That's ridiculous, but more important it has nothing to do with the administration's war on science, and the scientific community, especially in universities and the interface between universities and the government.
In a recent essay with Micah Altman in The Hill, we characterized the Trump administration's "political strategy toward science that is both systematic and dangerous: a full-scale war on the scientific community, the network of individual researchers across many institutions whose collaboration is essential for scientific progress." I hope you will read it, as it sets the stage for this comment.
In his most recent podcast, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat gives space to the person "in charge" (his words) of the Trump administration's war on science -- which Douthat calls their "attempt to change elite academia" -- named May Mailman, to tell a lot of unanswered lies.
Over and over, she lies, and he nods along, or asks a simple weak followup and then moves on. It's a deeply unserious interview. Starting with her assertion that "the biggest [thing wrong with American universities] is a culture of victimhood -- a glorification of victimhood -- that is ultimately bad for Western civilization and bad for the country."
That's ridiculous, but more important it has nothing to do with the administration's war on science, and the scientific community, especially in universities and the interface between universities and the government.
But the point I wanted to mention was this: Douthat asks her about the connection between their (ridiculous) civil rights case against Harvard and defunding the university's scientific research. And he suggests they are using the grant funds to leverage change in other policies. Genius, that guy. Almost. What follows shows that he has no grasp of the change taking place, and she is not about to explain it to him:
Mailman: Having Harvard change its policies would be great. But at the same time, if they don't, that's fine; we're just not going to fund it. It's not like it's taking over Harvard. They sued us. We didn't sue them. It's not a forced change. It is actually just that there's a portion -- not even all, there is a portion -- of Harvard's grants that we just decide should go to somewhere else, maybe another university, maybe Brown, maybe Princeton, maybe Yale.
Douthat: I'm just going to express some skepticism that the Trump administration has sat down and said: We really think that the University of Kansas' cancer research program is just way better than Harvard's, and we're just going to cut that funding. It seems like the administration is going after the areas where Harvard is, by general agreement, most effective and successful, because that seems like a useful lever to change other areas of administration policy.
Mailman: Yeah, but at the end of the day ... at the end of the day, Harvard reacted to a letter that asked for a few simple changes with a lawsuit that basically said: Instead of us showing any amount of good faith effort to commit ourselves to the policies that are important to the United States, we're going to instead say we refuse to even answer you. These are billions of federal dollars, and I think that the funder of that can ask for a basic relationship.
End of discussion.
The blatant lie about "few simple changes"* in this exchange is actually highly relevant, because it shows the structural nature of what they are doing, but Douthat doesn't know or care. He has some vague awareness that "Harvard is, by general agreement, most effective" at some kinds of research, but that is not how research money gets to Harvard. I can't believe I have to explain this: There is a competitive grants process at federal research agencies -- which is staffed by federal officials but involves peer review by academic experts, who either still work at or once worked and were trained at universities. The scientific endeavor has, for the last half century or so, been a deeply embedded cooperative engagement in which the federal government relies on the scientific community to help set research priorities, and to assess the quality of proposed research. Universities compete -- and raise and spend money to win that competition, which scientists judge. The idea that the administration -- not scientific experts -- would just decide that "a portion of Harvard's grants .. should go to somewhere else" because of some pretextual cultural or political climate bullshit, is a fundamental rupture of scientific knowledge production in the U.S. Which is exactly the point. At the expense of the quality of science, they want to assert power over the institutions -- because that is what matters more to them.
They are not doing much to hide this, but it appears that many people do not realize the nature of what is at stake in the war on science -- starting with the failure to recognize that it is a war on science. Trump doesn't care about vaccines and Tylenol -- what he wants is to undermine any source of knowledge, authority, and power that threatens him. And universities are a big one.
* Trump's "simple changes" for Harvard included this: "Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity; every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity. If the review finds that the existing faculty in the relevant department or field are not capable of hiring for viewpoint diversity, or that the relevant teaching unit is not capable of admitting a critical mass of students with diverse viewpoints, hiring or admissions within that department, field, or teaching unit shall be transferred to the closest cognate department, field, or teaching unit that is capable of achieving viewpoint diversity."
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Previously Published on familyinequality with Creative Commons License
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