on November 30, 2025, 23:26:42, in reply to "For now. And every time they bully one, they move to the next. They have an endowment. "
I’m curious to hear your legal strategy for fighting and “winning” these kinds of battles.
Even if you did win (which you wouldn’t), you are putting 100s of millions in future funding at risk as well, since any litigation wouldn’t cover future funding submissions. Sorry, but the risk for faculty brain drain and loss of research programs isn’t worth that risk.
Call it whatever you want. At some point you have to deal with the reality at hand if you are these administrators.
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And it makes you a target again in the future. They have lawyers. They have ways to fight this and win.
Instead. They capitulate. They put themselves and others and further risk down the line, gambling the fever breaks.
It’s self-preservation and that’s cowardice from a place supposed to represent the best of us Previous Message
I'm not saying this is ideal. I'm not saying that it's normal. Trump is a stupid bully fuck, and fuck him.
It was a terrible position for any university to be in. But they figured out a way to not have to tell all their research students "hey, sorry, but you're completely fucked...good luck transferring to a place that will allow you to get the research hours you need to apply for grad school, finish grad school, or get your doctorate."
And if you have a way for these universities that get targeted to get Trump to stop in a timeframe that allows them to keep the commitments to their students, then feel free to speak up and show them (and this board) the way to do it. I'm sure those universities would love to avoid the problem all together.
Unless your solution is to just spout bullshit platitudes that don't fix the issue. Previous Message
Argue the specifics underneath, but it’s cowardly. Previous Message
All of these universities and companies should hire you as their stiff upper-lipped negotiator. I'm sure Trump would be shaking in his boots. Previous MessagePrevious Message
That's what they're doing.
You'd probably feel different if you were a student there or had a student there. Previous MessagePrevious Message
The main thing is to get the funding back so that the work that was promised to students when they enrolled at NW can be done. The main goal of the university is the students that are there.
It sucks, but most people have figured out the only way to fight Trump is in protracted legal battles that can take years. So do you do that, when it means that thousands of students are going to be completely screwed? Or do you cave and wait out the next four years until things get normal again?
It's a tough call, but calling NW officials "cowards" doesn't even begin to acknowledge the complexity of the situation. Previous MessagePrevious Message
Northwestern agreed to pay $75 million to the federal government in a deal reached on Friday with the Trump administration that restores hundreds of millions in research funding and closes multiple investigations into antisemitism on campus.
The deal was the sixth agreement that the Trump administration had reached with an elite university, and the second-highest payment, since the White House began blocking research funding from major colleges that it viewed as out of step with its policy agenda for academia. Previous Message
Should be a quiet week
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