program: what materials, divided into what courses, presented in what order, etc. If you completed the defined program (with minor variants allowed) you could claim some level of equivalent expertise. It also removed much of the mental and analytical burden from the student to define just what in detail he wanted or needed in preparing for a career and a potential revenue source.

    This feature or practice also allowed for greater presentation and consumption of indoctrination than if a student was offered the opportunity, and the responsibility, of selecting just what material he would be learning, for what purpose and context. The question “of just what value is this information to me?” would be asked more often, and the answer might be to avoid or void a particular chuck of “learning” as a result.

    A student might end up being well advised to actually follow a previously defined program, but it would then have to be a more conscious choice, recognizing there were other topics and areas of interest that would have to be delayed or rejected in total. Then again, a focus on accepting responsibility for one’s decisions would not be a bad thing, given where the neglect of such thinking has led us over the last few decades.

    PS: in rereading this, I see it has a strong college educational bias, but the ideas would still apply for people inclined towards trade schools or apprenticeships, etc.

13. I think R2L has the gist of it; “institutionalization of a degree” may have had validity at one time, and in the area of pure liberal arts education, where some amount of generalization across multiple disciplines seeks to create a high degree of well-roundedness, it still does.

    Increasingly, however, specialization is increasing in modern society, especially in the technical fields, but not only there. In such instances a “cafeteria plan” of courses and accomplishments makes more sense, where a student can select particular individal courses, or groups of courses, to achieve a high degree on knowledge and capability in specific areas.

    For this to have any value to potential employers, however, will require absolute integrity on the part of educational organizations, allowing them to certify with institutional reputation, demonstrable course content and accuracy of grading, the verificable achievement level of completing students.

    This is not possible for the overwhelming majority of colleges and universities in today’s America, and I doubt most are capable of making a succesful transition to such an arrangement. Which may not be a bad thing, we’re severely overprovisioned with such institutions and a fair amount of herd thinning is long overdue.

14. The Ivy level schools don!t really need rigor or government funding – their primary function is to filter and groom the Hunter Bidens. Their degrees grant entry to career paths and positions of influence largely reserved for the elite – the tiny minority that controls the lion’s share of wealth and influence. They are our Oxford and Cambridge. Sure, America has more social mobility than other countries – but much of the political/public/NGO patronage positions that Doge is eliminating operate more like the UK than America.

    So the top tier unis are largely insulated from direct reform. Reform will come to them downstream of MAGA, when the patronage/regulatory economy is eliminated, manufacturing is restored, and merit-based competiton ‘redistributes’ wealth and power. An Ivy credential will then be a less valuable/certain/exclusive path to the top.

    Right now we can:

    Eliminate DEI preferences in practice and demonize the DEI mindset. This should include canceling/deplatforming activists to get them out of the educational system and the public sector.

    Eliminate federal loan guarantees and other subsidies.

    Establish a national board of Regents to set knowledge-based certification standards for civil service and professions. This would undercut use of the Bachelors degee as a proxy qualification. However it may run up against States rights and also risks starting yet another corruptible government agency.

    For k-12 we can provide vouchers, set a basic national syllabus, and a set of standardized tests so parents know how their kids’ school is performing.

15. I cannot imagine Republican state legislators getting off their duffs and actually wailing on higher education within their borders. I guy can dream, though. SInce Congress is unable to pass a proper budget, nothing will be forthcoming there, either. So many of our public issues derive from learned helplessness.
    ==

16. In the spirit of “Education”…

    “God and Mr. Lincoln;
    “The divine will. The price of freedom. Unimpassioned reason. Principles worth dying for. Our 16th president wrestled with them all.”—
    https://ctrk.klclick1.com/l/01JS1JT3YSN2VGDMKWM1N8EVE2_8
    H/T Mosaic

    From the blurb:

    Tuesday was the 160th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. To mark the occasion, Michael Lucchese reflects on the role of religion in this great president’s worldview, and his progression from an attitude of skeptical rationalism to something else….

    Lots of “real good stuff” in this link….

