5 ms·

These all sound like reasonable standards for universities to meet. The only unnecessary part is explicitly calling out conservative opinions, some of which wi

These all sound like reasonable standards for universities to meet. The only unnecessary part is explicitly calling out conservative opinions, some of which will have no place in some university subjects, e.g. a geology student insisting the Earth is 6000 years old.

nine_zeros 11mo ago
These are all reasonable standards - if they came from Congress. They are not reasonable standards if they came for a fickle and corrupt mafia at gunpoint. The entire no kings protest is exactly about that - executive overreach overriding will of the people and causing irresponsible harm.
- sidle_arount 11mo ago
  I'm not sure I follow your argument. If these would be considered reasonable standards if exactly the same were proposed by Congress, then how would they cause harm if implemented on request of the Executive?
  - nine_zeros 11mo ago
    When requested by the executive under threat of cutting funding, these requests are not requests, they are demands. When executive demands something of private citizens and private entities, it means they are bossing over said people/entities. Nobody elected the executive to boss over people. When Congress attempts to set these same regulations, these entities get a chance to reach out to their reps and ask for changes. When Congress sets regulations, power is dispersed among 400+ reps. You are thinking about the outcome of the regulations feeling the same. "No kings" are demanding that the means to setting rules be distributed among reps - when the rulemaking is distributed, you'll find that the rules demanded will change - because most people don't want these exact rules as they stand. And they don't want to submit to a fickle corrupt executive who will change these rules selectively on a dime on a random Friday.
    - nobody9999 11mo ago
      >When executive demands something of private citizens and private entities, it means they are bossing over said people/entities. Nobody elected the executive to boss over people. When Congress attempts to set these same regulations, these entities get a chance to reach out to their reps and ask for changes. When Congress sets regulations, power is dispersed among 400+ reps. IMHO it's much simpler than that. Congress has the power of the purse -- that is to say that Congress decides what funds are disbursed by the Federal government. While there is a small measure of flexibility for the Executive on when and/or how those funds are disbursed, the Constitution vests budgetary power (i.e., who gets funded, how much to they get, and for what purpose) in Congress and not the Executive. The same goes for tariffs too. Congress is not doing their job. Not only in the sense that they've abandoned the "power of the purse" to the Executive, but also in that legislators, for the most part, represent their big donors rather than their constituents. Which isn't new, although it's pretty stark right now. With the dysfunction so high that the government is currently unfunded. Even more, the House won't even gavel into session, as they'd then have to swear in a newly elected member of Congress which would give members just enough votes to passing a motion to publish information (The so-called "Epstein Files") widely believed to be bad news for the President as well as others in the power structure. The Senate isn't negotiating, nor is the House drafting actual budget bill(s) which is one of their primary responsibilities. So yes. If there's an issue with Federal research funding, it's Congress that needs to fix it. What the Executive is trying to do is not part of the powers given to them by the Constitution (you know, the *supreme law of the land) and, as such, isn't lawful.
      - nine_zeros 11mo ago
        Yes, your assessment is accurate. The Republic is broken and the Republicans are actively breaking it as much as they can.
- thesmtsolver 11mo ago
  If they are "reasonable standards", it shouldn't matter what the source of them are. This appeals to a dangerous view of morality where some entities/people are good/bad intrinsically and all their actions are good/bad by definition.
  - nine_zeros 11mo ago
    They are not objectively "reasonable standards". Who said they are objectively reasonable standards? They are standards sent by a unitary. They might seem reasonable to one person but not to another. This is why Congress is supposed to set these rules - so that the definition of reasonable is spread all over the country. Reasonable standards are a discovery process, not a unitary dictatorial step. Hell, this is the whole logic of the American Republic - no kings - since 1776.
    - thesmtsolver 11mo ago
      > Reasonable standards are a discovery process, not a unitary dictatorial step. You just described a meta standard for standards. Now, is that meta standard an objectively reasonable standard?
- patagurbon 11mo ago
  They are not reasonable. Ideological “balance” has no place in any of the sciences. Science is about truth not balance.
  - nine_zeros 11mo ago
    Yes, they are not objectively "reasonable" that's why I added the "- if they came from Congress" part. And I can't imagine Congress would pass these rules because of the Senate structure. "Reasonable" is a distributed discovery process. A unitary order can never be "reasonable".
    - IAmBroom 11mo ago
      You miss the point. It's not any more reasonable if Congress enforced this groupthink.
      - nine_zeros 11mo ago
        You miss the point too. Congress is going to have a tough time imposing this groupthink - because it would take convincing 217+ reps and 60 senators as opposed to the unitary 1 person.
- deeg 11mo ago
  The government has no business making ideological demands on universities. Period.
  - nine_zeros 11mo ago
