Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

This is a tragedy. Our pre-eminence as a scientific and industrial powerhouse that really began post WWII is now disintegrating because of the actions of a few. The funding being pulled from Terence Tao and his institute without due process is not the start, it's merely one casualty among many that began at the start of this administration. This is like cutting one's nose to spite one's face.

Punishing urban intellectuals for being urban intellectuals appears to be a common theme in a lot of right wing American messaging and the Republican Party won the popular vote.

You can’t put this on a few. It’s the genuine desire of the American voter.

The administration's stated reason is bias and anti-semitism, are you claiming that this is the definition of urban intellectual? If so how do you defend it? If not, how do you define it?

Why do we assume that the administration is acting in good faith when all evidence has shown otherwise?

They may not be acting in good faith but there is extremely clear evidence that UCLA has engaged in illegal racial hiring and admissions practices and has supported antisemitism on campus. UCLA chose to give them that ammunition.

> and has supported antisemitism on campus

You mean there were protests against genocide? Oops did I do an antisemitism by calling it a genocide?

Here in Germany, in Berlin, these "protests" included wrecking a lecture hall and seriously injuring a Jewish student.

- https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2025/04/berlin-humboldt... (April 2025)

- https://astafu.de/node/589 (February 2024)

(Both links are German language - that should not be a problem anymore these days I hope)

I don't see why you refuse to even consider that there is more than 1 and 0 absolutes.

The majority of protests does not create such headlines. We have had smaller and larger protests in many cities(here in Germany). People meet, walk, speak, and that is fine and nobody complains. But especially in 2024 that was not all that happened.

I read similar students about threatened Jewish students at US universities.

It is, as so often, caused by a violent and vocal minority. But if a hundred protesters are peaceful and only one hits you on the head you still have a very bad day as the victim.

- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/five-jewish-coll... (Oct 2024)

- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/06/04/antise... (June 2025)

Maybe it is getting better, this report says that in 2025 things have improved for both Muslim and Jewish students: "The biggest takeaways from Harvard’s task force reports on campus antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias" -- https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/29/us/harvard-reports-antise... (May 2025)

Anti Israel protests are the best opportunity for agent provocateurs.

Something we have evidence of Israel actually doing:

1. https://mondoweiss.net/2012/05/operation-glass-houses-idf-ag...

2. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/4/10/mustaribeen-israels...

Israel is probably the “strongest” nation in figuring out propaganda and mass disinformation campaigns. It is extremely easy to say an entire protest is invalid because of the actions of a few either legitimate or illegitimate protestors.

This is why this tactic is so easily deployed across any protest that seriously threatens states. We saw the US use this tactic in BLM protests of 2020.

Anyway these protests are legitimate despite the events that you’re mentioning happening. “Fed posting” is a thing people are slowly learning to spot.