[sidle_arount]

These all sound like reasonable standards for universities to meet.

The only unnecessary part is explicitly calling out conservative opinions, some of which will have no place in some university subjects, e.g. a geology student insisting the Earth is 6000 years old.

[elbows]

They mostly sound reasonable at a bullet-point level, but reading closer turns up details such as:

> Signatories must commit to “defining and otherwise interpreting ‘male,’ ‘female,’ ‘woman,’ and ‘man’ according to reproductive function and biological processes.”

Which is not exactly ideological neutral.

[AnimalMuppet]

But interpreting male and female according to some other criteria would also not be ideologically neutral.

If your point is that the standards are not neutral, I guess on at least this point I have to agree. If your point is that the status quo is neutral, I disagree.

[twixfel]

The status quo is that the universities themselves decide. That is clearly more neutral than the government dictating to them.

[AnimalMuppet]

Was that true? Did the universities themselves decide? Or was at least some of the support for trans "ideology" (I don't know what better word to use, but I'm not happy with this one either) due to pressure from the government? [Edit: Maybe trans "movement" is what I wanted to say.]

True, it was less pressure and more subtle than Trump's pressure. And it was in the direction that the universities were more willing to move in, due to the personnel of universities leaning left. But was it really "the universities themselves decide"? I'm not sure that it was.

But I will agree to this at least: Left to themselves, the universities were not likely to wind up where Trump is trying to push them to be.

[IAmBroom]

You insinuate that the federal government exerted pressure on colleges to conform to pro-trans-rights ideologies, with "less pressure and more subtle".

Cite any pressure from the federal government.

You're engaging in a version of BSABSVR argumentation.

[sidle_arount]

That sounds reasonable too, certainly when compared to the very controversial alternative.

[nickpsecurity]

Biology is ideologically neutral. People who disagree with that position are anti-biology (anti-science) on this topic. It certainly makes sense to begin with how to treat men and women by noting they're biologically different instead of whatever they imagine themselves to be.

We certainly don't issue degrees based only on what expertise they identify as. We don't allow them in office based on whether they identify as President or Principal. We should likewise not use their feelings or unsubstantiated beliefs to determine if they're a man or a woman when biology has the answer almost every time. Intersex, the exceptions, we'll handle on a case by case basis.

[patagurbon]

What parts of the biology of sex mandates different treatment? Do you mean that medicine should be tailored to biology? Yes obviously, and even very progressive research hospitals take great pains to ensure the treatment is tailored to biology. Perhaps more so than conservative hospitals. You would know this if you engaged with the research outside of the news.

Outside of medicine? What different treatment does “biology” merit?

[IAmBroom]

> Biology is ideologically neutral. People who disagree with that position are anti-biology (anti-science) on this topic.

So you agree there are seven human sexes?

[sidle_arount]

Who is making such an preposterous claim?

[brendoelfrendo]

They are reasonable only if you do not read between the lines or think critically about how the administration will choose to interpret and enforce these standards against the universities in question.

[convolvatron]

having representatives from the Party oversee curriculum, hiring, and admissions is reasonable only if your explicit goal is to emulate China or the former USSR at its worst.

[jasonlotito]

They sound good because they are being presented in a pleasant way that undermines that reality of what these requests are. First, adherence to this agreement shall be subject to review by the Department of Justice. Basically, the current administration can dictate what constitutes a violation. The government gets to dictate what is passing and what is not passing.

Basically, this is the government having a direct hand in dictating what the schools that receive government funding can say and do, full stop.

Further, this is a potential violation of the current administrations desire to eradicate DEI as this compact literally promotes DEI. So it's an odd request.

It's also a massive violation of the freedom of speech.

> Signatories shall maintain institutional neutrality at all levels of their administration. This requires policies that all university employees, in their capacity as university representatives, will abstain from actions or speech relating to societal and political events except in cases in which external events have a direct impact upon the university.

So, no one employed by the university can speak about societal or political events unless it has a direct impact on the university. Imagine not being able to talk about modern events in the classroom? I was doing this in high school in the 90s in Missouri!

And now the administration wants to take that away.

There are many reasons this is bad. But predominantly it's this: I get to decide what any of this means. So you have to defend this from MY POV, because this establishes me as the ultimate arbiter here.

* Why me? Because it's whoever is in charge at the time, which means you need to be able to defend the merits of this when it doesn't necessarily fit your wants or needs. Which means me.

