UC & Other Universities Support Harvard

From The Dartmouth: [Dartmouth] signed onto an amicus brief filed July 22 with the First Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Harvard University’s April lawsuit against the Trump Administration. Thirty-five other colleges and universities also signed the brief, including all Ivy League universities except Harvard. In the ongoing case, the Trump administration is appealing a September 2025 ruling in favor of Harvard after the administration froze $2.2 billion in federal grants because the university refused to comply with federal demands to make institutional changes such as reforming admissions and hiring practices, shutting down diversity, equity and inclusion practices and addressing antisemitism “or other bias” in campus programs. 

The brief argues that “even temporary cuts” to federal research funding could have “permanent effects” which “endangers” the “life-changing and history-altering innovations” that arise from “basic research” conducted at colleges and universities... Amici institutions listed advancements in “scientific progress” made possible by federal funding — such as the computer, DNA sequencing, the pacemaker and the “decades-long collaboration among academia, government and industry” which produced the internet — as “enormous long-term benefits” of university research...

Full story at https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026/08/flavin-dartmouth-signs-brief-in-support-of-harvard-in-research-funding-lawsuit-against-trump-administration. 

List in image above and brief at:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca1.53667/gov.uscourts.ca1.53667.00108480602.0.pdf.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 128

From the NY Times: After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last month that the Pentagon would cut ties with Harvard University over ideological differences, Harvard is trying to create a workaround for students in the military. The Harvard Kennedy School, one of the schools at Harvard attended by service members, is offering to let them defer admission or help them pursue spots at four other institutions if they are accepted to the Kennedy School for the 2026-27 academic year.

Secretary Hegseth announced the Pentagon’s break with Harvard in a video released Feb. 6, in which he called Harvard “one of the red-hot centers of hate-America activism” and accused “too many” military members who graduate from Harvard of developing radical ideologies. Mr. Hegseth, who graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School in 2013 with a master’s degree in public policy, said that he would “discontinue all graduate-level professional military education, fellowships and certificate programs” between Harvard and his department, beginning with the next academic year...

If they are not allowed to attend, military members accepted this spring to the Kennedy School will be able to defer their admission for up to four years, according to a copy of a letter to applicants...

Officials at four other graduate schools have agreed to give quick consideration to applications from active-duty military members who are accepted to the Kennedy School but who don’t want to put off their education... Those programs are the Harris School at the University of Chicago, the Fletcher School at Tufts University, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Gerald R. Ford School at the University of Michigan...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/us/hegseth-pentagon-harvard-military.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 268

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: ...New York University will begin a new initiative aimed at getting students to spend less time on their phones. It’s called NYU IRL (short for “in real life”), and it spans the university’s Manhattan, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai campuses, where students will be enticed to enter “device-free zones" ...NYU IRL, which Linda G. Mills, NYU’s president, announced earlier this year, includes new resources for faculty to try “device optimization” in their classrooms, such as making it a featured topic in the university’s faculty learning exchange week, which is happening now. NYU will also host in-person events like a “supper club” in its dining halls.

To mark the beginning of the effort, NYU professor and author Jonathan Haidt is hosting a “fireside chat” early next month to talk through his bestselling book, The Anxious Generation. The 2024 book argues that the rise in smartphone usage in childhood over the last decade has contributed directly to the rise in mental illness in younger generations. Mills cites Haidt’s findings as a major inspiration for the new program...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/nyu-wants-students-to-put-down-their-phones-will-they.

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From the NY Times: The Defense Department has decided to cut academic ties with nearly two dozen top universities and think tanks as part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign against what he calls anti-American values and “wokeness.” ...In a video published to social media* ...Mr. Hegseth denounced the institutions in blistering language, calling them politically liberal institutions with “wicked ideologies” that were indoctrinating U.S. service members. He said that, beginning in the new school year in September, the Defense Department would ban service members from attending those universities.

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*https://x.com/secwar/status/2027474502876070386.

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In addition to Harvard, which was banned earlier this month, the Defense Department said the banned institutions would include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, George Washington, Tufts, St. Louis and Carnegie Mellon, as well as the College of William & Mary, Middlebury College and Queen’s University in Ontario.

When Mr. Hegseth cut ties with Harvard, it was seen as part of a wider pressure campaign by the Trump administration to force the university to cut a deal with the government. But some of the universities that were banned on Friday have already agreed to a laundry list of demands from the Trump administration as part of an effort to remake the culture of higher education. The Defense Department said it would also cut ties with seven high-profile think tanks in Washington known for their defense and national security analysis: the Center for Strategic and International Studies, New America, the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, the Center for a New American Security, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Henry L. Stimson Center...

Mr. Hegseth, who served as an infantry officer with the National Guard, graduated from Harvard’s Kennedy School in 2013 with a master’s degree in public policy... The Defense Department said it was considering replacing the programs with those at institutions including state universities and conservative Christian schools like Liberty University and Hillsdale College...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/us/politics/pentagon-universities-think-tanks.html.

