A friend is a big Harvard alum. He says that most of his classmates are very unhappy with the direction of the university. So in his circle the alumni may be cheering this on. Maybe not the extremism but the general idea of telling Harvard that it needs to get back to truth-seeking.
The fund-raising email the President of Harvard sent us after the gov pulled federal funding begins: "Dear Alumni and Friends,
In recent weeks, thousands of you have sent encouraging messages, asked thoughtful questions, provided candid feedback, and made generous new gifts to the University. Many of you also shared deeply moving stories of how Harvard changed and shaped your lives. Your outpouring of appreciation and support reinforces the importance of our institution and what it represents. Thank you for your commitment to the University and its ideals." It goes in at length, and as the international recipient of a full-ride scholarship you can bet I was happy join in and double my annual gift. Just as trump was able to raise money from his various trials, so to Harvard draws sympathy from this: and while trumps's supporters are many, Harvard's supporters are rich, so it comes out in a wash and is effectively just melodrama to wind us all up with. The Harvard network is wide and varied so while I am sure there are some like your "big Harvard alum" who are cheering attacks on a major source of their own and their country's prestige, but in my circle of conservative alumni friends I have heard exactly the opposite reaction: even those who were still card-carrying Republicans were already apoplectic about the tariff debacle's impact on their net worth so all this petty virtue-signaling against the alma-mater that launched them on their successful careers hasn't done anything to heal the growing rift...
Not a single alum I've talked to is happy about what Trump is doing.
That said, it's not only the Harvard issue that is giving everyone pause, it's the direction of the Administration in general. In fact, for a lot of them, Harvard is the least of the problems the US will be facing the next 20 years due to this Administration. Europe is moving. China is moving. And neither are moving in the direction we thought they were moving prior to Trump coming into office.
My general feel on conservative Harvard/MIT alums is "Buyer's Remorse". A fair sentiment likely shared by most of the nation at this point. I keep hoping that maybe it gets better? At some point, someone, somewhere has to realize the economy, at minimum, has to be brought back in hand. When that happens, maybe we see more movement on these other issues. If it doesn't happen, we'll see movement on new political leadership over the next few election cycles.
I didn't want to measure relative genitalia size with "friend of Big Harvard", but as it happens I was on the Executive Board of an Asian country's Harvard Club during a trump election campaign, and, duty-bound to attend multiple in-person events a month for the year, I accumulated plenty of anecdotes that confirm your experience. Instead of doxing myself with them, I crunched some central bank numbers from this unaligned Asian country for us instead: before trump (2016) the ratio of Western-sphere FDI to Chinese FDI was ~5:1 in favor of the West, but as of 2024 it had reached ~5:1 in favor of China. (Subjectively, the loss of soft-power has been order of magnitude more gradual than the abrupt swing in business influence here.) Regardless, the local Harvard Club has in fact already sent out a subsequent "support" email specific to this international issue, and I'm sure local elites are circling wagons full of generational wealth to defend their offspring's future Ivy credentials regardless of who they're going to end up in business with once they get back.
Those of you who took the time to flag this completely innocuous comment should take a moment to review the site guidelines as you are abusing the mechanism.
You and others in this thread are using HN for political or ideological battle, which is against the guidelines. It's inevitable in a thread of this nature that people are going to do this, but if you want to herald the guidelines, which we appreciate, we need you to also make a sincere effort to observe them.
> You and others in this thread are using HN for political or ideological battle
You look to be an admin so you can do whatever you want, but I would point out that the only post I made that expressed an opinion is still up [0]. I don’t really have a strong opinion about the issue. I find that I only ever get flagged on HN when I ask clarifying questions on threads like these, presumably because people simply don’t like to be questioned about the claims they are making.
Yes I'm a moderator here. These politics-based threads are the most difficult for us to manage, because, whilst mainstream politics stories are generally considered to be off topic here, if a story contains "significant new information" and the weight of community sentiment supports having a thread about it, we'll yield - which means turning off the flags and flamewar penalties and spending much of the day moderating it. But then too many people treat the presence of a political topic on the front page as an open door to post whatever they want, without any regard for the guidelines at all. Then we have to spend time adjudicating between different people making accusations against other community members about breaking the guidelines, when, really, the entire thread is against the guidelines, so the whole matter is kind of moot.
> I only ever get flagged on HN when I ask clarifying questions on threads like these
We can't know exactly why people flag things, but it may be because it comes across as stirring up controversy with plausible deniability. It looks like you're trying to bait another user into making a comment that is controversial and could be attacked (or considered to be breaking the guidelines), whilst being seen as being a neutral participant yourself.
Of course we can't know your true intention, all we can know is the consequences of this kind of conduct when we see it.
