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Comment by nine_k | Hacker News Reader

The university, as a private institution, has every right to hold whatever views and enforce whatever policies it sees fit within itself.

The government, on the other hand, has every right to put conditions its counterparty should conform to in order to get money from the government.

It's best when the bargaining about such conditions happens with mutual respect and without overreach, but respect and sobriety are in very short supply in the current administration. Even better it is when a university does not need to receive the government money and can run off the gigantic endowment it already has, thus having no need to comply with any such conditions.

(It's additionally unfun how the antisemitism is barely mentioned as a problem, in a very muffed way, and any other kind of discrimination based on ethnicity, culture, or religion is not mentioned at all. Is fighting discrimination out of fashion now?..)

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> The government, on the other hand, has every right to put conditions its counterparty should conform to in order to get money from the government.

It really doesn't. There are both normal laws and Constitutional restrictions on how the government can make decisions, and the reasons it can have for making those decisions.

I'm very much not an expert here, but this includes restrictions on viewpoint discrimination in funding.

I agree! The government is not entitled to set arbitrary conditions. But it's entitled to set some. I suspect that some acts of Congress require the government to set some conditions on providing governmental funding, as the Constitution prescribes: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46827

> is not entitled to set arbitrary conditions

Indeed, but most of these conditions _are_ arbitrary and often mutually-conflicting. Mask ban? What is the scientific basis for this?

The government already set numerous conditions on research funding relating to accounting, ethical conduct and so forth. Attaching conditions that are only tangentially related to the purpose of the funding is almost arbitrary by definition.

The governments conditions are not unlimited.

Their proposed "viewpoint diversity" is absurd at face value.

Indeed. I wish the government side was more reasonable, but it's hard to expect now; they are into running a TV show :(

I think this administration never had the intent to be "reasonable".

If they were concerned about out of control diversity efforts, I might even semi agree with them.

But this administration and the GOP doesn't value free speech. Despite their complaints they're not the least bit opposed to the government enforcing their viewpoints on people, in fact they just want to do it in spades.

Do you believe antisemitism is a problem at Harvard? If so, what led you to believe this?

Do we really believe there is a rooted undercurrent of antisemitism at Harvard of all places? Or is this just anti-zionist expansion straw manning? I'm sorry but the continuously faithless positioning of the Trump administration right now makes me believe the antisemitic accusations are a pretext.

> antisemitism is barely mentioned as a problem

Because it's very obviously being used as a cover to exert control over universities which are deemed to be too "woke" (which has nothing to do with anti-semitism).

Yes, antisemitism exists, like many other social ills. But is it a major problem at Harvard and these elite institutions? No, it is not.

The government does not have all that right tho. First amendment and all.

I would invite you to read the government letter if you have not, but look at each demand and put yourself in the position of the recently affected but also try to see if you can hold a "controversial" view of the world that should be fine but would be put in danger by these demands: https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...

Civil rights, suffrage, they were all the controversial opinion at some point. Some people still argue that they are but anyone against those can go pound sand.

I don't think that the government's demands are all reasonable, or even permissible. Some things read like they were written in the height of the civil rights movement in 1960s:

> By August 2025, the University must adopt and implement merit-based hiring policies, and cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin throughout its hiring, promotion, compensation, and related practices

Some though read as if they were written in an advent to a totalitarian dystopia:

> Harvard will immediately report to federal authorities, including the Department of Homeland Security and State Department, any foreign student, including those on visas and with green cards, who commits a conduct violation.

To my mind Harvard is right in bringing this to the public attention. It's also free to walk away from governmental financing programs that stipulate such conditions (if they are even found legitimate), and is even in a position to do so.

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