18 friends... But not UC

From Forbes: A group of the nation’s leading research universities has requested that a federal judge allow them to file a legal brief supporting Harvard University’s lawsuit against the Trump administration over more than $2 billion in frozen federal grant money. The 18 institutions requesting permission to file an amicus curiae (or “friend of the court”) brief are:

Boston University; Brown University; California Institute of Technology; Colorado State University; Dartmouth College; Johns Hopkins University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Michigan State University; Oregon State University; Princeton University; Rice University; Rutgers University; Tufts University; University of Maryland, College Park; University of Oregon; University of Pennsylvania; University of Pittsburgh; and Yale University.

The request was granted on Friday by Judge Allison D. Burroughs, who is presiding over the federal lawsuit. The schools have not yet filed the brief, but in their request they state that each of them “has received millions of dollars in federal investments in scientific research over the decades.” ...

Full story at https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2025/06/07/18-research-universities-back-harvards-lawsuit-against-funding-cuts/.

The 15% Cap - Part 5

From an email received earlier today:

To: Faculty, Graduate Students, Postdoctoral Scholars and Staff

Dear Colleagues:

As you may have already read, the Federal Court in Massachusetts acted quickly to issue a temporary restraining order in the lawsuit that California joined as one of 22 states seeking to stop the National Institutes of Health from reducing their Facilities and Administration (also known as Indirect Cost (IDC)) rates to 15%. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) along with the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals, and Greater New York Hospital Association took similar steps today and that restraining order was approved by the Massachusetts court as well.

To add to the chorus of institutions in opposition to the NIH reduction in F/A (IDC), the Association of American Universities (AAU), the American College of Education (ACE), and the Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities (APLU) have now filed their complaint and motion for a temporary restraining order. The University of California is a named plaintiff in the lawsuit, along with 12 other institutions (Brandeis, Brown, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, University of Chicago, Cornell, George Washington, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Penn, Rochester, and Tufts).

It is heartening to see this degree of unity in the higher education sector, across so many different states. We know there is a longer road to travel before this issue is resolved, but we are working overtime on it. And, as you probably also realize, this is not the only issue the University faces. The recent announcement that grants from the Institute for Education Science have been cancelled represents another area of concern and we are tracking/responding there as well.

So as not to take up additional space in your inbox, I recommend that you consult this site for weekly updates on issues in Washington, DC developed by our Federal Relations colleagues: UC Federal Updates website:

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/federal-updates

Going forward, that will be the best place to find updates.

Thank you, once again, for all that you do for UC. It has never been more important.

Cordially,

Katherine S. Newman

UC System Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Public Policy

Food for Thought

From People magazine: The time has come to put your avocado obsession to work.

Several universities, including Loma Linda University School of Public Health, Pennsylvania State University, Tufts University, the University of California Los Angeles and Wake Forest University, are partnering to research the weight loss effects of avocados, according to the Daily Mail. The study is funded by the Hass Avocado Board.

Together they are looking for 1,000 participants to take part in the six-month trial, which will focus on whether or not eating one avocado per day reduces visceral adipose fat in the abdomen.

To qualify as a participant, you must be at least 25 years old, willing to eat one avocado per day for six months as part of the test group or two avocados per month for six months as part of the control group. Men must measure at least 40 inches around their waist, while women must measure at least 35 inches.

Source: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article217522790.html

That's all yours truly knows. But you can get in touch with the study's sponsor at:
http://www.hassavocadoboard.com/

A different unkindest cut: Which Way LA? on the Master Plan and Budget Cuts at UC

 

"Which Way LA?" (KCRW) last night ran a segment on admission of out-of-state students to UC to get full tuition, particularly at Berkeley and UCLA, basically the Michigan Model although no one used that term.  A parents group has a petition - apparently addressed to the legislature and governor - protesting this development. One parent who was interviewed had a kid she has sent to Tufts after not getting into Berkeley or UCLA but who did get into other UCs.  The Master Plan's notion of free tuition was mentioned.  You can hear it at the link below roughly in minutes 6 to 21:

http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/which-way-la/the-university-of-california-acts-like-a-private-school 

More on the new idea of distance (now online) learning

In the light of the gubernatorial and regental excitement about online education, this blog earlier noted distance learning by TV as early as the 1950s.  But it appears that in the 1920s, there were college credit courses on radio:

…In 1915, what would become AMRAD (The American Radio and Research Corporation) opened for business from Medford Hillside, about four miles from Boston… In 1917, AMRAD received a license for station 1XE and experimental broadcasts began on a fairly regular basis that same year…  It was in 1918 that Eunice Randall was hired by AMRAD, as their first woman draftsman; later, she would serve as an engineer and announcer for 1XE… According to several sources, by May of 1921, 1XE had begun to do daily broadcasts. The programming was gradually getting more professional — live concerts, and several famous guest speakers. The speakers were often a result of the Tufts College connection—1XE quickly made use of some of Tufts' better-known professors. At a time when few people could afford college, the opportunity to hear highly respected professors giving a lecture was very well received…  In early February of 1922, 1XE officially became WGI…  WGI had a number of firsts in greater Boston, including being the first station to offer college courses by radio—throughout 1922, a series of lectures by Tufts faculty was given twice a week…

Source of text and photo:  http://www.bostonradio.org/essays/wgi