In Reply to: Harvard caving to the mob boss now? posted by russsmith on July 28, 2025 at 20:18:45
that it could not go on. People who are used to certain privileges take the loss of those privileges much harder than those who never had them in the first place.
And "standing up for academic freedom" etc was always an empty posture. When an institution regularly deals with that level of money coming in, they will always cave for fear of losing their top spot in the nation's imagination. You don't get to have the kind of endowments and grants that Harvard can commend by being ethically driven or sublimating your interests to the common good. These institutions that cave in never had to develop a solid backbone their entire lives. They won't start now.
They were merely startled and now they're going to slink back to their normal. They will cave just like everyone else.
I'd be more than thrilled if Harvard proves me wrong, but I don't think they will.