A demand letter that said only "Harvard may not use race, gender, or national origin as criteria for admissions and hiring" would be a lot more defensible, and much harder to oppose.
But the government's list of demands includes all kinds of stuff that would be mildly insane even if offered in good faith. And we have seen enough already that any independent organization would be very irresponsible to assume good faith.
I would go so far as to say that any institution trying to make decisions based solely on merit is required to resist this kind of pressure very forcefully. There are many examples of the administration using "DEI" as a buzzword when firing meritorious women and minorities, all the while promoting totally meritless white men.
If you think 'viewpoint diversity' is any level of sane with the current administration then you haven't been keeping up with their actions:
> 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.
This sounds like the federal government is demanding that they adhere to a department of Policing Wrongthink.
> 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.
Insane
> Harvard must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious and immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension.
Insane
> reducing the power held by faculty (whether tenured or untenured) and administrators more committed to activism than scholarship
Is even insane if you think about it for two seconds; nobody wants the government deciding what counts as activism and what counts as "real" scholarship. A good heuristic: do any of the proponents want a Bernie Sanders or AOC wielding this authority?
This sounds very similar to all the DEI stuff which they didn't have an issue with before. Forcing them to not be aggressively hostile towards Republicans does not seem like an unreasonable ask.
I had to take critical race theory classes for my grad school program, I'm sure they can find a Christian to make a powerpoint on avoiding hate towards Christians.
This is all stuff which has been happening in reverse for decades. The real solution is for schools to find a funding route other than government, but until then these shinanigans have been happening for decades and this isn't suddenly "insane".
1. Universities aren't "incredibly hostile towards Republicans"
2. CRT: critical race theory is a real study. It's just understanding the historical context for the current socioeconomic landscape of America. Do you think black Americans were magically fixed after slavery ended? No? Congratulations, you support the fundamentals of CRT. It just became conservative spooky buzzword.
3. Avoiding hate towards Christians... who is out here hating Christians? This fetish for persecution is getting very strange. At absolute worst, people are asking Christians to avoid passing legislation using their religion. Which is happening at an alarming rate and should be concerning to every American who respects our Constitution!
4. "reverse"... yeah no, it's really not. Nobody has been silencing conservative voices, it's just difficult to hold a conservative voice while being in higher education. Because conservatism as an ideology is naturally opposed to higher education and new ways of thought. It's the same reason conservative pieces of media suck. Conservatism as an ideology is naturally opposed to artistic expression and radical creativity, so of course the media sucks. Nobody is doing it to them, it's just that the way they are is largely incompatible with that thing. There's other fun example of this, too. For instance, why does Christian Rock suck so bad? (Christianity and Rock as ideologies are antithetical).
I don’t care at all. For what it’s worth, yes, Harvard and other elite universities should be more welcoming to conservatives. But turning to the federal government to enforce “viewpoint diversity” is just an obviously bad idea.
I don’t want the government deciding what viewpoints need representation. And again, if you think about beyond the immediate case you may have a personal emotional investment in, I don’t think you do either.
I don’t want a future administration trying to enforce “viewpoint diversity” on oil and gas companies, investment banks, or rural family farms either, regardless of what federal contracts or subsidies they have. Exxon, Goldman Sachs, or an Iowa hog farm would be insane to submit to that.
Also, a mask ban enforced by suspension is just plain stupid. That’s not even viewpoint diversity, it’s just partisan chum, and it gives away the game on whether this exercise is in good faith.
I agree in that I'm not thrilled that federal government is enforcing viewpoints, however the original post was saying their requirements were insane and impossible to implement. The requirements laid out are very similar to prior requirements thrust upon them, the only difference is these requirements require right-wing viewpoint alignment instead of left-wing viewpoint alignment.
To be fair, Homebrew is great product design, but actually pretty janky software engineering. Anyone who's had it wreck their PATH a couple of times isn't going to be an automatic yes vote on a technical screen.
As if average FAANG quality in customer-facing software is better.
If that’s the hang-up on hiring him, they need to get the log out of their own eyes first, because shifting to the quality level of Homebrew would be a big improvement for a whole lot of their software.
Oh, now you got me started aswell. There are so many good ones.
k.ong - cool word, don't know what it would be for. Maybe the home of the mascot of the K language (I don't think K has a mascot from what I know but they should have one).
The article says that the wage penalty applies to people with "strong regional accents," and that Southern is the fourth most likely accent for job seekers to try to suppress, with New Jersey being #1. Framing this as specifically Southern inverts the actual finding, and is just culture war chum.
No it's not. The study compared accents from Southerners and standard accents and found Southerners made 20% less. This has nothing to do with New Jersey residents suppressing their accent.
My dad was a New Jersey guy and a Stevens Tech grad. He didn't have the accent but he did have the gruff attitude. It took me a while to understand how that rubbed off on me.
Because the title is accurate? It isn’t that New Jersey accents are the applicants who lose out the most it’s that those are the people who suppress it the most. That’s irrelevant to the title and is just an interesting fact pointed out by the article.
The odd thing to me (as someone born [if not bred] in the south) is that I grew up with a bright distinction between "poor whites" and "white trash", but as far as I can tell now (safely on the other side of the Atlantic) the "culture war" —even on Fox' side— seems to be doing its best to conflate the two notions.
At 50km you might get breaks so you can see clouds, not sure. That's it. But no chance of seeing the ground. That might appeal for a few minutes, but I think I'd be content with seeing it from an observation dome
But the government's list of demands includes all kinds of stuff that would be mildly insane even if offered in good faith. And we have seen enough already that any independent organization would be very irresponsible to assume good faith.
I would go so far as to say that any institution trying to make decisions based solely on merit is required to resist this kind of pressure very forcefully. There are many examples of the administration using "DEI" as a buzzword when firing meritorious women and minorities, all the while promoting totally meritless white men.
-JD '08