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Comment by ringeryless | Hacker News Reader

Have you no hesitation, even at this late juncture? Read everyone elses comment above, and try to stretch your critical thinking ability just a bit.

Trump is our Caesar, we have ceased to be a constitutional republic, and you defend this with blithely pretending that 2 months of pure power-madness have not been occurring in plain view of the entire world?

I suspect that such discourse as we have will not be "permitted" indefinitely.

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No, I have no hesitation. How are you not finding it obvious that the government are trying to end racially based admittance programs?

Because I read the letter from the government to Harvard. Did you? Racially-based admittance is only one bullet out of ten. The government isn't demanding specific policy changes, they are demanding cultural and ideological control of the university.

Did you? As you can read, they tackle racial bias immediately and follow up with preventing advocacy for terrorism and racism, then viewpoint divergence. At no point are they arguing for a single viewpoint to exist, they are CONSISTENTLY doing the exact opposite:

https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...

The people we must be concerned about that are arguing for a single viewpoint controlling American universities are those like yourself that oppose pluralism.

> The people we must be concerned about that are arguing for a single viewpoint controlling American universities are those like yourself that oppose pluralism.

I'm all for pluralism. I have no objection at all to the existence of as many conservative academics as you please or whole (private) universities explicitly committed to conservative ideology. But there is no legal basis for the government to tell a private university who it should hire, fire, promote, or admit on ideological grounds. And it's also a super-ultra-clear first amendment violation to compel the speech of a private institution.

Finally, I'd like to point out the rank hypocrisy of calling for "merit-based" hiring and admissions in one breath, and then in the next demanding a quota system for ideology: "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; every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity." The government, as conservatives are so fond of saying, shouldn't "pick winners."

If there are a "critical mass" of "viewpoint diverse" Harvard-caliber professors out there looking for a position they should start their own university and admit that critical mass of "viewpoint diverse" Harvard-caliber students.

"By August 2025, the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse."

They are calling for Republican commissars in universities and accusing you of being the one who wants to enforce a single viewpoint and call you the enemy of pluralism. Not surprised, but I continue to be infuriated to witness such shameless insincerity from Republicans.

Yes, because universities have shown they want to enforce a single viewpoint on students, the government is using its funding contributions to encourage viewpoint diversity. There is certainly some shameless insincerity going on, as well as a disgusting disregard for logic.

Typical conservative doublespeak - speak as though there are commissars suppressing political dissidence so you can actually have an excuse to install commissars to suppress political dissidence. Conservatives have long disdained education for decades and abandoned its institutions, and now that they aren't bowing down, you want to use the government to force them to do so. The disgusting disregard for logic here is on you.

> But there is no legal basis for the government to tell a private university who it should hire, fire, promote, or admit on ideological grounds.

That's true. Harvard can absolutely continue to hire for, advocate for, and grade for a single political viewpoint, provided it does not take federal funding.

They can also continue to racially discriminate as title IX only applies to organizations that take federal funding.

Harvard should also lose their current non-profit status per Bob Jones University v. U.S. (1983) if they continue to racially discriminate.

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