A university president makes a case against cowardice

Some personal highlights:

"They’re excellent schools, and they have excellent scientists, and if one of Vice-President Vance’s kids is sick, he’s going to want the doctor to have gone to one of these schools; he’s not going to want them to have gone to Viktor Orbán’s university."

"People have said to me, “Well, you take all that money from the government, why don’t you listen to them?” The answer is, because the money doesn’t come with a loyalty oath."

"I don’t have to agree with the mayor to get the fire department to come put out a fire. And that’s what they’re saying to these international students: “Well, you came to this country. What makes you think you can write an op-ed in the newspaper?” Well, what makes you think that is, this is a free country. "

> The answer is, because the money doesn’t come with a loyalty oath

But it does come with some reasonable level of consideration and appreciation.

"you didn't say thank you!!!"

You don't know how they feel, so what you're saying is "they have to show/express appreciation," which is synonymous with a loyalty oath.

Why do you think this?

The government pays to get good universities which attract smart foreign who come to the US to study on these universities.

Maybe the government should appreciate them not the other way around.

Being paid what you're owed doesn't necessitate gratitude.

Consider that any competent manager will value polite debate and constructive criticism far more than the empty words of "yes" men.

Guess which category "reasonable ... consideration and appreciation" falls into.

Put another way, if you read North Korean state media, you will find that they always have a reasonable level of consideration and appreciation for their government.

Yeah, I agree. The government appreciates, or should appreciate, the good uses its taxpayers' money is put towards. As to the other intractables above, appreciation and loyalty are very far from the same thing.

Because it's a transcation and there are two parties to the transaction. And for these transaction to occur in a repeated fashion neither side should feel they are being taken advantage of.

There are US citizens who want to shoot gays, kill people different in creed or heritage, and bomb people for religious reasons. We had the gay panic defense (the legal defense to kill gay people just because you found out they were gay, and the shock justified you killing them). We had people shooting sikhs assuming they're muslim. We had folks bombing abortion clinics. There are US citizens who have done far more, and far worse, than writing an op-ed or taking over a building.

So, frankly, why not treat these people the same we treated like these other folk-- a trial and then appropriate punishment proven in the court of law. If an immigrant is violating the terms of their visa, the US gov't can prove it in their own courts and then deport them appropriately.

For those who disagree with this, when was the last time you thanked your boss for your paycheck?

Popper and "the paradox of tolerance" to the rescue. You can, and should, tolerate anything but intolerance.

I don't think anyone feels taken advantage of. I think most people involved in academia value the complexities and jagged edges that come with an international student body. And the outcome - the preeminent education system in the world that keeps the US at the cutting edge of science and technology and has for nearly a hundred years - is indisputable.

What about is always a bad answer. It comes of a defensive.

Indeed, I agree with you. There are US citizens who want to do reprehensible things, and I still say: maybe the US is not their jam. No, I'm not advocating exile or illegal detention. Just stating a fact.

When you're talking about due process, "what about these other people who got due process?" is a reasonable response.

Whataboutism would be something like, "what about Nazi Germany, where even more people got sent to foreign prison camps without due process: look, the US isn't so bad!".

Valuing Palestinian lives is not supporting terrorism.

the whole "not your jam" thing seems to be you retreating to meaninglessness. this isn't a debate about how a person should feel, it's a debate about how a government should act.

Those situations aren't comparable. While I oppose bigoted behavior by US citizens, for better or worse they have an absolute and inviolable right to remain in this country. Aliens generally have no such right. Entering and remaining in the country is a privilege. I oppose arbitrary arrests and deportations conducted without due process, but in principle there's nothing wrong with holding aliens to a different standard than citizens.

From a political standpoint, why should US citizens pay taxes to educate people who are apparently hostile to our fundamental values?

What are you conflicted about? The op-eds written by these international students contained none of the things you mentioned that are supposedly not compatible with the US.

On the other hand, while the US is bombing civilians in Yemen, revoking womens' rights and moving towards persecuting lgbt people, it would seem that ironically the the US is exactly the jam for that. A perfect fit.

I don't think it ever crosses these people's minds that some other country PAID FOR these people's education and they are now USING that education elsewhere for the profit of a foreign nation.

All my high school and college education was at free schools/colleges in my home country, paid for by taxpayer money. All incredibly competitive places, with very high maintenance costs compared to the other colleges around, not a single US dollar was invested in me and here I am paying taxes and improving this place.

The bargain the US gets from this is one of the biggest reasons it can do what it does, the investments it makes are compounded by the work of the people that it never put a dime for.

Strongly agree. The problem is that Hamas represents them (illegitimately IMHO).

Thus you have a lot of Palestinian supporters advocating for Hamas, and that is effectively "supporting" terrorism.

