Harvard University rejects Trump admin's demands, risking billions in funding

That quote is clever, but it also oversimplifies the concern.
In reality, it’s not just about professors or what’s said in lectures.
The broader campus environment — including social life, student organizations, and the overall campus culture — also plays a role. We all know college isn’t just academics; there’s sorority life, partying, activism, peer influence, and a general social climate that often leans heavily progressive.

So while professors may not have absolute sway over students’ behavior or beliefs, the cumulative effect of the environment — inside and outside the classroom — can still shape political and cultural attitudes over time.

 

While professors may not have absolute sway over students’ behavior or beliefs, the cumulative effect of the college environment — both in and out of the classroom — can significantly shape political and cultural attitudes over time.
It’s not just lectures or coursework, but also student groups, social clubs, and campus activism.
Some clubs, including those with foreign political interests or ideological leanings, can play a role in shaping how students view the world — sometimes in ways that go well beyond academic discussion.

Then there’s the social side: nightlife, hookup culture, and the broader campus lifestyle that often promotes a kind of moral relativism. All of this creates a powerful cultural ecosystem that can have a lasting influence, even if no single professor is pulling the strings.

 

The cultural ecosystem is worth mentioning. Next time, just try to indicate that you're using AI-generated responses in your posts. This is not intended to be any kind of criticism, so don't take it as such. That's just fair to all forum participants. As I had doubts about the automatic-sounding parts, I've placed your last two posts into https://www.scribbr.com/ai-detector/ and I am getting "100 percent of text is likely generated by AI" when I take out the first sentence and start with "In reality, it's not just about...." Your second post is apparently 100 percent AI-generated. Notice that when I share article content from newspapers, I always have a link added, ensuring that everyone knows that it is shared content.

 

I hear you, what I do is write a full reply and then use Google AI LLM to polish it, improve the grammar. So most of the ideas and comments are written by me and improved/generated by Gemini.

 

I was taking a more wholistic approach, Professors are part of the equation.
For example:
(SJP): Reports indicate that SJP chapters have been involved in numerous incidents of antisemitic rhetoric and behavior, including physical and verbal assaults, property destruction, and harassment of Jewish students .
As-Sabiqun: This group, led by Imam Abdul Alim Musa, has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Their campus activities have included promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories and expressing support for terrorist organizations
.
In response to the surge in campus antisemitism, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has initiated investigations into 60 universities for potential violations of Jewish students' civil rights.
Some U.S.-based organizations and student groups have historical or ideological ties to MB-affiliated institutions abroad. - transnational Islamist movement founded in Egypt in 1928.
Certain groups may adopt rhetoric or narratives aligned with MB ideology, especially regarding Israel and Jews.

This is one example, but there are other additional influences, how do we balance free speech and democracy while safeguarding students?

 

And how will deporting foreign students and defunding medical research accomplish this?

 

And why is the Trump administration afraid or unwilling to follow due process. The reason would seem to be that due process would expose the fact that they are just lying about these people. Their house of cards built lies would come tumbling down.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-plots-major-escalation-feud-120552292.html
WH Administration is set to pull another $1 billion in funding from Harvard.
The funding freeze is in addition to the suspension of $2.26 billion in federal funds from the Ivy League university after it refused demands for sweeping policy changes last week.

 

This was about the article "Harvard surrenders! University professor ALAN DERSHOWITZ reveals the secret deal being struck with Trump... and it'll make his woke colleagues furious". I'm hereby declaring this article total BS. Harvard is suing the government and is not rolling over to Trump's illegal demands as Alan Dershowitz claimed was going to happen. Alan Dershowitz and the Daily Mail are both absolutely horrible sources. BTW, Daily Mail is also the useless source that Lerner used in another thread that claimed that Adolf Hitler lived out his days in Argentina after WWII. The Daily Mail rating on MediaBiasFactCheck.com is inflated. Its reliability should probably be Very LOW instead of just LOW or maybe even Hogwash which would be a new rating.

 

The article contained Harvard's own professor's speculation about what was going to happen; it also contained insights into the political culture of Harvard. The invalidation of the future speculation part (this is a risk for anyone who speculates on future action) does not invalidate the other part, which I found more interesting than the speculation about what Harvard was going to do in response.

I would also caution against using Media Bias Fact Check as some kind of an arbiter. There isn't an agreement on whether the left-right spectrum is even a sensible model for characterizing modern politics. Therefore, it's even more controversial as a tool for acertaining bias in journalism. Also, the rejection of media like the Daily Mail or New York Post based on their tablet-like features makes little sense, as many people read these newspapers' opinion sections, or turn to them for other features (sports, entertainment, etc.). And all opinion sections are biased anyways, regardless of the media outlet's rating level.

 

I meant tabloid-like features.

 

I'm not claiming MediaBiasFactCheck.com should be used to evaluate every single article produced by the source in question. It is a general rating of source reliability and bias. It does that job very well.

I never even mentioned the bias rating of MediaBiasFactCheck.com on this source or topic. The reliability ratings seem very good in general. Admittedly the Bias ratings are slightly less so but I've never really disagreed with MediaBiasFactCheck.com on them but have noticed that the bias rating can change a little bit fairly often.

The tablet-like features is not and was not any consideration by me or by MediBiasFactCheck.com, as far as I can tell, so I'm not sure where that comes from or has to do with this?

Just looking at the two articles, this one and the one about Adolf Hitler living out his life in Argentina after the war, it seems very clear to me that MediaBiasFactCheck.com nailed the rating of Daily Mail as LOW reliability. Although if all Daily Mail articles are similar then I'd say the reliability rating should be much lower. Now if you believe that Alan Dershowitz doesn't have his head up his ass on this topic, that is fine with me. I'm happy to mildly disagree on that detail. There's still a miniscule chance, in my view, that Harvard could roll over for Trump and kiss his feet then I'll admit to being dead wrong in this post.

 

Daily Mail is a tabloid. That's why I've focused on this aspect.

I would go with this research over Media Bias Fact Check:

https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/politics/online-tabloids-political-influence

Why online tabloids are better at predicting the public’s political mood than broadsheets

Where do you go to get your political news? Many will argue that broadsheets are the best source for factual coverage and analysis, relegating tabloids – particularly online ones – to the role of guilty pleasure. A place to read about lightweight or celebrity news, but certainly not a trustworthy political source.

"Dr Chmielewska-Szlajfer's interest in the political coverage of online tabloids was sparked following the Polish election of 2015 and 2016’s US election and Brexit referendum. Unlike each country’s broadsheets, which misread the public mood and failed to predict the outcomes, the online tabloids in each country were more closely aligned with the shift in public mood that led to each result."

"Understanding why these sites’ political coverage was so closely aligned with the public’s mood is important, she explains, because despite common perceptions that they speak to, and for, the non-elite and underrepresented, all have significant readership – the Mail Online [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html] attracting almost 25 million unique visitors per month, Gawker, almost 14.5 million before it closed in August 2016, and Pudelek, around 6.6 million unique visitors. "

 

Well, polling here in the USA would seem to disagree with this particular tabloid article at this time predicting the public mood accurately. It just captured Alan Dershowitz's own biased incorrect interpretation.

 

It is, simply put, a poor piece of journalism. His speculations turned out to be incorrect and his analysis of Harvard’s culture is just a repeat of his other articles and books attacking “woke” colleges.

It is a piece of propaganda aimed to make his good friend Trump look strong and further his campaign against “liberal” colleges while helping him sell more copies of his recently published book “War on Woke”.

My speculations could be wrong, but I guarantee they are more rooted in reality than anything Alan Dershowitz said in his article.