By James Steidl @Adobe Stock
A Weathervane of Principles.
What are the anti-Trump protesters protesting? Executive orders from Donald Trump to end low-flow shower heads and electric vehicle mandates were met with “crickets,” complains Andy Kessler in the WSJ.
There were more protests against the Department of Government Efficiency, including signs saying, “Musk is stealing our money.”
So, protesters are fighting for waste and inefficiency and have given up on most everything else?
Some readers do not get it: Protesting everything is protesting nothing, explains Kessler.
Unlike Harvard, Columbia University’s “insta-caving” to the Trump administration was startling.
… with the threat of losing federal money, (Columbia) folded like a queen-high poker hand. All universities should protect their future integrity by weaning themselves off the federal payroll. And sign institutional-neutrality pacts based on the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report.
The Kalven Report has been invoked in debates over the role of universities in addressing issues such as diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, faculty extramural speech, and responses to global crises. Some institutions have reaffirmed their commitment to its principles, while others have modified their approaches in light of changing societal expectations.
Harvard – $53 Billion Reasons to Fight.
But a threatened loss of their tax-exempt status means they’ll inevitably fold as quickly as they abandoned their principles, which include “seeking truth through open inquiry.”
Are Negotiations Dead
In every negotiation, both sides should feel they’ve won some and lost some, but in the end, come out ahead. It’s not unlike trade, reflects Mr. Kessler.
Is there any reason for universities not to accept federal regulations? All they need to do is follow the law. That would protect the school’s safety and the interests of its own students. It also would restore their academic rigor and reputations, regain public support, and enhance meritocracy, the key to their former excellence, advises Victor Davis Hanson in American Greatness.
Harvard arguing for federal funds on the principle of protecting the First Amendment is adding insult to the serial injury it has done to free speech.
Call it what you will: Acquiesce. Surrender. Submission. To Donald Trump, argues Kessler, it’s a power play.
Total submission is heaven for someone in real estate who has been beholden his whole life to the whims of bankers, who added caveats and clauses that made Mr. Trump feel boxed in. Now he tells everyone else what to do—until they fold.
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