17. Is y81 the product of of an ivy education? Or just another head full of mush?

18. @y81

    As usual, our host is far too generous towards your trolling, bad faith nonsense. I envy and aspire to be as tolerant and good as she is. But for better or worse, I’m not yet. Which gives me the flexibility to make certain replies that are far closer to what your conduct deserves.

    What neo is saying is that now no one believes anymore in free expression or merit hiring.

    Where the fuck did you get that idea?

    No seriously. Quote it.

    People still believe in free expression and merit hiring. Indeed has been the left’s stigmatization of meritocracy and free expression and increasing abandonment of them in favor of ideological and tribal politics and censorship that has helped breed the backlash against them. As has led to several employers making it obvious they will not hire the graduates of certain particularly noxious schools.

    But just like it is false to say nobody believes in free expression and merit hiring, it is false to say everybody does. That is obviously not the case, and the enforcement actions against the likes of Harvard are attempts to enforce the obligations schools have to their applicants, students, and staff that are trendy to abandon for left wing dogma.

    Jews are now a protected class, like blacks and gays,

    Great, apparently you’re a dumbfuck Jew hater in addition to an irrational Neo hater, troll, and general liar.

    Firstly: According to the law that was already supposed to be the case. The fact that selective enforcement because of bullshit leftist and Islamist dogma, as shown by Columbia’s tolerance of terrorist activity on its campus. Trump is stepping in to try and enforce the law as written.

    Secondly: The ultimate goal can and should be to do away with protected classes altogether.

    and you can’t say anything that hurts their feelings,

    Oooh, is the little troll angry?

    People say things that hurt the feelings of Jews every single day. If that was all, we wouldn’t be talking about this. But things have moved so far past that it isn’t even funny. Hence mob violence, terrorist advocacy, and death threats. All of which should be verboten under the law and under University guidelines. The fact that they have been tolerated (and we have caught more than one “Higher Learning” Faculty admitting this) is intolerable, and unacceptable.

    So what Trump is trying to do is to lay down the law and provide the same defenses to Jews and Conservatives as is supposed to go for everyone.

    The fact that you are maliciously, dishonestly trying to claim otherwise speaks to not only your bad faith and lack of candor, but to staggering idiocy that you think this kind of malicious, dumb, obvious reframing would go unnoticed.

    and hiring must include proportional representation for conservatives.

    Frankly, that’d be better than what we have now, where we have leftist persecution of dissidents and thought control in the guise of “meritocracy” (in spite of schools underperforming). If we cannot change the rules of the game we might as well force them on the left and enforce them to the hilt until and unless they realize it’s a bad idea.

    But it’d be better if we didn’t have that at all. Unfortunately the step to both outcomes involves hammering them.

    Whatever: it’s a sad world that neo and I are leaving to our children, though she has done more damage than I.

    Bullshit. You have so little contact with the world I doubt you would recognize it.

    PS: While we’re on the subject of you, your dishonesty, your delusions, your idiocy, your hatred of Neo, and your kool aid drinking, let me link back to my assessment of your “real economist”, the one you claimed Neo could learn a lot from.

    https://thenewneo.com/2025/04/14/a-nation-of-cobblers/#comment-2797554

    I do not have any pretenses to be a “real economist.”

    I did however observe some basic facts from Cochrane.

    Firstly: That for all of his idiotic blather about “unilateral free trade” he provided absolutely fuckall argumentation or justification for why this was the answer in the face of unilateral protectionism from the likes of the PRC. If I’m being REALLY generous I’d say he provided reason for why tariffs are not the answer (albeit very flawed ones), but not to support his claim.

    Secondly: He provided no reasons for why if “unilateral free trade” is the answer why other countries have not only not all adopted it, but have generally shied away from it.

    Thirdly: He claimed that China wanted us to build factories in the US through investment. Something so laughably, provably false (and I mean disproven-by-the-CCP’s-own-public-statements, let alone its actions) it is risible.

    Fourthly: He completely ignored the question of how even those that would want to build factories in the US through investment would go about hiring US or other labor to man them in the current economic climate of “Unilateral Free Trade.”

    Fifthly: The core of his thesis was an overwrought equation that – upon closer examination – is absolute, provable bullshit.