    Yep, they don't. That's why these demands are bogus coming from the president. If they were to come from Congress, they'd never pass as they stand because these entities would demand their elected reps don't let this pass
qcnguy 11mo ago
[flagged]
ternaryoperator 11mo ago
It reads as reasonable but is really saying: no diversity hires. That’s more significant in universities than in the job market. In general, the most educated Americans are the children of the wealthy. So without DEI, the faculty, which is thereby a product of the economic elite, will be teaching primarily the children of that elite. Universities recognized the problem with this closed system long ago and used DEI as a way to address it. That’s what the Trump administration is targeting in part with these compacts.
- jasonlotito 11mo ago
  They do push DEI, just for conservative voices. Remember, DEI is good when it's for conservatives. Just see how many people are complaining about the Super Bowl halftime show. A bunch of anit-DEI people asking for DEI is crazy.
- Levitz 11mo ago
  >Universities recognized the problem with this closed system long ago and used DEI as a way to address it. That's preposterous. It's obscenely disingenuous to now pretend that DEI was about class and economic status. Are women just poorer? Are Asians just richer? Please.
  - hypeatei 11mo ago
    DEI is about expanding the talent pools and considering more people for something. If you have problems with specific implementations of DEI, that's fine, but to pretend it's all bad is disingenuous. Please list a specific program that you have an issue with so that people can actually discuss substance.
    - FridayoLeary 11mo ago
      No it isn't. It's about filling in quotas ignoring talent and objectifying people based on their ethnicity, race and gender. It exists in order to assuage the guilt of elite white liberals. You just moved the goalposts to include things that nobody can argue against in order to make it sound resonable. My issue is that it's racist because it discriminates for people based on the colour of their skin.
jasonlotito 11mo ago
They sound good because they are being presented in a pleasant way that undermines that reality of what these requests are. First, adherence to this agreement shall be subject to review by the Department of Justice. Basically, the current administration can dictate what constitutes a violation. The government gets to dictate what is passing and what is not passing. Basically, this is the government having a direct hand in dictating what the schools that receive government funding can say and do, full stop. Further, this is a potential violation of the current administrations desire to eradicate DEI as this compact literally promotes DEI. So it's an odd request. It's also a massive violation of the freedom of speech. > Signatories shall maintain institutional neutrality at all levels of their administration. This requires policies that all university employees, in their capacity as university representatives, will abstain from actions or speech relating to societal and political events except in cases in which external events have a direct impact upon the university. So, no one employed by the university can speak about societal or political events unless it has a direct impact on the university. Imagine not being able to talk about modern events in the classroom? I was doing this in high school in the 90s in Missouri! And now the administration wants to take that away. There are many reasons this is bad. But predominantly it's this: I get to decide what any of this means. So you have to defend this from MY POV, because this establishes me as the ultimate arbiter here. * Why me? Because it's whoever is in charge at the time, which means you need to be able to defend the merits of this when it doesn't necessarily fit your wants or needs. Which means me.
elbows 11mo ago
They mostly sound reasonable at a bullet-point level, but reading closer turns up details such as: > Signatories must commit to “defining and otherwise interpreting ‘male,’ ‘female,’ ‘woman,’ and ‘man’ according to reproductive function and biological processes.” Which is not exactly ideological neutral.
- nickpsecurity 11mo ago
  Biology is ideologically neutral. People who disagree with that position are anti-biology (anti-science) on this topic. It certainly makes sense to begin with how to treat men and women by noting they're biologically different instead of whatever they imagine themselves to be. We certainly don't issue degrees based only on what expertise they identify as. We don't allow them in office based on whether they identify as President or Principal. We should likewise not use their feelings or unsubstantiated beliefs to determine if they're a man or a woman when biology has the answer almost every time. Intersex, the exceptions, we'll handle on a case by case basis.
  - patagurbon 11mo ago
    What parts of the biology of sex mandates different treatment? Do you mean that medicine should be tailored to biology? Yes obviously, and even very progressive research hospitals take great pains to ensure the treatment is tailored to biology. Perhaps more so than conservative hospitals. You would know this if you engaged with the research outside of the news. Outside of medicine? What different treatment does “biology” merit?
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
  - IAmBroom 11mo ago
    > Biology is ideologically neutral. People who disagree with that position are anti-biology (anti-science) on this topic. So you agree there are seven human sexes?
brendoelfrendo 11mo ago
They are reasonable only if you do not read between the lines or think critically about how the administration will choose to interpret and enforce these standards against the universities in question.
- convolvatron 11mo ago
  having representatives from the Party oversee curriculum, hiring, and admissions is reasonable only if your explicit goal is to emulate China or the former USSR at its worst.

