The Educational Empire Strikes Back

The new Administration struck the Educational Empire hard and fast. They blazed “Take out the DIE or lose federal funds.” Then the Administration slashed the Empire’s overhead, the ridiculous tax universities add to grant money given by the government. “We can’t accept this free money unless you pay us something extra because of the burdens of getting free money.” Some grants, like at the DOD, were outright frozen: the blessed money flow stopped.

The Empire reeled. First thing it did was to send out Crying Squads. Scientists lined up to weep publicly and sign petitions saying they were “outraged”. These tears, as we’ll see, had some effect, but only among the “elite human capital“. Everybody else laughed to see these brats waving their soiled diapers around.

The Administration’s moves were, as we warned then, only the first salvo in the war.

The Empire struck back.

The Universities, greedy for your money to keep flowing, went to Temu and bought grosses of erasers and pens. The erasers they used to rub out any mention of DIE at their institutions. The pens were to replace DIE offices with names like “Office of Eternal Political Happiness and Delight” and suchlike. DIE commissars underwent rapid title changes. Yesterday, the Dean of DIE. Today, the Dean of As For Everybody.

In this way the Empire went on, and still go on, DIEing. It cannot abide the idea of qualified white men with manly ideas mixing with their rainbow paradise. And they thought they could get away with their clever, “high IQ” trick of the name changes.

But the ruse de guerre failed. The Administration didn’t buy it.

So the Empire, its cache of weapons limited, released a new wave of Crying Squads. On Monday, the seat of the emperor himself at Harvard unleashed a Wail. “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government”, he tweeted. The Administration had better keep sending it all that free money. Or else!

They open their linked Wail with these words:

Harvard is home to the world’s most cutting-edge medical, scientific, and technological research. For decades, that research has been supported by the federal government, among many other sponsors. That support is essential for the continuation of groundbreaking innovations that impact countless human lives.

Without federal funding, this work will come to a halt midstream, and researchers will lack necessary resources to finish ongoing projects or to finance new ones in the numerous fields Harvard supports, including:

The “including” included the startling admission that “68% of federal funding made up total sponsored revenue during fiscal year 2024.” So much for independence.

We can only infer that the white man they had teaching Logic 101 was replaced by a DIE hire. Only then could Harvard reconcile its insistence of independence from government while simultaneously demanding a lot of government money.

While holding his hand out waiting for the free government money, Harvard’s president also said Harvard has contributed to science. Amazingly, he thinks this helps his case. See this, this, this, this among many others we have done over the years.

Indeed, I have argued that science is broken, and one of the root reasons is the flow of government money, which constricts more than it expands research. This argument triggers the elite human capital group who instantly embrace the False Dichotomy: if government doesn’t fund science, no science will be funded. They must use Harvard’s logicians.

Proof of this is captured in one revealing tweet: “Scott Alexander (175 IQ) is completely right about Trump and the LHC 90% conservatard rightoid movement. Dumb reactionary economic ressentiment is destroying the United States and Silicon Valley. We will all be living in huts by 2028 but at least there will be 2 genders.”

We will be living in any and every year and there will always be only two genders. But it’s curious the tacit admission that government-funded science of today, which says there are more than two, is used in an argument to continue government funding of science.

Alexander was incensed the Administrations canceling of all grants with “trans” in them whacked which, to him, were useful, like one with “transmembrane proteins”. That’s true, but this is what in war is called collateral damage. And it is the fault of the Empire’s scientists: they never should have let it come to this. Anywa, since I’m for, at least for the interim, cancelling all government science money, this isn’t to me a sad occurrence.

But then I don’t have Scott Alexander’s incredible “IQ”. You remember Alexander. He’s the one who touts prediction markets as revealing truth while simultaneously fretting over the low intelligence of the people. That’s Harvard-level thinking.

Trump, seeing the Wail and its influence on the weak right, instantly threatened nukes: “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting “Sickness?” Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!”

I wonder if they’ll take that as a bluff.

Subscribe or donate to support this site and its wholly independent host using credit card click here. Or use the paid subscription at Substack. Cash App: \$WilliamMBriggs. For Zelle, use my email: matt@wmbriggs.com, and please include yours so I know who to thank. BUY ME A COFFEE.