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1. Embed this notice
   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Mar-2025 03:02:34 JST Paul Cantrell

   This is good. Very good. Worth reading.

   https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/3/14/enos-levitsky-harvard-columbia-trump/

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   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Mar-2025 03:06:10 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     I’m not a fan of Harvard as an institution. Certain •people• at Harvard, yes, for sure. The institution, as a public institution, serving the systemic purpose its serves? Eh.

     BUT…if there’s any good at all in having a school position itself as a luxury brand that kisses the feet of the ultra-ultra-wealthy so that it may itself may accumulate the wealth and power of a small nation-state, it’s in having a school so self-sufficient and so independent that it can, in times of crisis, take a stand for what’s right and absorb the damage of being a leader.

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   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Mar-2025 03:07:27 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Or, as The Crimson puts it:

     ❝Harvard’s failure to speak out discourages other, more vulnerable universities from taking action, which undermines our collective defenses. If Columbia or another university confronts the administration on its own, it will lose. If America’s nearly 6,000 universities and colleges launch a campaign in defense of higher education, odds are that Trump will lose.

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   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Mar-2025 03:11:06 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Someone must lead this collective effort. And if Harvard and other leading universities remain in their protective shells, there is a good chance that no one will.❞

     They go on to make a strong argument about ceding the public battle via silence. (They say “debate” instead of “battle,” which puts them ~5 months behind events, but I imagine they’re speaking the language they can stomach and that their audience can hear. We meet people where they’re at.)

     Worth a read.

     /end

     https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/3/14/enos-levitsky-harvard-columbia-trump/

   • Embed this notice
     Jeff Miller (orange hatband) (jmeowmeow@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Mar-2025 03:13:58 JST Jeff Miller (orange hatband)

     in reply to

     @inthehands Harvard has tenure at the institutional level, enabling the ability to act publicly from principle without fear of budgetary reprisal.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Mar-2025 03:15:50 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Jeff Miller (orange hatband)

     @jmeowmeow
     That’s well said. And furthermore, unlike even most wealthy private colleges, they don’t actually strictly need tuition or donors •at all•. They could trim some of their expensive growth plays and basically exist forever on their endowment and nothing else until the collapse of civilization.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Mar-2025 03:32:45 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Putting it more succinctly:

     What is Harvard •for•, if not total institutional independence?

     What moment calls for exercising that independence, if not this one?