> "They’re excellent schools, and they have excellent scientists, and if one of Vice-President Vance’s kids is sick, he’s going to want the doctor to have gone to one of these schools; he’s not going to want them to have gone to Viktor Orbán’s university."

I'm not sure I understand. If I want a medical doctor, I'm not looking for someone based on his political views or spirited independence from the Hungarian government, but for someone with training in a very narrow discipline, namely medicine. I really don't want someone who is more interested in "the modern and the postmodern" prescribing me meds, but I do want someone who conforms to the current pharmacological standards.

The University President in question does not even run a medical school; Wesleyan does not, to my knowledge, teach anyone the art of medicine, however highly it might rank as a liberal arts institution. Semmelweis University in Budapest, however, is older than the United States, is the largest healthcare provider in Hungary, and is ranked among the top 300 universities in the world. Therefore, if I had to chose between someone who went to Wesleyan and someone who went to Semmelweis, which I'll take as "Viktor Orbán's university," I should much rather have the Hungarian who actually knows medicine rather than the liberal arts PhD who might be able to lecture me on what postmodernism should mean to me.

Sure, hopefully we all value Palestinian lives. I certainly do. Where the consensus breaks down is what does that mean in practice? Should Israel be allowed to attack terrorist organizations in Palestine? If so, is there an "acceptable" level of civilian casualties (collateral damage)? Does that level change if the terrorists intentionally use civilians as human shields, for example by using a hospital as an operating base or launching rockets from civilian residential neighborhoods?

To be clear I am not attempting to defend war crimes or terrorist activity or anything like that. I'm just pointing out that simply valuing Palestinian lives is rather meaningless and empty unless it translates into action.

> Strongly agree. The problem is that Hamas represents them (illegitimately IMHO)

Thats a dangerous line of argument to make. Zionists work VERY hard to promote the idea that they represent all jews. I for one would take great offense to the idea that all jews are land stealing colonialist savages. Its just as dangerous to normalize the idea that hammas represents palestinians

What are you purporting not to understand? It seems you’re fighting your own straw man.

It is their right to be there. They do not have to show appreciation and the current government should never be one deciding these what is appreciation. Bowing to authority is exactly the opposite of what education is about.

The author of the article seems to accept "appeal to authority" he just wishes it was more critically refined to a point that it might somehow be justifiable.

The OP is expressing dismay at this obviously compromised position. There is no purportment or strawmen that I can detect.

Even if you hold those views (with which we'd all, I hope, vigorously disagree), America is _still_ your jam, up to and until they mutate into crimes / criminal attempts / incitements to crime etc. The ways this administration has persued removal either violate that boundary, or require stretching the boundary around the right-hand side to its absolute limit.

I don't normally get into this type of political debate but ...

>Should Israel be allowed to attack terrorist organizations in Palestine?

yes. I think actual terrorists should be eligible for being attacked anywhere. The real question you didn't ask is who gets to label what is and is not a terrorist? Black Panthers were considered terrorists in the US in the 60s and 70s but heros to the Black community now. In the US, again, our founding fathers were all considered terrorists by Britain.

>If so, is there an "acceptable" level of civilian casualties (collateral damage)?

The "acceptable" level of civilian casualties or collateral damage is zero. With the understanding that accidents happen, but all plans should be for zero.

>Does that level change if the terrorists intentionally use civilians as human shields

No. This routinely happens in the US over the years where criminals or even terrorists take hostages on a plane, bank, school, hospital, or other place with innocent people. We do not drop bombs on the building killing all the innocents to get at the evil-doers. Have you noticed that no country in the Western civilized world would even consider that? Modern military should be able to go in and do surgical strikes or a surrender. Hell, in the US, we have small towns with volunteer SWAT teams that do this routinely with basically 100% success rate.

I think the biggest problem, which is covered in most war-time conventions, is that you should treat civilians and innocent people the same as you would treat your own innocent civilians. This is somehow being argued that it does not apply in the middle East or Ukraine or Russia where people just remotely drop bombs and blame "human shields".

Not too long ago the US would be ashamed to admit it even did something like this, because it seems like incompetence or cowardice, but now we support it somehow?

> why should US citizens pay taxes to educate people who are apparently hostile to our fundamental values?

Because that's where Americans come from - the educated and acculturated sons and daughters of immigrants who came bearing all manner of prejudice.

What about e.g. writing an op-ed expressing one's views conveys a lack of consideration and appreciation?

Ok, then I guess they should only go after the people who are supporting actually designated terrorist organizations.

Problem solved, right?

The money comes from the public, not the government

Can I have statistics for this? Because I always thought it was mostly from the government, not from the public.

