Tag: harvard university
Vance Invented A 'Fact' About Harvard To Make Himself Really Mad

Vance Invented A 'Fact' About Harvard To Make Himself Really Mad

Vice President JD Vance is either secretly Charles Xavier and can read the mind of every Harvard University employee, or he is making shit up again in order to push a MAGA talking point.

The self-proclaimed hillbilly boldly compared Harvard University to North Korea at the American Compass anniversary gala Tuesday, claiming that “at least 90—probably 95 percent” of Harvard’s faculty voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

"But if you ask yourself—a foreign election, a foreign country's election, you say 80% of the people voted for one candidate. You would say, 'Oh, that's kind of weird,’ right? That's like, not a super healthy democracy,” he babbled.

“If you said, 'Oh, 95 percent of people voted for one party's candidate,' you would say, 'That's North Korea,” right, Vance said. “That is impossible in a true place of free exchange for that to happen."

If you’re wondering how Vance acquired these completely made-up voting statistics and decided to draw these connections, you are not alone. Even Fox News noted that the vice president made the claim “without evidence.”

Then again, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just released an official government report citing fabricated sources, so it’s not unheard of for people in the Trump administration to pull data from thin air.

As for our eye-lined darling, using made-up information to push his longtime vendetta against higher education is just another example of his awkward attempts at being a relatable human.

When Vance was penning thoughts for conservative website National Review, he used vague sources he referred to as “friends” he knew to justify his narrative of the “college trap.”

And when the highly hypocritical Yale Law School grad is not dogging on Harvard, he is struggling to form sentences while interacting with workers at a donut shop to show voters that he, too, is a normal everyday guy who does normal, everyday things.

Then again, Vance can’t even keep his own family or sports fans on his side—so his historic unpopularity makes a lot of sense.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Trump's Assault On Harvard Endangers Every American's Freedom

Trump's Assault On Harvard Endangers Every American's Freedom

The question for the last three months has been, when will it end? The question today is, will there be anything left?

Every day, this country and our freedom suffer another body blow. Tonight, news landed that after Harvard University rejected demands for federal control of its academic life, the Treasury Department is taking steps to end its tax-exempt status. This, after the Trump administration has frozen some $2 billion in grants and cancelled outright $60 million in federal contracts with the university, with threats to cancel the remainder of Harvard’s $9 billion in federal grants.

This is a partial list of Trump’s blackmail demands:

Harvard must agree to “shutter all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, offices, committees, positions, and initiatives, under whatever name, and stop all DEI-based policies, including DEI-based disciplinary or speech control policies, under whatever name; demonstrate that it has done so to the satisfaction of the federal government.”

Harvard must submit to the government auditing “the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity” and hiring and admissions so that “every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity.” It’s unintelligible gibberish, but their “viewpoint diversity” means the end of free thought at Harvard.

“The University must reform its recruitment, screening, and admissions of international students to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence,” as defined by Donald Trump.

“The University must adopt and implement merit-based admissions policies and cease all preferences based on race, color, national origin, or proxies thereof, throughout its undergraduate program, each graduate program individually, each of its professional schools, and other programs.”

There were other demands rejected by Harvard, including that “governance” of the university be altered so that those in charge must be “committed to the changes indicated in this letter.” That means Harvard leaders must do what Trump demands or else.

A letter posted on the university’s X account put the position of Harvard this way: “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government. Accordingly, Harvard will not accept the government’s terms as an agreement in principle.”

Other universities such as Columbia and Northwestern have been subject to similar threats and caved into Trump’s demands. The administration is said to have a list of other universities upon which it will make similar demands.

Harvard is such an enormously wealthy institution that they recently announced that students from families making $200 thousand or less yearly would be given free tuition. Harvard is said to have an endowment in excess of $50 billion and doubtlessly has enough billionaires among its alumni to keep the place going – even thriving – for at least the next hundred years.

So why should we worry about Harvard at a time when our country is beset daily by these horrors, among many others:

American citizens as well as undocumented migrants are being snatched off the street and sent to interment camps in Louisiana and El Salvador.

There are new plans to send undocumented arrestees with no criminal records to detention in Guantanamo.

Tens of thousands of federal employees, including those serving in harms way overseas, have been summarily fired without notice on false premises.

Budgets of departments like Health and Human Services are scheduled for cuts of as much as 40 percent and entire federal departments such as USAID have been shut down without Congressional authorization.

The entire weight of the federal government is being wielded daily against organizations such as Planned Parenthood, and individuals from Trump’s first administration he doesn’t like have been threatened with criminal investigation and prosecution by the Department of Justice.

The attorney general of New York state has been referred for criminal prosecution under federal law. Threats to prosecute former President Joe Biden and his family have been made repeatedly by Trump and hang in the balance.

Multiple law firms have been threatened with loss of security clearances and access to federal buildings necessary to represent their clients.

Defiance of court orders by the Trump administration, including those of Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court, are a daily occurrence.

