'Courage can be contagious, even if it's in really small doses': Universities begin to push back - Velshi - MSNBC

[Rhiannon12866]

This week, Harvard University refused to agree to the Trump administration’s demands, leading to a freeze in federal funding. “The overreach. Was much too far,” says Wesleyan University President Michael Roth, but he warns that the “chaotic operation in the White House” really does “provoke fears in civil society.”

“This is a tactic we’ve seen from every authoritarian regime,” says GW Law’s Mary Anne Franks, author of ‘Fearless Speech,’ but “courage can be contagious, even if it’s in really small doses.” - Aired on 04/19/2025.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. The WH taking over curriculums at universities is more than concerning.

While a certain demographic will concentrate on science, technology, and business, there will students who opt for alternative studies. I mean the Humanities, a/k/a Liberal Arts.

Now knowing pretty much how TSF "thinks" (if ever), he'd be against anything that was liberal without understanding what it means.

And the next thing you know, there will be a list of books that can't be assigned on a syllabus, such as The Prince (Machiavelli), Utopia (More), and Essays by Montaigne, all pre-Enlightenment. (I still have mine 50 years after college.) Then the authors of The Enlightenment and the early American theorists (Thomas Paine) and essays from The Federalist Papers (Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison).

While I believe these readings are woefully neglected as is right now, to have them banned from higher education is unconscionable.

While there will be students who will never miss their omission, it will be an incremental death of culture and history.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. Has any president in history ever gotten involved with what is taught at private universities and colleges??

That is certainly the last thing I could have imagined! Doesn't he have an actual job or is he farming most of out to Musk?? And you're completely right, this is an extension of the book banning, most of the books I was assigned in high school are apparently on that list.

I was horrified a few years back when MAGA went after New College in Florida, dropping courses that were required for certain majors so students had to find another school and firing teachers and board members. That college sticks in my mind since I graduated from a girls' boarding school (established 1879) so many of us were looking for more liberal colleges and one of my classmates was interested in New College.

And you have a very good point, many colleges offer "liberal arts" - which TFG likely has no idea what that is. I believe my college was one of those, students could major in economics, literature, history, math, art, numerous subjects, I majored in psychology. I can see that certain books aren't appropriate for every age level, but college is a different story. And I sure agree that ceasing funding for schools that engage in groundbreaking research in unconscionable. Historically, a president's job is to make life better for the people, not restricting choices for their personal lives, but that's what this aspiring dictator is doing.

And I'm a graduate of Hamilton College where President Obama spoke recently. I sure hope that this doesn't make my school a target.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. My Alma Mayer, Sweet Briar College,

Stitched from Liberal Arts to STEM.