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Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

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280 points dargscisyhp | 2 comments | 02 Aug 25 06:28 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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Almondsetat ◴[02 Aug 25 08:23 UTC] No.44765722[source]▶
It's really telling when an invaluable intellectual powerhouse specialized in a non politicized field gets its funds taken away because of politics

Edit:

This is a comment about the administration, not Tao.

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ekianjo ◴[02 Aug 25 08:35 UTC] No.44765781[source]▶
thats why they should refrain from engaging in politics in the first place. the day the wind changes you lose.
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kzrdude ◴[02 Aug 25 09:06 UTC] No.44765901[source]▶
Then it's maybe not a free country anymore if you have to think about how your actions are perceived by the president in power at every step.
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bsaul ◴[02 Aug 25 09:32 UTC] No.44766039[source]▶
i agree with you, but i think it's been the case in the US for the past 15 years already. The only difference is trump pushing toward different issues than biden.
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hcknwscommenter ◴[02 Aug 25 09:58 UTC] No.44766204[source]▶
False equivalence nonsense. If you can't see the difference between Trump's authoritarian actions and the Biden presidency, you are blinded by your own personal biases.
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bsaul ◴[02 Aug 25 10:24 UTC] No.44766352[source]▶
The style is very different, for sure. But testimonies of people feeling threatened over their academic career based on political statements on controversial topics isn't a new thing.

Don't get me wrong : i'm not defending what's happening here. It's absurd and a very bad sign for US democracy. What i'm saying is that people only wake up when they're the ones in the crosshairs.

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ndsipa_pomu ◴[02 Aug 25 11:32 UTC] No.44766746[source]▶
If academics want to make political statements on controversial topics, then that's an entirely different situation to academics having grants cancelled (not just not-renewed, but cancelling already allotted money) when they're not making political statements.

By the way, do you have an example of the academics feeling threatened by making political statements?

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bsaul ◴[02 Aug 25 11:57 UTC] No.44766895{3}[source]▶
Seemed pretty consensual, but since you're asking, here's a top result i got on my first search on google's.

https://nypost.com/2025/04/23/us-news/psychiatrist-who-criti...

And there are tons of other. Gender theory was a pretty big drive for censorship.

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1. hcknwscommenter ◴[02 Aug 25 13:56 UTC] No.44767670{4}[source]▶
Sorry. You are wrong. Your first assertion was that the only difference was trump pushing different issues than Biden. And your source for this false equivalence is an example of a professor fired by a University that has nothing to do with Biden in any way shape or form. You seem to have difficulty with the truth and difficulty engaging in a good faith dialog.
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2. bsaul ◴[03 Aug 25 00:04 UTC] No.44772874[source]▶
i was answering to this question "By the way, do you have an example of the academics feeling threatened by making political statements?"

i mentionned biden's presidency. I think the date matches.

Indeed as i said elsewhere the style was different, much less a one-man decision. But biden's administration was pushing an agenda as well, and it wasn't soft on people that disagreed.