With all of this going on, it seems silly to worry about the wealthiest college in the country, doesn’t it?

No. Harvard is just one more brick in the wall of fascism being constructed around all of us. The demands on Harvard, now spelled out in an official document signed by a deputy commissioner of the General Services Administration, the General Counsel of the Department of Education, and the General Counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services – all acting on the orders of Donald Trump – are written evidence of the imposition of thought police of a an authoritarian regime.

The next step after such demands is arrest on spurious charges; after that is imprisonment; the next step in the dark stairs leading to dictatorship is arrest without charges, already being used against migrants with no criminal record, some with protected immigration status; down at the bottom of the stairs is imprisonment without trial and conviction; we know from reading history that is less than a decade older than I am what is next: torture, disappearance, death.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland flew to El Salvador today and his request to see Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran migrant renditioned to a prison known for torturing inmates, was at first denied. The Democratic senator was later permitted to briefly visit with Abrego Garcia in a San Salvador hotel.

Until Van Hollen forced the issue by showing up in El Salvador, we and his family had no way of knowing whether Garcia was alive or dead. Not even the Supreme Court has been able to compel Donald Trump to return him from imprisonment in El Salvador that the court has ruled is “illegal.”

It starts with people who are poor without proper “papers.” It starts with those who have skin that is not white or those who are not heterosexual or their gender identity is different from the one listed on their birth certificate. It starts with those from another neighborhood or another religion. It starts with them. Then it’s Harvard. Then it’s us.

We are in the terrible place history has recorded so well and that we ignore at our peril.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. He writes every day at luciantruscott.substack.com and you can follow him on Bluesky @lktiv.bsky.social and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV. Please consider subscribing to his Substack.

Reprinted with permission from Lucian Truscott Newsletter.

Taping #MeToo Mouths At Harvard

Taping #MeToo Mouths At Harvard

It was inevitable that the #MeToo movement, started with valid anger at sexual harassment, would open the door to bizarre accusations. It’s just surprising to see it go off the deep end at Harvard University, where rational thinking tied to principle is supposed to be a requirement for admission.

Do note that the student group hounding law school Dean Ronald S. Sullivan to resign is described as “small but vocal.” Dozens of law faculty have backed him. And many at Harvard no doubt find the histrionics deeply embarrassing.

But it’s amazing how far the aggrieved ones have gotten. They should know that they are a source of wonderment mainly because they are so obviously ignorant of the legal system and they’re supposed to be smart.

The rap against Sullivan is that he joined the team of lawyers defending Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer facing multiple charges of sexual harassment and worse. In the American judicial system, every defendant deserves legal representation. Ted Bundy and Timothy McVeigh had lawyers, none of whom approved of the client’s gruesome crimes. The legal aid movement rests on the belief that poor people have a right to adequate legal representation, whether they are innocent or not.

In a teaching moment, Sullivan tried to gently explain. “Lawyers are not an extension of their clients,” he said. Representing a client “doesn’t mean I’m supporting anything the client may have done.”

Sullivan is also African-American, which shouldn’t matter but seems to here. Some foes have weaponized race against him. In a public letter, the Association of Black Harvard Women wrote, “You have failed us.”

In cases where emotions overcome facts, the poorly armed resort to self-dramatization. Some #MeTooers put tape over their mouths. Get it? They’re not allowed to speak, which should come as a great surprise to their audiences.

Danu Mudannayake, a student, wrote in a petition, “Do you really want to one day accept your diploma from someone who … believes it is OK to defend such a prominent figure at the center of the #MeToo movement?” Why not? By the way, no one has to go to Harvard.

Some of the Harvard grown-ups are so lacking in courage that you almost feel sorry for them. Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana put in a good word for the right to skilled representation — but then called for a study of how students at Winthrop House, where Sullivan is a faculty dean, regard the law professor’s role in the Weinstein case. He called it a “climate review.” Uh-oh.

In a similar vein, another faculty dean, Diana L. Eck, said that everyone has the right to a strenuous defense but, on the other hand, Sullivan’s work is “fracturing that sense of community.” As if everyone in the community has to agree.

On campus, Sullivan’s picture is being paired with that of Roland Fryer, a renowned Harvard economist who is also African-American. Fryer is being dragged over the coals amid charges of sexual harassment. Why didn’t they add a portrait of the Marquis de Sade?

Fryer’s main crime seems to have been telling off-color jokes. Students in his teaching lab laughed at them, but, you see, that just showed the “power dynamics” between Fryer and the others. Of possible relevance, none of the women claims that Fryer made a pass at her or asked for sex.

You don’t really know what to make of all this. For the students, it’s kind of late in the game to develop a sense of humor. And for the administrators, well, their mouths have two sides, so why not talk out of both of them? That gives you plausible deniability at whatever party you attend.

So looking forward to the climate review.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com.To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

IMAGE: A statue of John Harvard looks over Harvard Yard at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts January 20, 2015. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

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