nine_zeros 11mo ago

These are all reasonable standards - if they came from Congress. They are not reasonable standards if they came for a fickle and corrupt mafia at gunpoint. The entire no kings protest is exactly about that - executive overreach overriding will of the people and causing irresponsible harm.

sidle_arount 11mo ago
I'm not sure I follow your argument. If these would be considered reasonable standards if exactly the same were proposed by Congress, then how would they cause harm if implemented on request of the Executive?
- nine_zeros 11mo ago
  When requested by the executive under threat of cutting funding, these requests are not requests, they are demands. When executive demands something of private citizens and private entities, it means they are bossing over said people/entities. Nobody elected the executive to boss over people. When Congress attempts to set these same regulations, these entities get a chance to reach out to their reps and ask for changes. When Congress sets regulations, power is dispersed among 400+ reps. You are thinking about the outcome of the regulations feeling the same. "No kings" are demanding that the means to setting rules be distributed among reps - when the rulemaking is distributed, you'll find that the rules demanded will change - because most people don't want these exact rules as they stand. And they don't want to submit to a fickle corrupt executive who will change these rules selectively on a dime on a random Friday.
  - nobody9999 11mo ago
    >When executive demands something of private citizens and private entities, it means they are bossing over said people/entities. Nobody elected the executive to boss over people. When Congress attempts to set these same regulations, these entities get a chance to reach out to their reps and ask for changes. When Congress sets regulations, power is dispersed among 400+ reps. IMHO it's much simpler than that. Congress has the power of the purse -- that is to say that Congress decides what funds are disbursed by the Federal government. While there is a small measure of flexibility for the Executive on when and/or how those funds are disbursed, the Constitution vests budgetary power (i.e., who gets funded, how much to they get, and for what purpose) in Congress and not the Executive. The same goes for tariffs too. Congress is not doing their job. Not only in the sense that they've abandoned the "power of the purse" to the Executive, but also in that legislators, for the most part, represent their big donors rather than their constituents. Which isn't new, although it's pretty stark right now. With the dysfunction so high that the government is currently unfunded. Even more, the House won't even gavel into session, as they'd then have to swear in a newly elected member of Congress which would give members just enough votes to passing a motion to publish information (The so-called "Epstein Files") widely believed to be bad news for the President as well as others in the power structure. The Senate isn't negotiating, nor is the House drafting actual budget bill(s) which is one of their primary responsibilities. So yes. If there's an issue with Federal research funding, it's Congress that needs to fix it. What the Executive is trying to do is not part of the powers given to them by the Constitution (you know, the *supreme law of the land) and, as such, isn't lawful.
    - nine_zeros 11mo ago
      Yes, your assessment is accurate. The Republic is broken and the Republicans are actively breaking it as much as they can.
thesmtsolver 11mo ago
If they are "reasonable standards", it shouldn't matter what the source of them are. This appeals to a dangerous view of morality where some entities/people are good/bad intrinsically and all their actions are good/bad by definition.
- nine_zeros 11mo ago
  They are not objectively "reasonable standards". Who said they are objectively reasonable standards? They are standards sent by a unitary. They might seem reasonable to one person but not to another. This is why Congress is supposed to set these rules - so that the definition of reasonable is spread all over the country. Reasonable standards are a discovery process, not a unitary dictatorial step. Hell, this is the whole logic of the American Republic - no kings - since 1776.
  - thesmtsolver 11mo ago
    > Reasonable standards are a discovery process, not a unitary dictatorial step. You just described a meta standard for standards. Now, is that meta standard an objectively reasonable standard?
patagurbon 11mo ago
They are not reasonable. Ideological “balance” has no place in any of the sciences. Science is about truth not balance.
- nine_zeros 11mo ago
  Yes, they are not objectively "reasonable" that's why I added the "- if they came from Congress" part. And I can't imagine Congress would pass these rules because of the Senate structure. "Reasonable" is a distributed discovery process. A unitary order can never be "reasonable".
  - IAmBroom 11mo ago
    You miss the point. It's not any more reasonable if Congress enforced this groupthink.
    - nine_zeros 11mo ago
      You miss the point too. Congress is going to have a tough time imposing this groupthink - because it would take convincing 217+ reps and 60 senators as opposed to the unitary 1 person.
deeg 11mo ago
The government has no business making ideological demands on universities. Period.
- nine_zeros 11mo ago
  Yep, they don't. That's why these demands are bogus coming from the president. If they were to come from Congress, they'd never pass as they stand because these entities would demand their elected reps don't let this pass

qcnguy 11mo ago

[flagged]

ternaryoperator 11mo ago

It reads as reasonable but is really saying: no diversity hires. That’s more significant in universities than in the job market. In general, the most educated Americans are the children of the wealthy. So without DEI, the faculty, which is thereby a product of the economic elite, will be teaching primarily the children of that elite. Universities recognized the problem with this closed system long ago and used DEI as a way to address it. That’s what the Trump administration is targeting in part with these compacts.

