Trump administration cancels $400 million in grants for Columbia University

[rareboy]

And get ready for the brain drain from the US Universities.

 

[rareboy]

From the Alt National Parks Service on Facebook:

"Every day, it looks more like a regime.
Now the Trump administration is pushing to put Columbia University under a consent decree—a court-enforced agreement that would legally bind the school to federal demands, with a judge overseeing whether they “comply.” This isn’t about protecting students. It’s about sending a message: step out of line, lose your funding.
Columbia has already agreed to some of their conditions—banning protest masks, increasing security, cracking down on student expression. But that’s not enough. They want control. They want precedent. And they want to use federal dollars to make universities fall in line.
This isn’t normal oversight. This is federal coercion dressed up as civil rights enforcement. If the government can strip a university of funding for how it handles protests—based on political pressure—what happens to free speech? Academic independence? Dissent?
This is how regimes operate. Intimidate, monitor, punish. Repeat."

I would think that if the Executive Branch is successful in placing this university under consent decree, then it will actively seek to place any liberal university under consent decree.

The anti-semitism is just pretext.

Ultimately this is about being able to control the curriculum and speech in colleges and universities.

 

[rareboy]

Well at least two universities are standing firm.

Harvard and Princeton have indicated that they will be selling bonds rather than capitulating to TrumpCo.s blackmail efforts.

 

[rareboy]

And now MIT.

If all the ivy league universities and colleges stand firm and join together to sue the White House, they will present a formidable barrier to Trumpist fascism.

But they all have to stand firm.

Columbia showed they felt vulnerable and the White House pounced.

 

[rareboy]

There are a lot of us who see what is happening here:

But not enough people in government and media calling the WH out on this.

 

[rareboy]

Meanwhile...it isn't sitting well with Trump.

 

[TX-Beau]

Meanwhile...it isn't sitting well with Trump.

Another one to the courts. He doesn't have the authority to decree who gets tax exemptions and who doesn't; if he did, we all know who'd already be tax-exempt.

 

[rareboy]

More speaking out please, Obama.

The tradition of former presidents remaining silent was shattered by Trump after 2020.

 

[rareboy]

The White House was already announcing cancellations of these research grants before they started going after Columbia. All this bullshit is just pretext to slash federal funding in order to fund income tax cuts for corporations and billionaires.

We have already had discussions about how the US is going to fall way back in R&D, because corporations are not where the research happens. It happens in University labs, University hospitals. etc.

 

[TX-Beau]

Why is anyone pretending to take Toad's lies at face value? All this is about is extortion.

 

[rareboy]

Makes sense if true.

 

[rareboy]

 

[rareboy]

Was it really ever about anti-semitism? Really?

 

[Kulindahr]

It's part of the autocracy playbook.

It was also pioneered in the two National Laboratories for Bad Government (aka Florida and Texas) and funded by big money White Nationalist Christian megadonors.

Florida:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/15/us/desantis-new-college-inclusion-reaj/index.html

Florida bill would ban students in the US without legal permission from some public universities

A Florida state lawmaker has filed a bill that would ban some of the state’s public colleges and universities from admitting students who are in the country without legal permission.

apnews.com

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/15/1176210007/florida-ron-desantis-dei-ban-diversity

The real flaw in the Florida bill is that it would make schools subject to manipulation by paying people to apply there just to be rejected and thus change the school's acceptance rate.

 

[Kulindahr]

It certainly makes a mockery of the whole 'Free Speech' myth.

But the racist, homophobic, far xian right has never been about freedom of speech for other people, have they?

Not since James Dobson, anyway.

 

[Kulindahr]

When I was a graduate student, campus Christians set up "preach-a-thons" on the campus quad.

Ah, the sorts of people I faced down with Greek New Testament in hand!

The solution to most hateful speech is more speech. More speech drowns out the hateful speech.

Yep -- especially when the added speech is better informed.

 

[Kulindahr]

How can we claim moral high ground after the US supplied the bombs used to level Gaza?

Maybe because supplying people with the means to resist aggression is the right thing to do?

Hamas is the government of Palestine. The attacks they perpetrated were an act of war. They got war.

 

[Kulindahr]

There are hundreds of pictures of unexploded US-made bombs

That's something I don't get -- with even 2001 tech, there shouldn't be any bombs that don't go off!

with children around them.

!! What barbarians allow children around unexploded ordnance?!?

There are pictures of dead Gazan children in schools that were bombed by the IDF. Those pictures will have a long-lasting affect.

Which is why Hamas deliberately turned schools and hospitals into legitimate targets.

 

[rareboy]

As TrumpCo. prates on about arresting the Dem congress reps, AOC is reminding them:

Not thatn TrumpCo. care a whit about following the law. This is all the language of a Dictator in waiting.

 

[KaraBulut]

That's something I don't get -- with even 2001 tech, there shouldn't be any bombs that don't go off!

The Israelis didn't waste their high-tech bombs on Gaza. They used the older bombs that didn't have homing technology to strike specific targets. They also used bombs that release hundreds of "bomblets", many of which remain unexploded.

https://www.cnn.com/gaza-israel-big-bombs/index.html

!! What barbarians allow children around unexploded ordnance?!?

Um, have you seen the pictures? When ordnance throws bomblets up to 1,000 feet away from the target, exactly how does one avoid not coming into contact with unexploded ordnance?

Which is why Hamas deliberately turned schools and hospitals into legitimate targets.

Which is Israeli propaganda. If you believe that, then you must believe that every hospital in Gaza was harboring terrorists. Why? Because the IDF bombed every hospital in Gaza City. Every hospital was bombed.

Israeli air strike destroys part of last fully functional hospital in Gaza City

The Israel Defense Forces said the hospital contained a "command and control center used by Hamas".

www.bbc.com

I know teaching faculty members from the US who went to Syria and Gaza. Both countries had hospitals routinely bombed claiming that terrorists were hiding there. The physicians and nurses who worked in those hospitals say that they never saw any weapons or "terrorists" in the hospitals where they worked. It also makes little sense in Gaza where there were underground bunkers and tunnels.

It's a war crime to bomb a hospital. It doesn't matter what bullshit excuses anyone uses. It's still a war crime.