    Sixthly: He claimed that it was impossible for the Chinese to get access to American assets without putting things on boats. Which just tells me “Actual Economist” Mr. Cochrane has never heard of stock resale (though the CCP obviously has, given how it has often bought US assets – both stock and elsewhere – on resale).

    Seventh: He ignored how Greece’s government and its economic malpractice for as comically corrupt, dishonest, and brazen as it was – made a surprising amount of political, social, and even economic sense for the powers that be in Greece, which is why both competing coalitions generally followed similar spending patterns. And why by and large the leaders came out ahead even if everyone else suffered to one degree or another, and how the Greeks were able to leverage the threat of a default to make their lenders give up a huge proportion of the debt.

    And I could go on.

19. Neo: Two questions.

    Is it permitted for people call for the elimination of Israel on campuses? Because that is what the “pervasive anti-Semitism” which the Right alleges consists of. I’m happy to stipulate that it is forbidden on campuses to call Harvard students sissies, or to mention the Chines word nai-ga. The government is saying that the same rules of intersectionality protect Jews too. Do you agree?

    2. The government demands that “Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity,” Do you agree that academics should be hired based on their political viewpoints rather than scholarly merit?

20. I wonder what the Harvard student body would make of the saga of the MS St. Louis in 1939.

21. Do you agree that academics should be hired based on their political viewpoints rather than scholarly merit?
    ==
    Hiring is already driven by political viewpoints.

22. Harvard has an endowment north of 50 BILLION $$$; Yale has a 41 Billion $$ endowment.
    The 10th largest , by endowment is Johns Hopkins at a measly 13 Billion $$$, and everybody’s favorite university , Columbia, is sitting on a pile of investments worth just over 14 Billion $$.
    Yep, these institutions sure need taxpayer dollars

    If you have nothing else to do, check out the ratio of administrators to students. Just as an example, at Yale , there is one administrator for EACH student.
    And compare today’s data with that of, say, 1965 or earlier. You know, back then everything had to be typed on a typewriter and mailed via USPS and the mfr. of white-out was raking in the bucks.
    One would think that way back, given that everything was done manually and there was no email or use of computers for clerical/admin stuff, the ratio of admin to student would be higher than today.
    But you would be totally wrong.
    So the question is “what do these admin people do?” And don’t kid yourself, they are well paid.

    Lastly, colleges need to be held responsible to a large extent for student loans and should be forced to pay back a good percentage of federal loans for those students that do not graduate.
    This would force colleges to be more careful in who they admit as students and maybe force them to get rid of academic majors that are a total waste; majors that are simply a joke like LGBQ, Black/Ethnic/Hispanic studies, and other assorted hate majors.

23. Fwiw, success does not require any fancy college degrees, nor debt.

    Just make sure that you become reasonably fluent in Spanish during K thru 12 — time commitment akin to , e.g., piano lessons … evenings, weekends, summers. Or perhaps in the year immediately after h.s. graduation.

    If you are bilingual, you will get preference at virtually any job or career — in the U.S. and/or in Latin America.

    And if you really want college, you’ll save a lot of money if you attend college in Spanish in Latin America or in Puerto Rico.

    You then take it from there. Doors will open for you, widely.

    Millions and millions of people have had perfectly terrific lives without ever having had anything to do with any so-called top tier (ie., overpriced) American university.

24. y81 indeed does have his head full of mush.

    Turtler nailed ’em.

    Our new trolls just ain’t what they used to be. I blame the Ivies.

25. Related?

    https://nypost.com/2025/04/14/opinion/harvard-may-be-free-to-target-jews-but-not-on-the-taxpayers-dime/

26. And wouldn’t ye’ know it:

    “The End of History, the End of Truth”—
    https://tomklingenstein.com/the-end-of-history-the-end-of-truth/
    H/T Powerline blog.

27. y81:

    Are you making some sort of bizarre joke? If so, I’m not getting it. Your statement of “what neo is saying” could hardly be further off from what I’m actually saying.

28. @om

    To be fair y81 isn’t exactly a “new troll.” They’ve been around for years, probably longer than I have been an active commentor. I’ve seen comments since at least 2019.

