Your Cart is Empty
Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: House Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee released the full version of a long-awaited tax bill Monday that does for higher ed exactly what they suggested it would in a draft version Friday: dramatically increase the excise tax on wealthy colleges’ endowments.
If the legislation passes, the tax rate for each institution would range from 1.4 to 21 percent, depending on the size of its endowment and the number of students it enrolls, according to the 339-page bill. As with the existing endowment tax, the increases would apply only to private institutions.
Dhruv T. Patel and Grace E. Yoon
Harvard Crimson
Excerpt: Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 reaffirmed in a Monday letter that the University would not bow to interference from the Trump administration — even as he suggested Harvard and the government “share common ground.”
In a three-page message addressed to United States Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who announced one week ago that the Trump administration would no longer issue any grants or contracts to Harvard, Garber defended Harvard’s record on antisemitism and doubled down on the University’s refusal to concede to what he called an unlawful attempt to shape its core values.
Ilya Somin
Volokh Conspiracy, Reason Magazine
Excerpt: Yesterday, federal District Judge William K. Sessions, III, of the District of Vermont ordered the immediate release of Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, whom ICE had detained and slated for deportation based on her anti-Israel speech.
In earlier posts on this topic, I have urged universities to file lawsuits challenging Trump's speech-based deportation policy, rather than letting students like Ozturk fend for themselves. I was happy to see that many schools (including my undergraduate alma mater Amherst College) filed an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit brought against the policy by the American Association of University Professors (the court recently issued a preliminary ruling in favor of AAUP, allowing the case to go forward). But universities should do more to protect their students.
Laurel Lee
February 17, 2024
In the matter of rights, Civil Rights are the rights of a citizen, distinct from Human Rights that adhere to an individual at birth whether or not a government exists to be a citizen of. Civil Rights aren’t true rights. They’re protections from the absolute piwer of monarchs. The US Constitution lists civil rights cribbed from the constitution & precedents established by England’s Constitutional monarchy. The monarchy has absolute rights or powers delegated to it by an omnipitent God. Under pressure from the English aristocracy, English monarchs delegated their God-given powers to the lords in Parliament assembled, as well as by royal charters. The lords then created the House of Commons to give royally-chartered city councils a voice in discussions of taxation & other national acts. America’s allegedly democratic government officials exert God’s absolute powers despite the Revolution’s rejection of monarchy. The 1776 Declaration of Independence says God bypassed monarchs in His distribution of rights & powers. Instead, God granted human rights to all. Unfortunately, US Founders didn’t follow through by listing human rights at all, let alone describing them in unequivocal terms. All we’ve got is disputable protections from an absolute monarchy that doesn’t exist & the endless, lucrative & self-serving quibbling of lawyers.