jasonlotito 11mo ago
They do push DEI, just for conservative voices. Remember, DEI is good when it's for conservatives. Just see how many people are complaining about the Super Bowl halftime show. A bunch of anit-DEI people asking for DEI is crazy.
Levitz 11mo ago
>Universities recognized the problem with this closed system long ago and used DEI as a way to address it. That's preposterous. It's obscenely disingenuous to now pretend that DEI was about class and economic status. Are women just poorer? Are Asians just richer? Please.
- hypeatei 11mo ago
  DEI is about expanding the talent pools and considering more people for something. If you have problems with specific implementations of DEI, that's fine, but to pretend it's all bad is disingenuous. Please list a specific program that you have an issue with so that people can actually discuss substance.
  - FridayoLeary 11mo ago
    No it isn't. It's about filling in quotas ignoring talent and objectifying people based on their ethnicity, race and gender. It exists in order to assuage the guilt of elite white liberals. You just moved the goalposts to include things that nobody can argue against in order to make it sound resonable. My issue is that it's racist because it discriminates for people based on the colour of their skin.

jasonlotito 11mo ago

They sound good because they are being presented in a pleasant way that undermines that reality of what these requests are. First, adherence to this agreement shall be subject to review by the Department of Justice. Basically, the current administration can dictate what constitutes a violation. The government gets to dictate what is passing and what is not passing. Basically, this is the government having a direct hand in dictating what the schools that receive government funding can say and do, full stop. Further, this is a potential violation of the current administrations desire to eradicate DEI as this compact literally promotes DEI. So it's an odd request. It's also a massive violation of the freedom of speech. > Signatories shall maintain institutional neutrality at all levels of their administration. This requires policies that all university employees, in their capacity as university representatives, will abstain from actions or speech relating to societal and political events except in cases in which external events have a direct impact upon the university. So, no one employed by the university can speak about societal or political events unless it has a direct impact on the university. Imagine not being able to talk about modern events in the classroom? I was doing this in high school in the 90s in Missouri! And now the administration wants to take that away. There are many reasons this is bad. But predominantly it's this: I get to decide what any of this means. So you have to defend this from MY POV, because this establishes me as the ultimate arbiter here. * Why me? Because it's whoever is in charge at the time, which means you need to be able to defend the merits of this when it doesn't necessarily fit your wants or needs. Which means me.

elbows 11mo ago

They mostly sound reasonable at a bullet-point level, but reading closer turns up details such as: > Signatories must commit to “defining and otherwise interpreting ‘male,’ ‘female,’ ‘woman,’ and ‘man’ according to reproductive function and biological processes.” Which is not exactly ideological neutral.

nickpsecurity 11mo ago
Biology is ideologically neutral. People who disagree with that position are anti-biology (anti-science) on this topic. It certainly makes sense to begin with how to treat men and women by noting they're biologically different instead of whatever they imagine themselves to be. We certainly don't issue degrees based only on what expertise they identify as. We don't allow them in office based on whether they identify as President or Principal. We should likewise not use their feelings or unsubstantiated beliefs to determine if they're a man or a woman when biology has the answer almost every time. Intersex, the exceptions, we'll handle on a case by case basis.
- patagurbon 11mo ago
  What parts of the biology of sex mandates different treatment? Do you mean that medicine should be tailored to biology? Yes obviously, and even very progressive research hospitals take great pains to ensure the treatment is tailored to biology. Perhaps more so than conservative hospitals. You would know this if you engaged with the research outside of the news. Outside of medicine? What different treatment does “biology” merit?
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
- IAmBroom 11mo ago
  > Biology is ideologically neutral. People who disagree with that position are anti-biology (anti-science) on this topic. So you agree there are seven human sexes?

brendoelfrendo 11mo ago

They are reasonable only if you do not read between the lines or think critically about how the administration will choose to interpret and enforce these standards against the universities in question.

convolvatron 11mo ago
having representatives from the Party oversee curriculum, hiring, and admissions is reasonable only if your explicit goal is to emulate China or the former USSR at its worst.