Latest news with #DeclarationofIndependence
Sydney Morning Herald
21 hours ago
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Trump has declared war on Harvard, but there are degrees of concern in Australia
On April 11, Harvard received a letter from the Trump administration with a series of demands, ordering them to cancel diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, allow in an external auditor to vet the political views of staff and students, and to bar any students found to be 'hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence.' The question then, is if 'American values' are considered to be the same as Trumpian values. What about freedom of speech? Harvard refused. Other universities lined up to support them. Since then, Trump has moved to cancel Harvard's federal contracts, ban foreign students and threatened to cancel the university's tax-exempt status. A temporary order has paused the foreign student ban, but a chill has gone through all future and current Ivy League students. Many Australians are scratching their heads at what seems like, at its heart, a further muffling of any potential critics, along with the media, the courts, various experts and veteran bureaucrats. Why wouldn't you want the best minds in the world working on your problems? Cramping – let alone ideologically controlling – higher research simply undercuts potential economic growth and leadership, productivity, innovation, scientific advances, and a free contest of ideas essential in any pluralistic democracy. Harvard has seeded breakthroughs in health, artificial intelligence, astronomy, and epidemiology, and educated the thinkers and dreamers who have shaped the way we see the world. Loading Harvard has educated eight presidents, Republican and Democrat, as well as Bill Gates, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mark Zuckerberg, T. S. Eliot, Helen Keller, Robert Oppenheimer, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Margaret Atwood, Michael Bloomberg and Ben Shapiro. Australians who have studied there have gone on to be cabinet ministers, premiers, silks, magazine editors, authors, economists, corporate leaders, a president of the World Bank. We cannot be naive about how this might affect us. America is also our most significant research partner, especially in STEM. Last year, Australian research partnerships with the US drew almost $400 million in biomedical and clinical science funding. Ten Australian universities have already had US federal funding for research cut off, following Trump's declaration in March that support must go only to researchers who promote 'American influence, trust, and reputation'. Numerous Australian academics across a range of disciplines have cancelled trips to academic conferences in the US. Loading Here, the problem is not contempt for universities – in the main we do not, thankfully, have the same culture wars – but an erosion of quality and lack of funding. Overall, we spend significantly less than other countries on R&D. The OECD average is 2.7 per cent of GDP – we spend 1.7 per cent. It's not enough. Academics report being stretched, with months regularly wasted crafting research proposals that are routinely rejected, fighting for a narrow pool of funds. Morale is low. Have we too forgotten this is our future? That these are the minds we rely on to cure cancer, combat climate change, forge new ways to solve problems? As the US grows more insular and antagonistic towards creative, diverse global research, we should be throwing open our doors and inviting the brightest minds into our labs, libraries and lecture halls, and creating a climate in which they, and we, can flourish. And we can't flourish if we treat the curious, clever and hungry with suspicion. This week, Chinese graduate Yurong 'Luanna' Jiang, who studied international development, spoke at the Harvard graduations. She said she grew up believing that the 'world was becoming a small village' and that she could become part of the generation that would 'end hunger and poverty for humankind.' At Harvard, surrounded by students from countries around the world, 'global challenges suddenly felt personal'. But now, she said: 'We're starting to believe those who think differently, vote differently or pray differently – whether they are across the ocean or sitting right next to us – are not just wrong: we mistakenly see them as evil,' she said. 'But it doesn't have to be this way.'
