1d ago

Trump Pulled $400 million From Columbia. Other Schools Could Be Next.

www.nytimes.com Trump Pulled $400 million From Columbia. Other Schools Could Be Next.

The administration has circulated a list that includes nine other campuses, accusing them of failure to address antisemitism.

The list:

Harvard University
George Washington University
Johns Hopkins University
New York University
Northwestern University
the University of California, Los Angeles
the University of California, Berkeley
the University of Minnesota
the University of Southern California.

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silence7 @slrpnk.net

1d ago

Trump Pulled $400 million From Columbia. Other Schools Could Be Next.

www.nytimes.com /2025/03/08/us/columbia-trump-colleges-antisemitism.html

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16 comments

This has nothing to do with antisemitism and everything with oligarchic takeover of academia. The goal is to inflict financial pain on the largest research universities located in states where republicans have limited power. Many of these universities (at least the private ones) will be able to offset some of the financial deficits through accepting private donations that will increase the influence of donors over university policies, so they can realign them with the oligarchs.
In the meantime, the big name universities will start applying for private grants making those unattainable for smaller institutions, so this financial pain will "trickle down". The long-term effect will be, fewer PhDs, fewer people wanting to do science, fewer people coming to the USA to do research and will overall put an end to US scientific supremacy that has always relied on brain drain anyway.
Just another great example how trump and trumpists don't understand geopolitics (they are triggering nuclear rearmament), and they don't understand science either (they want scientific solutions, like carbon capture, but hate scientists who figure these out).
The GOP is trying to portray itself as the "anti elitism party", but in reality they are simply the financial elite's party attacking the intellectual elite. Ironically what draws working people towards the GOP is the idea that one day they'll become rich-rich. In reality, helping people to get an education is a much more realistic goal and would actually help society as a whole.

These schools spent hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to pay cops to kick the shit out of their own students, and they got defunded anyway.
- Are you talking about campus police across all the universities? You aren't wrong that they are terrible, but the amount of funding for campus police is not that much and nothing compared to what's required for research.
  My girlfriend used to work at a lab at a top university during her undergrad helping postdocs with their research for treating Alzheimer's. What they do there is groundbreaking, but expensive. Postdocs don't even get paid well; most of their funding goes directly into research. Cutting the funding does not help anyone at all.
  
  Are you talking about campus police across all the universities?
  Campus police, plus regular police brought in who usually charge the university. Common rates include ~100/hour for overtime, plus 100/cop/day for food, and other expenses like tiergas and cuffs.

If Harvard capitulates I Hope they end up decimated anyhow. They've got enough money in their endowment to give Donald Trump a hundred middle fingers.
- From that list the ones heavily impacted are going to be the public schools.
- don't get your hopes up. Harvard has billions and billions on private endowments. They are gonna be impacted the least.

They are more than rich enough from milking their students. Most of them could be admission free if they wanted.
- Many private schools actually do give full rides to students whose families make under a certain threshold. Still insane tuition, but not as bad as one might think.
- That's only the case for private schools. Public research schools like UofM and UCLA (which are on that list) 100% rely on funding. Their research is groundbreaking and cutting their funding will not do any good.

I'm very worried. I just started my Master's program, and after I'll be finished in about 1-2 years, I plan to apply to PhD programs around the country. It's already super competitive, and with the upcoming funding cuts, I might not even get accepted anywhere in the U.S.
- Academia is a dead end job for the vast majority of people. The money goes to administrators and football coaches while teachers are adjunctified into poverty. Get out while you can.

The pulled funding ought to ne more specifically defined. Is he canceling cancer research? 100% chance he is canceling at least something worthwhile.
- I think the state just gives money to these grifters for the service of violently supporting hegemony, zionism, genocide, capitalism, imperialism, etc.

Pretty shocking that nobody has even mentioned palestine (or even the zio regime "israel") in these comments as of now.
This is all about supporting genocide. That's a crucial foundation of fascism.
The NYTimes is garbage and intentionally obscuring these facts/context. They just recycle the "antisemitism" bullshit. This is how they promote Trump and fascism more generally. Disgusting rag.

16 comments