Harvard's Accreditation May Be in Jeopardy | Hacker News Reader

Harvard's Accreditation May Be in Jeopardy

thecrimson.com

9 pointsxqcgrek25 comments

House Republican #2 Scalise threatened that Harvard's accreditation was in jeopardy in a second Trump administration because of Harvard's handling of antisemitism (or lack of handling).

Look, I can accept people wanting to be loudly and visibly pro-Palestinian. They cannot be allowed to make a hostile environment for Jews, though. If they do, they need arrested. If the university won't do that, there's a whole lot of machinery in the Civil Rights Act that can come down on them.

But I am getting really tired of the "don't say or do things we don't like, or we'll shut you down" threats coming from Trump and Trump-adjacent politicians. Trump has threatened CBS and ABC (IIRC) with having their broadcast licenses yanked. He's threatened the New York Times with dire but unspecified consequences. And he's threatened Google with being shut down because they never say anything nice about him (Trump). Now here we have Scalise threatening Harvard with consequences (of, essentially, destruction as an institution) under a second Trump administration.

This is not OK. This is not how normal politicians deal with unfriendly press. This is not legitimate power for politicians to wield (First Amendment and all that). This is very dangerous. When they tell you five times who they are, believe them.

"... all of Harvard’s $676 million in annual federal funding."

Honestly we should just stop funding the ivy league schools entirely. Their endowments are large enough to keep them running on the interest indefinitely.

That’s a broad claim to make. I think it’s worth providing numbers to back up that claim, especially since rates of return can vary a lot: A 6% return one year vs. a 10% return another year makes a huge difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University_endowment

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