29. Thanks to AesopFan for quoting Goldwater at length. Yes, on the whole, he was right.

30. Turtler:

    Yes, “y81” has been around for over 9 years, and does not always function as a troll either.

31. @y81

    Neo: Two questions.

    Is it permitted for people call for the elimination of Israel on campuses? Because that is what the “pervasive anti-Semitism” which the Right alleges consists of.

    I realize you and honesty have had a bad breakup and are not on speaking terms, but even this metric is bullshit. IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT WHAT THE PERVASIVE ANTI-SEMITISM ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES SOLELY OR EVEN PRIMARILY CONSISTS OF.

    Let me count the ways.

    Violent attacks on Jews and Jewish identity, regardless of if they are Zionist or Israeli or not.

    https://www.jewishpress.com/news/us-news/amcha-report-attacks-on-jewish-identity-doubled-on-us-campuses/2022/11/17/

    https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/jewish-students-depaul-charges

    https://www.thecollegefix.com/columbia-u-president-condemns-calls-for-genocide-of-jews-during-congressional-hearing/

    Anti-Jewish threats and harassment being tolerated and enabled by campus officialdom.

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/04/lawrence-technological-u-apologizes-for-inaction-after-students-antisemitic-abuser-pleads-guilty/

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/03/uc-berkeley-has-not-apologized-to-israeli-speaker-threatened-by-anti-semitic-protesters/

    Advocacy for genocidal, internationally recognized terrorist groups and their terrorist conduct such as genocide, mass murder, rape, kidnapping, and a host of other things.

    https://www.thecollegefix.com/student-declares-i-am-hezbollah-at-anti-jewish-bds-event/

    https://ethicsalarms.com/2025/03/11/the-ethics-of-deporting-mahmoud-khalil-for-pro-terrorist-advocacy-ii/

    Invasion of, seizure of, and squatting on campus property under color of the threat of violence.

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/columbia-protest-anti-semitism-campus-israel-jewish-students-justice-palestine.html

    And I could go on.

    The idea that the primary or only issue here is some assholes with a bullhorn peacefully agitating for the the elimination of Israel ala the Nazi march in Skokie is so deluded and fucking absurd I refuse to assume good faith or believe you honestly believe that is what this amounts to. Which is why I condemn you for whitewashing pro-Terrorist and anti-Jewish violence, intimidation, gangsterism, and thuggery.

    Now, having dealt with the obvious fig leaf of bullshit that this is “merely” advocating for the elimination of Israel, let me answer that question on behalf of myself, even if not Neo or anyone else.

    The answer is: It depends. But at least should be enforced consistently.

    Is it THEORETICALLY possible for one to advocate for the elimination of Israeli as a sovereign nation state without calling for genocide and/or ethnic cleansing? Sure. I’m not a fan of One World utopians in general but they have long and varied philosophical roots and they and many others can advocate for it and similar measures as they wish. Ditto the ultra libertarian, ultra individualists who object to the social contract because it is too collectivist for them and they don’t see where they signed up. And it’s certainly possible among the parade of pro-Hamas morons that there are those that sincerely believe that without Israeli, Jews and Christians and Muslims could unite in peace to sing kumbayaya in some kind of grand tolerant multiconfessional, multicultural “Palestinian State” like the likes of Chomsky claim, because that worked out SOOOO well before in Lebanon and Rhodesia.

    (I don’t think Chomsky himself is actually so stupid or well intentioned as to believe that, but I fully believe several are.)

    But that’s by and large not what we’re seeing, and pretending otherwise is an insult to our intelligence as well as human decency. Or did you by chance miss the “Go back to Poland” references and the cheering for the literal rapes, murders, and slavery on 10/7?

    The people doing that ARE NOT advocating for some kind of peaceful resolution to the problem that just so happens to involve the dissolution of Israel as a nation and that is that. And frankly I believe most of them would be actionable in the same way that others calling for genocide and ethnic cleansing are and would be.

    So there. That’s my answer. It is permissible to call for the elimination of Israel IF:

    A: That call is consistently applied with other nations (ie, people can advocate for the Elimination of the “Balestinian Authority” on similar grounds).