The Age
21 hours ago
- Politics
- The Age
Trump has declared war on Harvard, but there are degrees of concern in Australia
On April 11, Harvard received a letter from the Trump administration with a series of demands, ordering them to cancel diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, allow in an external auditor to vet the political views of staff and students, and to bar any students found to be 'hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence.' The question then, is if 'American values' are considered to be the same as Trumpian values. What about freedom of speech? Harvard refused. Other universities lined up to support them. Since then, Trump has moved to cancel Harvard's federal contracts, ban foreign students and threatened to cancel the university's tax-exempt status. A temporary order has paused the foreign student ban, but a chill has gone through all future and current Ivy League students. Many Australians are scratching their heads at what seems like, at its heart, a further muffling of any potential critics, along with the media, the courts, various experts and veteran bureaucrats. Why wouldn't you want the best minds in the world working on your problems? Cramping – let alone ideologically controlling – higher research simply undercuts potential economic growth and leadership, productivity, innovation, scientific advances, and a free contest of ideas essential in any pluralistic democracy. Harvard has seeded breakthroughs in health, artificial intelligence, astronomy, and epidemiology, and educated the thinkers and dreamers who have shaped the way we see the world. Loading Harvard has educated eight presidents, Republican and Democrat, as well as Bill Gates, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mark Zuckerberg, T. S. Eliot, Helen Keller, Robert Oppenheimer, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Margaret Atwood, Michael Bloomberg and Ben Shapiro. Australians who have studied there have gone on to be cabinet ministers, premiers, silks, magazine editors, authors, economists, corporate leaders, a president of the World Bank. We cannot be naive about how this might affect us. America is also our most significant research partner, especially in STEM. Last year, Australian research partnerships with the US drew almost $400 million in biomedical and clinical science funding. Ten Australian universities have already had US federal funding for research cut off, following Trump's declaration in March that support must go only to researchers who promote 'American influence, trust, and reputation'. Numerous Australian academics across a range of disciplines have cancelled trips to academic conferences in the US. Loading Here, the problem is not contempt for universities – in the main we do not, thankfully, have the same culture wars – but an erosion of quality and lack of funding. Overall, we spend significantly less than other countries on R&D. The OECD average is 2.7 per cent of GDP – we spend 1.7 per cent. It's not enough. Academics report being stretched, with months regularly wasted crafting research proposals that are routinely rejected, fighting for a narrow pool of funds. Morale is low. Have we too forgotten this is our future? That these are the minds we rely on to cure cancer, combat climate change, forge new ways to solve problems? As the US grows more insular and antagonistic towards creative, diverse global research, we should be throwing open our doors and inviting the brightest minds into our labs, libraries and lecture halls, and creating a climate in which they, and we, can flourish. And we can't flourish if we treat the curious, clever and hungry with suspicion. This week, Chinese graduate Yurong 'Luanna' Jiang, who studied international development, spoke at the Harvard graduations. She said she grew up believing that the 'world was becoming a small village' and that she could become part of the generation that would 'end hunger and poverty for humankind.' At Harvard, surrounded by students from countries around the world, 'global challenges suddenly felt personal'. But now, she said: 'We're starting to believe those who think differently, vote differently or pray differently – whether they are across the ocean or sitting right next to us – are not just wrong: we mistakenly see them as evil,' she said. 'But it doesn't have to be this way.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Under SB 37, Texas universities will focus on educating, not indoctrinating
American higher education is broken. It costs too much and adds too little value. Too many courses indoctrinate rather than educate. Faculty construct requirements to force students into classes they don't want to take — classes of little intellectual value that do nothing to prepare them for careers. Activist faculty who spend little time on serious research dominate faculty governance bodies. Nationally, we've seen students and faculty more concerned with acting as campus hall monitors, policing what is deemed socially acceptable from a one-sided political perspective. Activism often takes precedence over learning. Thankfully, legislators in Texas are taking this matter seriously. Lawmakers are poised to pass Senate Bill 37, which can restore the purpose of our state's public higher education institutions: Preparing students for success in their post-graduation lives while encouraging them to pursue truth, knowledge and excellence. Column: Universities should foster debate and critical thinking. SB 37 will stifle that | Opinion SB 37 takes governance decisions out of the hands of radical faculty and administrators, allowing for increased oversight by the people of Texas and their representatives. It encourages eliminating useless course requirements and majors that enroll few students. Does this amount to 'thought policing?' Hardly. It counters what's been taking place on campuses for years: Students and faculty alike have been policing what can and cannot be said under the guise of 'social justice' and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. DEI groupthink discourages debate, pushes a single narrative. It shuts down criticism — the opposite of the free and open inquiry our universities are meant to encourage and foster. The claim that professors 'won't be able to teach' certain subjects involving the founding principles of our country is ludicrous. Nothing about SB 37 will affect courses in the many excellent programs at our universities, from finance to physics, from neuroscience to philosophy. It poses no obstacle to the study of great books. It addresses the many courses at our academic institutions that aim at indoctrination. For example, a keyword search I conducted of the University of Texas' 2024-25 course offerings shows that three of the most frequently mentioned terms in course descriptions are 'gender,' 'race' and 'identity.' Meanwhile, the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence and Abraham Lincoln are mentioned fewer than than 10 times combined. This