[ternaryoperator]

It reads as reasonable but is really saying: no diversity hires. That’s more significant in universities than in the job market. In general, the most educated Americans are the children of the wealthy. So without DEI, the faculty, which is thereby a product of the economic elite, will be teaching primarily the children of that elite. Universities recognized the problem with this closed system long ago and used DEI as a way to address it. That’s what the Trump administration is targeting in part with these compacts.

[jasonlotito]

They do push DEI, just for conservative voices. Remember, DEI is good when it's for conservatives. Just see how many people are complaining about the Super Bowl halftime show. A bunch of anit-DEI people asking for DEI is crazy.

[Levitz]

>Universities recognized the problem with this closed system long ago and used DEI as a way to address it.

That's preposterous. It's obscenely disingenuous to now pretend that DEI was about class and economic status. Are women just poorer? Are Asians just richer? Please.

[patagurbon]

> are women just poorer?

Within living memory absolutely 100%.

[Levitz]

College-aged women are poorer than college-aged men?

Wealthier families have male children at such a disparate rate that they warp the statistics or something?

[IAmBroom]

College-aged men and women are typically employed, pay taxes, and there is a well-known salary difference between those two groups.

[ternaryoperator]

You are literally arguing against history, not me. The history I described is playing out even today as more universities abandon preferential admissions for children of alumni.

[Levitz]

>You are literally arguing against history, not me.

I'm not arguing against history, you are arguing against reality.

University of Pennsylvania, which I picked because it was the literal first university mentioned in the article in the OP:

https://www.ese.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ESE-Sta...

And I quote:

>We face many challenges as a community, including entrenched bias, both conscious and unconscious; self-reinforcing cycles of preferential treatment towards people with particular characteristics; limited awareness of the impediments faced by our colleagues that stem from racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia

It goes on to talk about actions taken to deal with this:

>We will provide resources - including time, materials, financial support, and facilities - to promote education about diversity, equity, and inclusion within our department and to support our engagement on these themes with external communities

>An atmosphere of trust and accountability is a prerequisite for complete and honest reporting. Discrimination in academic settings can be subtle and complex, and it is not always recognized immediately. Even when racism, gender discrimination, and harassment are overt, victims can have a legitimate perception of powerlessness to address it.

There's LITERALLY not a single one mention of wealth, or money, or class in the entire document. There is about bias, about race, about sex. It ends with this:

>We ask that all community members pledge: >● To seek out knowledge on the forms, causes, and impacts of bias

>● To acknowledge that we are all susceptible to bias, and to strive to be anti-discriminatory with respect to race, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, national origin, religion, disability, socioeconomic status, citizenship, and cultural background

>● To engage constructively and respectfully with people of varied backgrounds and perspectives

>● To prioritize empathy and consideration, and to avoid making assumptions or judgements

>● To be alert for instances of injustice or discrimination, and to intercede by speaking out against injustice

Pray tell, what part of all of this is supposed to be about dealing with wealth disparities? And again, how can you possibly argue about wealth disparities in terms of gender for college-aged people? It's insane.

[hypeatei]

DEI is about expanding the talent pools and considering more people for something. If you have problems with specific implementations of DEI, that's fine, but to pretend it's all bad is disingenuous. Please list a specific program that you have an issue with so that people can actually discuss substance.

[FridayoLeary]

No it isn't. It's about filling in quotas ignoring talent and objectifying people based on their ethnicity, race and gender. It exists in order to assuage the guilt of elite white liberals. You just moved the goalposts to include things that nobody can argue against in order to make it sound resonable. My issue is that it's racist because it discriminates for people based on the colour of their skin.

[hypeatei]

> It's about filling in quotas ignoring talent and objectifying people based on their ethnicity, race and gender.

That's illegal[0]. If this is going on, then enlighten us or the EEOC.

> You just moved the goalposts to include things that nobody can argue against

What? You said: "disingenuous to now pretend that DEI was about class and economic status" when it clearly is about those things. Again, please show one example of a program that you think isn't doing that. I understand that you think DEI is a sinister initiative, but bickering over a conservative boogeyman is unproductive.

0: https://www.eeoc.gov/prohibited-employment-policiespractices

[FridayoLeary]

Yes, DEI is racist so i'm glad it's being called out. DEI anyway benefits primarily upper class people of colour rather then helping out a community. What help is it to most black people that Obama is black, for example? What kind of people send their kids to universities anyway? It's not disadvantaged working class, so positive discrimination in universities won't help them.