    B: That call DOES NOT extend into advocacy for terrorism, ethnic cleansing, or genocide.

    C: That call is conducted WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THE LAW AND GOOD ORDER, AND WITH RESPECTS FOR THE RIGHTS OF BOTH OTHER STUDENTS AND THE RULES OF BOTH CAMPUS AND THE WIDER JURISDICTION.

    Now, are you actually going to be fucking stupid enough to try and claim this is consistent with how the likes of SJP have conducted themselves?

    I’m happy to stipulate that it is forbidden on campuses to call Harvard students sissies, or to mention the Chines word nai-ga. The government is saying that the same rules of intersectionality protect Jews too. Do you agree?

    I do. And why should you object to it?

    I object to the rules of intersectionality in general. However, if we’re going to deal with them being enforced as they so obviously are, it is only fair they be enforced EQUALLY and that the likes of the Left-Islamist alliance not be allowed to write out hidden exclusions such as “Except for Jews”, “Except for pro-Zionists”, “except for straight white men”, and so on.

    Enforcement of the rules as written on things like anti-discrimination and campus safety should be basics.

    2. The government demands that “Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity,” Do you agree that academics should be hired based on their political viewpoints rather than scholarly merit?

    The classic bullshit “Have you stopped beating your wife?” guilt trip.

    Newsflash chowderhead: By and large higher education DOES NOT AND HAS NOT hired on scholarly merit for a long time. This would BE ABUNDANTLY CLEAR TO YOU if you looked at the number of academic heads caught plagiarizing their shit, most visibly at Columbia. Ditto the wider Replication Crisis.

    As such, the idea that Trump’s initiative is somehow an alternative to or deviation from “hiring based on scholarly merit” is a flagrantly false premise that I absolutely and completely reject.

    It is instead an alternative to entrenched left wing bureaucrats and academics hiring on the basis of political dogma.

    But to answer your question: I believe first that hiring and firing should be conducted on the basis of COMPLIANCE WITH THE LAW AND ACADEMIC STANDARDS. I don’t give a fuck if someone has the eidetic recall of Leonardo Piero Ser la Vinci, the physics genius of Albert Einstein, and the Biological knowledge of Marie Curie. If they spend their time harassing people online, forming paramilitary hate gangs on campus, or plagiarizing their publications, THEY GET FIRED FOR VIOLATING WHAT SHOULD BE ACADEMIC ETHICS AND/OR THE LAW AND BETRAYING THEIR RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR STUDENTS, COLLEAGUES, AND FINANCIERS.

    Period. Full Stop. No exceptions, not even if they were on “My side” ie Right Wing.

    Having established that basic, fundamental hiring precondition, then academics should be hired for merit.

    This notably means I DO NOT believe in hiring and firing on the basis of political viewpoints in most circumstances. Oh, you think you can hear a “but” coming? That’d be a rare bit of awareness coming from your dumb, oblivious, dishonest ass.

    But it’s correct. There is a but.

    And that is

    “But in cases like this I do believe hiring and firing on the basis of political viewpoint is necessary for academic freedom and even basic human safety.” What we’re seeing here is the results of an authoritarian, corrupt, incestuous series of cliques dominating academic and engaging in viewpoint and often ethnic, political, and religious discrimination against their competitors and their students. The results of this has led directly to on campus intimidation, domestic terrorism, squatting, and attacks on students in addition to other issues like “Hate Speech” as the left would define it.

    This is inexcusable and must be remedied. But it wasn’t by political happenstance that it happened. This was the result of pervasive corruption and politicization of academic life. Which means the remedy involves identifying those that have perverted the hiring, firing, and enforcement process on the altar of their political and sectarian beliefs and firing them.

    It also means training up and hiring people who not only will not do that, but who were unfairly disadvantaged by these goons for their beliefs. And who can be counted on to not replicate the climate of terror and to act as a balance.

    Put in simply: If you need to denazify Academia, you don’t turn a blind eye to who had a Nazi Party membership card and particularly to those that were active and strident in supporting persecution, deplatforming, and paramilitary violence. If you need to Decommunize Academia, you don’t turn a blind eye to academics that the Stasi noted were particularly virulent informants for them.