So, given that you seem to care about the guidelines, which we appreciate, we ask you to demonstrate a sincere intent to observe them yourself and also to avoid baiting others into breaking them.
It boggles my mind that anyone with, apparently and allegedly, such a high tier education, would be against the actions Harvard has been taking this year.
They are literally just fighting for basic academic freedoms.
People go to Harvard because they want a prestigious career, not because they have an insatiable palate for knowledge that somehow in 2025 they can't satisfy in any other way.
"Harvard's not a real school, therefore these actions are justified"
Even if you were right about Harvard not being a real school (which is a strange thing to claim), your conclusion still doesn't follow.
Separately, is there a name for this debating technique? I would like to call it "baiting the assertion".
You claim A => B where, in fact, A does not imply B. To distract attention from the faulty logic, however, you pick a highly divisive assertion A. That makes people argue about whether A is correct, instead on focusing on the faulty implication.
Here's an example:
"Ukraine provoked Russia therefore we should send 0 aid to Ukraine"
(I have seen this argument both in the US and non-US discourses.)
When this argument is presented, people feel compelled to argue whether Ukraine did or did not provoke Russia. However, this hides the fact that _even if Ukraine did provoke Russia_, if might still make sense to provide aid:
- due to humanitarian concerns
- because you think the Russian response (even if provoked) is not commensurate
- because you think the EU should present a united front
- etc
However, saying things like "even if you are right <rest of argument>" is a difficult thing to do when A is a very divisive (or glaringly incorrect) statement, which is why this is a common troll argument.
Thank you for this comment. It got me into researching more about the rhetoric types and think about all the people I've come across who make similar arguments.
Visas and academic accreditation shouldn't be leverage against speech the government disagrees with, they should be granted and removed according to a predictable and unbiased process.
Really all government actions should follow a predictable and unbiased process, a.k.a "The Law".
Just, throwing this out there, but it seems a distinct possibility that this Administration doesn't hold the same regard towards "Rule of Law" as did previous Administrations.
I'm not altogether certain I'd rely on "Rule of Law" to save anyone in the current environment.
Kristi Noem doesn't know what Habeas Corpus is; she defined it as "the constitutional right of the president to protect America from terrorists" or some such nonsense,so - ya think?
Possibly after she had it explained to her in front of the millions of viewers watching her demonstrate a frankly unbelievable lack of basic knowledge for someone in her position.
But then such things are expected with the current kakistocracy.
When it's targeted solely at one institute for the purpose of hampering it's academic activities as retribution? You're being deliberately obtuse here.
Harvard really tarnished it's reputation when the president, under oath, said that calls for the genocide of Jews would comply with their code of conduct "depending on the context". The president did end up resigning a year ago, though they have a lot of work to do to come back from that.
While what the Trump admin is doing is wrong, Harvard has given them ample cover for their actions. It would be intellectually lazy to assert, even implicitly, that Harvard has no responsibility over the current state of affairs.
As a person of Jewish descent I am sickened by the way this administration is twisting the definition of antisemitism to mean things that have nothing to do with antisemitism. Antisemitism is real: devaluing it into bullshit is going to lead to the deaths of millions.
if there are harvard alum are cheering this on they are morons without a doubt. Trump couldnt care less about truth seeking in the slightest he just wants complete and full control with his delusional backwards thought process. you can want change on something but that doesnt mean that when another individual/goverment comes along theyre going to change something for the better.
people were unhappy with bidens handling of israel so they voted for trump and where did that get them?
Bill Ackman may be the most visible. Billionaire hedge fund manager. He's a Jew who is horrified by the school's tolerance for pro Hamas protests. He was a big Democrat supporter before that, including for Obama, Booker, and Cuomo.
Bill Ackman made his bed with Trump and will now have to deal with the fact that his fate is tied to whatever random whims Trump has over the next 1,340 days.
I suppose there is a possibility that on January 21, 2029 this country won't be viciously angry about the past four years, and everyone associated with it. But I wouldn't want to bet on that.
it seems what all of these powerful, big thinkers are actually mad about is a school's tolerance for <anything>, the very thing that graduates of prestigious institutions don't need to like but should understand.
Yeah this is also my read, people are horrified by the university behavior and generally supportive of the administration on this stuff. The 'elite' schools are becoming a counter signal it'll be embarrassing to have attended.
The circle embarrassed by ignorant students screaming for intifada.
Mao is a good example because it was similarly ignorant students that drove the cultural revolution and ended up killing millions. There's a line from these Harvard students to the two Jews a "Free Palestine" communist executed this week.
You're right that communism is a threat - you're wrong about where the threat lies.
