Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes
harvard.edu1374 points by impish9208 5 days ago
1374 points by impish9208 5 days ago
Related ongoing thread: Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684386
The aggregate demands of the administration are confusing and contradictory. They seem to be simultaneously asking for:
- an end to diversity initiatives
- a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view
- a new policy of not admitting international students with certain points of view
- ending speech-control policies
- auditing the speech of certain departments and programs
- ending discipline of students who violate policies related to inclusion
- disciplining particular students who violated policies related to inclusion
It is easier to understand their thinking when you combine each pair of demands: what they want is reversals, they've just split each into two steps because they think that will be more palatable. It makes it easier to sell to their own base certainly, because they can concentrate on whichever half has the most emotive effect in any given speech, and easier for their base to parrot: they just repeat the half they want and don't need to think about the other.
The end to current diversity policies and the start of others combined is a demand for u-turn: stop allowing the things we don't like, start allowing the things you were stopping.
Same for speech: stop auditing the speech we want to say, start auditing the speech you were previously allowing.
And so on.
In the minds of the administration it makes sense, because they think of each item separately where there is conflict and together where there is not. Such cognitive dissonance seems to be their natural state of mind, the seem to seek it.
Much like their cries of “but what about tolerance?!”¹ when you mention punching nazis. They want the complete about-turn: LBTQ out, racism/sexism/phobias in. You are supposed to tolerate what they want you to tolerate, and little or nothing else.
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[1] My answer there has often become “you didn't want tolerance, you specifically voted against continued tolerance, what you voted for won, intolerance is your democratically chosen desire, who am I to deny the will of your people?”.
Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
[..] The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time [..] was that it might all be true. If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?
[..] It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'The quotes seem to be from the famous book "1984" by George Orwell. We had it in English literature class in high school.
There are some other famous quotes from that book or one of his other famous books, "Animal Farm".
Writing from memory and googling, so may be wrong:
"Some people are more equal than others."
The society that Winston finds himself in puts forth the slogan, "War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength." The meaning of this phrase is to force confusion upon the members of the Party. It is a form of propaganda, or misleading information typically given by a political party.
According to the article, the original version with "2 + 2 = 5" suggests complete submission to the oppressive regime, with the protagonist's mind being irreversibly altered.
Technically part of the Ministry of Love, Room 101 is the most feared place in all of Oceania and Winston learns far too well that it is here that the …
What is the final message of 1984? … a warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and the ability of a repressive regime to manipulate and control individuals to the point where they betray ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
Animal Farm is even more creepy than 1984, going by my memory, which may be wrong, since it is quite some years since I read both those books.
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Could you please cite some examples? This reads like a bunch of strawmen set up by someone aggrieved by trans rights and racial equality.
The first Harvard one that comes to mind is Carole Hooven, an enocrinologist who was pilloried for speaking obvious truths:
https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2024/02/15/carole-hooven-wh...
I think a clearly ideological actor leaving by choice after being ostracized for representing blatantly false and unscientific ideological claims is good, actually, and that providing this as an example is shifting your goalposts. For context, Carole Hooven is a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing "think-tank," and an associate of notable transphobe Stephen Pinker. The personal costs of her self-created ostracization seem minimal (perhaps negative).
The statements that she made hinge on a supposed "strict sex binary," which relies upon forced ignorance and denial of the existence of intersex people. This is a weaponized claim used to gird the foundations of an ideology which has successfully sought to engage in human rights abuses, initially directed by this administration at denying children social acceptance and access to life-saving medical care as well as directly impugning the moral character of US military service members while attacking their access to life-saving medical care and discharging them from service. Simultaneously, Harvard has come under attack from the administration on a purely ideological and fascist basis. It seems like her critics were right to view her as a threat to science, human dignity, and the institution they mutually-represented.
Sex is binary - for all species that reproduce sexually, including humans - because there is no intermediate gamete between sperm and egg.
What you're referring to with "intersex" is actually a set of disorders of sex development which affect each sex differently. For example, consider 5-alpha reductase deficiency: a mutation in the gene that encodes the enzyme for converting testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, causing loss of enzymatic activity, may be present in anyone of either sex, but will only impair male sexual development.
None of this is controversial amongst biologists. It's fundamental to understanding sexual reproduction.
The dramatic moral harms of this Engineer's-Disease-based reasoning on public policy are already visible and are only expected to dramatically accelerate for the foreseeable future. There's no point in engaging an off-topic and inflammatory line of discourse that attempts to paper over this undeniable reality with smug appeals to authority.
Hold on—we're being a bit taxonomically lazy here, aren't we? You're applying a species-level classification (based on gametes) too rigidly to individual-level variation. If you look at actual developmental outcomes, there's a non-trivial set of cases that don’t map neatly onto a system of just two categories (which is not a lot of categories). Calling all of those 'disorders' assumes the categories are already correct, rather than testing whether they fit what we actually observe.
Ps. The Overton window is such an interesting concept; Imagine arguing our case before the head Eunuch of the Ottoman Court in the 16th century or so.
> None of this is controversial amongst biologists. It's fundamental to understanding sexual reproduction.
True, but nor is it generally controversial amongst the un-indoctronated that sexual reproduction and gender identity are NOT (as claimed a couple of posts above) orthogonal concepts. I don't know about you, but while my biology and mental identity happen to nicely match up, I consider myself to be more than my testicles and can accept that others don't share my cis status.
>None of this is controversial among biologists
Nope, but it is among people who can't tolerate different kind of people.
Wanna guess which books the Nazi's burned first? Yep the ones about transgender research from the Institute for Sexual Research. I'm sure they acted in good faith like they usually did.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
idk if there's much I can do here. Carole is a respected scientist. So is Steven. Carole is a fellow of this institute as a result of having to find new patrons because of her cancellation, not the other way around. Your understanding of the situation re sex and gender is completely incorrect.
>idk if there's much I can do here.
Good? You made a claim and had one point disproven because there's a difference between voluntarily leaving an institution and being kidnapped by the federal government.
No one really asked about your opinions otherwise. We're just establishing 2 very obvious lines in the sand.
You could attempt to provide citation for your initial claims. Carole Hooven does not meet the criteria, providing her is only suggestive of a disingenuous ideological motivation.