    Well, we need to not only Decommunize Academia, we need to create a strong enough political counterbalance that it doesn’t backslide so easily. That means hiring for viewpoint diversity.

    Does that mean I have to like it? No. I don’t. Can this be abused in much the same way that the previous order abused its own power? Absolutely. But it has precedent, such as the deployment of the Airborne to help defend students and professors from the Klan and its friends.

    And you are conspicuous in offering fuckall alternatives, and on some level I think you are well aware of this which is why you opt to lie about the reasons why this is being done, lie about the situation this is a response to, lie about the persecution and violence against Jews on campus, and lie about how this is somehow undermining an existing situation of hiring academics on the basis of merit.

    Because if you ever had to acknowledge that this was prompted by very conspicuous and malevolent violation of academic ethics, campus rules, and often THE LAW ITSELF, you would have to apologize to Neo and us.

    And your conduct thus far has shown there is little basis to believe you are capable of doing that.

    Prove me wrong.

    Or perhaps you’d like to continue this species of bullshit victim blaming, insults to our host, and nonsense so that you wind up being banned by our host for taking a stand on the hill of “Domestic terrorism on American Campuses targeting Jews is fine, advocacy for genocide against Israelis is fine, and Trump demanding American Academia enforce ITS OWN GODDAMN PRE-EXISTING RULES ON CAMPUS SAFETY AND ANTI-DISCRIMINATION to clamp down on Hamas fanatics is an unprovoked violation of academic freedom, and Neo is leaving the world a worse place for our children for supporting it.”

32. Turtler: Whew …

    But “… the Biological knowledge of Marie Curie.” Biological??

33. @Paul Nachtman

    The Curies are mostly known for their chemistry work but they also made important strides in physics and biology.

    But not sure if that was a good whew or bad whew, but thanks. Hope you enjoyed.

34. @Turtler

    It wasn’t a negative “whew.” It was mostly a “whew” of exhaustion!

    As a physicist, I think of Curie as a physicist. And I just checked — her first Nobel Prize (shared by her husband) was, indeed, the physics prize. Second was in chemistry.

    Her Wikipedia entry doesn’t seem to say anything about biology (I searched on “biol”), and what you say is certainly news to me. (I figure Wikipedia is reliable for non-political subjects like this.)

35. I hope I never write something annoying enough to set Turtler off.

36. Kate:

    LOL.

37. But of course

    https://nypost.com/2025/04/17/opinion/columbias-antisemitism-squad-comes-down-hard-on-catholics/

38. @Paul Nachmann

    Also meant to write “chemistry and physics work” but apparently my dumb malfunctioning excuse for a brain derped and forgot to add it. Mea culpa.

    Granted it is worth noting that much of their biological research came from second or third order stuff in their physics and chemistry research. In particular things like the effects of radiation on living cells and how to try and treat cancer with it, as well as some procedural benefits in first aid.

    Marie certainly considered her family biologists, hence the dedication of her lab to “medical, biological, and industrial research for the peaceful benefit of humanity.’”

39. “Harvard warns loss of federal funds will cripple their ability to find a final solution to the Jewish Problem” says B. Bee, seen in
    https://donsurber.substack.com/p/harvard-welfare-queen

    The Trump Dept. of Ed. sent a 5 page letter to Harvard, which Harvard is rejecting. Don Surber notes the 10 points of the DoE letter. Quite in line tho different than Turtler’s fine passionate defense of Neo.

    I also don’t like quotas, but now support a law on edu orgs requiring at least 30% professors be Republicans, in order to get tax exemptions and other govt benefits. Turtler’s support for viewpoint diversity is well said, could be repeated here.

    Hillsdale gets no govt cash, and is a real private college—without accepting abusive behavior from its students. Harvard could become that private, and thus free from political demands for viewpoint diversity … but there’s so much govt cash for those who accept the Midas rules. Harvard won’t become like Hillsdale is how I’d bet.

40. I don’t support hiring quotas. What happens now is un-quotas. Schools won’t hire anyone who shows signs of being conservative in politics or in religion, or who simply shows signs of common sense with respect to human biology.

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>