> Because that's where Americans come from - the educated and acculturated sons and daughters of immigrants who came bearing all manner of prejudice.

This is a phenomenal example of a non-sequitur argument.

One of the problems with trying to apply the Objectivist view to a situation like this is that often experts need to tell their patrons true things they don't want to hear. I'll leave any sociological or economic examples aside and say, to pick a couple that Ayn Rand herself didn't believe, that smoking causes cancer and air pollution is bad for the human body. If the patron doesn't want to believe this new fact they have been told, they might feel taken advantage of. They might feel that if a science department got public funding only to come to those conclusions, that the scientists should be fired.

That is such an unrealistic and out of touch comment that I barely know where to begin. The USA (and its allies) killed millions of enemy civilians in WWII. This was not an accident; military leaders knew exactly what they were doing and were proud of it. Strategic bombing campaigns leveled cities. Submarine forces sank unarmed merchant vessels with all hands. This was considered acceptable to win the war. Should we now hold other countries to a different standard?

Hamas is a terrorist organization. There can be no possible debate about that point.

Real life is not like what you see in the movies. Modern militaries are in no way able to consistently do surgical strikes with no collateral damage. That is magical thinking.

Your comparison with civilian law enforcement is so specious that I suspect you're not even commenting in good faith. There no "volunteer SWAT teams", that's not a real thing (the officers on those teams do volunteer for the duty but they get paid). SWAT teams aren't tasked with fighting their way through hundreds of terrorists to capture a suspect; they're generally up against no more than a few criminals armed with small arms. And it's unfortunately fairly common for law enforcement to accidentally shoot innocent bystanders or hostages.

It's cheap easy to criticize and claim the moral high ground when you don't have to make hard choices or deal with the consequences. Again I'm not attempting to justify war crimes but the decisions get a lot messier when you step away from your computer and operate in the real world.

I think you misunderstood me -- my point about Hamas is they hold the power over the Palestinians. They represent them as much as Trump represents me.

Where do you think the government gets its money from?

> This was considered acceptable to win the war. Should we now hold other countries to a different standard?

Yes, we saw what happened and labeled them as war crimes. We don’t consider them to be acceptable anymore.

> I really don't want someone who is more interested in "the modern and the postmodern" prescribing me meds, but I do want someone who conforms to the current pharmacological standards

Concrete example of this: https://dailycaller.com/2025/03/31/exclusive-researchers-axe....

The study compared mortality rates for white and black babies under the care of white and black doctors. The study found that white babies had a 22% lower mortality rate when cared for by white doctors compared to when cared for by black doctors. But the authors deleted that finding from the final publication, and instead reported only the finding that black babies had a 58% higher mortality rate when cared for by white doctors.

This study was relied on by the American Medical Association in the SFFA litigation, and cited by the Supreme Court in the dissent. Of course it turns out the entire study was probably bunk and the effect goes away if you adjust for low birth weight and doctor seniority. But the authors presumably thought their study was valid. And they deliberately omitted a finding that, if true, could have been used to reduce the mortality rate of white babies.

You want your professionals (doctors, lawyers, bankers, etc.) to be soulless mercenaries who don’t have sentimental views about the subject matter of their work.

No, we didn't label them as war crimes. None of the WWII Allied military commanders or political leaders were charged with war crimes. They are still revered as heroes today. And if we faced an existential threat we would do the same to enemy civilians again, or even more.

"Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell."

-Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, Jr. 1941

I don't necessarily agree with the sentiment, but his was quite a popular opinion at the time.

Do you not understand that money coming from the government has been acquired from taxes, ergo the money comes from the people.

We do. Look up “Tokyo firebombing” on Wikipedia and I guarantee you there is a modern analysis of indiscriminate civilian casualties being analyzed as war crimes. Of course not everyone is willing to participate in that discussion but it does exist.

Nah. I don't know which "we" you're referring to but Wikipedia isn't a valid source for anything more controversial than Pokemon episode summaries. Many of the articles are highly biased depending on which clique of editors managed to gain control. Intelligent people don't take it seriously.

That aside, I have seen a loony fringe of revisionist historians and lawyers level spurious claims of "war crimes" against Allied leaders who are no longer even alive to defend themselves. They had no moral or legal duty to protect enemy civilians, and any amount of enemy civilian deaths were acceptable to save Allied lives.

If you're looking for war criminals, start with Tojo, Hitler, and Mussolini and work your way down the list of Axis leaders. The Allied powers were always clear that they would stop the attacks as soon as their adversaries issued unconditional surrenders. Therefore all enemy civilian deaths were 100% the fault of Axis leaders who started and continued the war.

And I for one would much rather it go to subsidize university research than subsidize the defense industry