is taking place at our state's flagship university — showing how extensive the problem is and why SB 37 is needed. What to know: House moves to advance SB 37 on faculty senate, core curriculum review. SB 37 would empower an ombudsman to monitor compliance with the bill's provisions, ensuring that required courses focus on academic excellence and research with real-world impacts. It doesn't empower the ombudsman to eliminate courses that don't meet those criteria. If professors want to teach courses on Marxist theory, they can still do so. But that course won't be forced on students in order for them to graduate. Texas' state colleges and universities are among the best in the nation. Our educators teach and prepare world-class graduates. Our researchers produce groundbreaking innovations across disciplines and industries that have transformed our state and national economies. To maintain our state's distinction in a rapidly evolving global market, our higher education institutions must stay focused on academic excellence and research with real-world impacts. They need to prepare students to succeed. That means bringing greater accountability and efficiency to our institutions of higher education. Under SB 37, Texas students will receive a higher-quality and better-rounded education. Daniel A. Bonevac is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas SB 37 will restore integrity to higher education | Opinion
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Opinion - Colleges must give up federal funding to achieve true intellectual freedom
The Trump administration's sudden cuts to federal research grants to Harvard, Columbia and other universities have rightly raised alarm. But restoring the pre-Trump status quo, as Harvard and many academics demand, will not safeguard intellectual freedom. Why not? Because the administration's actions are only a vile escalation of the infringement on intellectual freedom inherent in any system of federal funding. Both are destructive, and both must go. Start with the Trump administration. Under the pretext of combatting the real problem of antisemitism on campus — this from a president who dines with antisemites — the administration is demanding intellectual control over Harvard's faculty and student body. Harvard must submit to an audit of 'its student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity.' Specific departments including the Divinity and Medical schools will get special scrutiny to see if they 'reflect ideological capture.' Diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI programs must also end. Harvard must not admit any international student whom the government considers 'hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.' (Presumably foreign supporters of Jan. 6— that day of love — are exempt.) Harvard is right to balk at all this. It is right to declare that no government 'should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.' And a private university like Harvard could choose to ignore the administration's demands — but that means forfeiting federal research funding, which puts it at an unfair disadvantage when competing for students, faculty and donors with universities that continue to receive massive federal payouts. If Harvard and other private universities truly seek freedom, therefore, they should demand that federal research funding be phased out altogether. Harvard should argue that since all federal funding comes with some government strings attached, it infringes on intellectual freedom. Instead, Harvard is demanding more government funding and objecting only to the specific nature of the strings or to the way they are currently being pulled. For instance, Harvard does not challenge the government demanding that it do more to combat antisemitism, it simply laments that the present administration seems unwilling 'to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner.' Harvard does not object when administrations impose ideological goals it agrees with, such as the many DEI initiatives like that require grant applicants to submit 'diversity plans'; it only objects when it disagrees with the government's ideological goals. But universities cannot get around the fact that federal grants, by their nature, selectively fund certain ideas at the expense of others. The government picks intellectual winners and losers among private citizens, which is the exact opposite of intellectual freedom. How was Harvard awarded the billions of dollars that the Trump administration is now threatening to withdraw? Federal employees at agencies such as the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the National Endowment of the Humanities look through tens of thousands of grant applications every year and decide which private researchers will receive federal grants and which will not. Even in the best-case scenario, when federal bureaucrats try to proceed conscientiously, such a system creates increased conformity within an academic field. The bureaucrats will tend to defer to recognized experts in the field, which means established theories and methodologies are much more likely to receive federal support, making it difficult for intellectual minorities and innovators to compete. This plays out across the entire university, which is strongly incentivized to hire researchers likely to receive federal grants. In worse scenarios, bureaucrats actively pursue an ideological agenda, deliberately rewarding some viewpoints and penalizing others. This is a major cause of how DEI swept through the universities. And this is now what the Trump administration is nakedly claiming the power to do. Tellingly, in its latest harangue, the administration says it is punishing Harvard for crudely political reasons, including that 'Harvard hired failed Mayors Bill De Blasio and Lori Lightfoot, perhaps the worst mayors ever to preside over major cities in our country's history.' Intellectual freedom is the principle that all individuals have the right to think for themselves, to express their convictions on any subject, and to give their support, financial or otherwise, only to the ideas they choose. When government coercively seizes your money and uses it to subsidize some research program or viewpointfor any reason, it is violating your intellectual freedom. This is the injustice inherent in all government research grants. It is this that private universities like Harvard should now name and challenge. Instead, they fight for 'academic freedom,' which is actually the opposite of intellectual freedom. It asserts the right of universities and professors to teach, write and research whatever they see fit — and to do it at the taxpayer's expense. Trump's measures only replace 'academic freedom' with a worse, more authoritarian form of the same injustice: the license not of universities and professors but of the executive branch to dictate which ideas you will be forced to subsidize as a taxpayer. The threats to Harvard and Columbia should be a wake-up call for private universities and for all who care about intellectual freedom. The right path forward is neither to defend the Trump administration nor to demand a return to the pre-Trump status quo, but to phase out, gradually and impartially, all federal grants and subsidies. Make private universities private again. Let each of us, as individuals, decide which universities we will frequent and fund. Onkar Ghate, Ph.D. in philosophy, is a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute and a contributor to the recent book 'The First Amendment: Essays on the Imperative of Intellectual Freedom.' Sam Weaver, M.A. in liberal arts, is an associate fellow at ARI who writes on education and intellectual freedom issues. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Colleges must give up federal funding to achieve true intellectual freedom