[nine_zeros]

These are all reasonable standards - if they came from Congress. They are not reasonable standards if they came for a fickle and corrupt mafia at gunpoint.

The entire no kings protest is exactly about that - executive overreach overriding will of the people and causing irresponsible harm.

[patagurbon]

They are not reasonable. Ideological “balance” has no place in any of the sciences. Science is about truth not balance.

[nine_zeros]

Yes, they are not objectively "reasonable" that's why I added the "- if they came from Congress" part. And I can't imagine Congress would pass these rules because of the Senate structure.

"Reasonable" is a distributed discovery process. A unitary order can never be "reasonable".

[IAmBroom]

You miss the point. It's not any more reasonable if Congress enforced this groupthink.

[nine_zeros]

You miss the point too. Congress is going to have a tough time imposing this groupthink - because it would take convincing 217+ reps and 60 senators as opposed to the unitary 1 person.

[deeg]

The government has no business making ideological demands on universities. Period.

[nine_zeros]

Yep, they don't. That's why these demands are bogus coming from the president.

If they were to come from Congress, they'd never pass as they stand because these entities would demand their elected reps don't let this pass

[sidle_arount]

I'm not sure I follow your argument. If these would be considered reasonable standards if exactly the same were proposed by Congress, then how would they cause harm if implemented on request of the Executive?

[nine_zeros]

When requested by the executive under threat of cutting funding, these requests are not requests, they are demands.

When executive demands something of private citizens and private entities, it means they are bossing over said people/entities. Nobody elected the executive to boss over people. When Congress attempts to set these same regulations, these entities get a chance to reach out to their reps and ask for changes. When Congress sets regulations, power is dispersed among 400+ reps.

You are thinking about the outcome of the regulations feeling the same. "No kings" are demanding that the means to setting rules be distributed among reps - when the rulemaking is distributed, you'll find that the rules demanded will change - because most people don't want these exact rules as they stand. And they don't want to submit to a fickle corrupt executive who will change these rules selectively on a dime on a random Friday.

[nobody9999]

>When executive demands something of private citizens and private entities, it means they are bossing over said people/entities. Nobody elected the executive to boss over people. When Congress attempts to set these same regulations, these entities get a chance to reach out to their reps and ask for changes. When Congress sets regulations, power is dispersed among 400+ reps.

IMHO it's much simpler than that. Congress has the power of the purse -- that is to say that Congress decides what funds are disbursed by the Federal government.

While there is a small measure of flexibility for the Executive on when and/or how those funds are disbursed, the Constitution vests budgetary power (i.e., who gets funded, how much to they get, and for what purpose) in Congress and not the Executive.

The same goes for tariffs too.

Congress is not doing their job. Not only in the sense that they've abandoned the "power of the purse" to the Executive, but also in that legislators, for the most part, represent their big donors rather than their constituents.

Which isn't new, although it's pretty stark right now. With the dysfunction so high that the government is currently unfunded.

Even more, the House won't even gavel into session, as they'd then have to swear in a newly elected member of Congress which would give members just enough votes to passing a motion to publish information (The so-called "Epstein Files") widely believed to be bad news for the President as well as others in the power structure.

The Senate isn't negotiating, nor is the House drafting actual budget bill(s) which is one of their primary responsibilities.

So yes. If there's an issue with Federal research funding, it's Congress that needs to fix it. What the Executive is trying to do is not part of the powers given to them by the Constitution (you know, the *supreme law of the land) and, as such, isn't lawful.

[nine_zeros]

Yes, your assessment is accurate. The Republic is broken and the Republicans are actively breaking it as much as they can.

[thesmtsolver]

If they are "reasonable standards", it shouldn't matter what the source of them are.

This appeals to a dangerous view of morality where some entities/people are good/bad intrinsically and all their actions are good/bad by definition.

[nine_zeros]

They are not objectively "reasonable standards". Who said they are objectively reasonable standards? They are standards sent by a unitary. They might seem reasonable to one person but not to another. This is why Congress is supposed to set these rules - so that the definition of reasonable is spread all over the country. Reasonable standards are a discovery process, not a unitary dictatorial step.

Hell, this is the whole logic of the American Republic - no kings - since 1776.

[thesmtsolver]

> Reasonable standards are a discovery process, not a unitary dictatorial step.

You just described a meta standard for standards. Now, is that meta standard an objectively reasonable standard?