The Trump administration's sudden cuts to federal research grants to Harvard, Columbia and other universities have rightly raised alarm. But restoring the pre-Trump status quo, as Harvard and many academics demand, will not safeguard intellectual freedom. Why not? Because the administration's actions are only a vile escalation of the infringement on intellectual freedom inherent in any system of federal funding. Both are destructive, and both must go. Start with the Trump administration. Under the pretext of combatting the real problem of antisemitism on campus — this from a president who dines with antisemites — the administration is demanding intellectual control over Harvard's faculty and student body. Harvard must submit to an audit of 'its student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity.' Specific departments including the Divinity and Medical schools will get special scrutiny to see if they 'reflect ideological capture.' Diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI programs must also end. Harvard must not admit any international student whom the government considers 'hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.' (Presumably foreign supporters of Jan. 6— that day of love — are exempt.) Harvard is right to balk at all this. It is right to declare that no government 'should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.' And a private university like Harvard could choose to ignore the administration's demands — but that means forfeiting federal research funding, which puts it at an unfair disadvantage when competing for students, faculty and donors with universities that continue to receive massive federal payouts. If Harvard and other private universities truly seek freedom, therefore, they should demand that federal research funding be phased out altogether. Harvard should argue that since all federal funding comes with some government strings attached, it infringes on intellectual freedom. Instead, Harvard is demanding more government funding and objecting only to the specific nature of the strings or to the way they are currently being pulled. For instance, Harvard does not challenge the government demanding that it do more to combat antisemitism, it simply laments that the present administration seems unwilling 'to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner.' Harvard does not object when administrations impose ideological goals it agrees with, such as the many DEI initiatives like that require grant applicants to submit 'diversity plans'; it only objects when it disagrees with the government's ideological goals. But universities cannot get around the fact that federal grants, by their nature, selectively fund certain ideas at the expense of others. The government picks intellectual winners and losers among private citizens, which is the exact opposite of intellectual freedom. How was Harvard awarded the billions of dollars that the Trump administration is now threatening to withdraw? Federal employees at agencies such as the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the National Endowment of the Humanities look through tens of thousands of grant applications every year and decide which private researchers will receive federal grants and which will not. Even in the best-case scenario, when federal bureaucrats try to proceed conscientiously, such a system creates increased conformity within an academic field. The bureaucrats will tend to defer to recognized experts in the field, which means established theories and methodologies are much more likely to receive federal support, making it difficult for intellectual minorities and innovators to compete. This plays out across the entire university, which is strongly incentivized to hire researchers likely to receive federal grants. In worse scenarios, bureaucrats actively pursue an ideological agenda, deliberately rewarding some viewpoints and penalizing others. This is a major cause of how DEI swept through the universities. And this is now what the Trump administration is nakedly claiming the power to do. Tellingly, in its latest harangue, the administration says it is punishing Harvard for crudely political reasons, including that 'Harvard hired failed Mayors Bill De Blasio and Lori Lightfoot, perhaps the worst mayors ever to preside over major cities in our country's history.' Intellectual freedom is the principle that all individuals have the right to think for themselves, to express their convictions on any subject, and to give their support, financial or otherwise, only to the ideas they choose. When government coercively seizes your money and uses it to subsidize some research program or viewpointfor any reason, it is violating your intellectual freedom. This is the injustice inherent in all government research grants. It is this that private universities like Harvard should now name and challenge. Instead, they fight for 'academic freedom,' which is actually the opposite of intellectual freedom. It asserts the right of universities and professors to teach, write and research whatever they see fit — and to do it at the taxpayer's expense. Trump's measures only replace 'academic freedom' with a worse, more authoritarian form of the same injustice: the license not of universities and professors but of the executive branch to dictate which ideas you will be forced to subsidize as a taxpayer. The threats to Harvard and Columbia should be a wake-up call for private universities and for all who care about intellectual freedom. The right path forward is neither to defend the Trump administration nor to demand a return to the pre-Trump status quo, but to phase out, gradually and impartially, all federal grants and subsidies. Make private universities private again. Let each of us, as individuals, decide which universities we will frequent and fund. Onkar Ghate, Ph.D. in philosophy, is a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute and a contributor to the recent book 'The First Amendment: Essays on the Imperative of Intellectual Freedom.' Sam Weaver, M.A. in liberal arts, is an associate fellow at ARI who writes on education and intellectual freedom issues.
