WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Flyover Features: Are Universities Entitled to Funding?

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Emma and Sophia discuss whether or not universities can become neutral and if Trump's finding cuts will achieve their intended purpose.

You're listening to Flyover Features, a humorous cultural commentary podcast where me, Sophia Mant and my co-host Emma Vrini give our takes on various things going on in the world in art, media, and culture. And you're listening to this show on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. In this episode, we're going to be discussing an essay published by the Wall Street Journal, written by James Hankins, titled A Conservative, Harvard professor on how the university can save itself. Trump's assault won't help the school become less woke, taking less money from the federal government will. And essentially it argues that in wake of Trump's attempts at, you know,

removing DEI programs and threatening to cut funding because of student supporting groups like Hamas, a Harvard professor is saying, well, you're complaining about this. Why don't you just take less money from the Fed and more from private donors or people that might be more open to supporting the values you want to support so that you don't start getting into rough situations when all of a sudden the Fed, the administration has different views and thus they don't want your views to be supported. So I know Emma said she has some strong appealing, I know Emma said she has some strong opinions on this. So what are some of your takes? Well, I think we should just sort of get into some of the claims, the implicit claims that are made here, which is basically, first of all, Trump is assaulting these universities, right?

Trump's assault on the universities. And I think that's a big claim to make because it's not like he's coming in and blowing them up or coming in and, you know, like taking students out and holding them hot. hostage, he's just taking money. And I think the sort of implicit claim here is that universities, regardless of what they're doing, are always going to be entitled to government money, right? And I think that that's a dangerous claim to make. Because, sorry, were you going to say something? Well, I was just wondering, I mean, not to bring up the elephant in the room, but we do go to, it's a rare exception, but we do go to a college Hillsdale where we actually don't really have federal money.

Well, we don't at all. Hillsdale, I mean, I think everybody listening knows this, but Hillsdale received zero government funding and goes to pretty great lengths to make sure that they don't receive government funding. Is Hillsdale College entitled to government funding? No. Well, yeah, we're not. And one of the reasons that, well, I think the big reason that we don't want to take government funding is because we don't want to have to follow Title IX, which basically says you have to, you know, adopt these practices while you're choosing which students you want to accept.

And our president believes that that is discriminatory. And I think that most of the people on the staff here would probably agree that those practices are discriminatory and decide not to take government funding. So my question is when you were getting back earlier, do you think Harvard could be entitled to switch or is it even feasible to private funding if they'd rather have their own values more easily supported with donors who might be more inclined to not shift with each administration? Yeah, I think that that is definitely something that they're capable of doing. They just don't want to do that. They don't want to ask their donors for more money. they want to keep receiving government funding. And it's like when you think about it, Title IX is a very politically, it's very political, right?

It's like, I don't think, I'd say if you were to survey like most people in the United States, there'd be a 50-50 split as to whether or not it should even exist. Right? So it's a political requirement for colleges to receive government funding. So what's wrong with Trump doing the exact same thing? Trump's doing the same thing. No, you're totally fine. I'm just listening to you more because I'm more out of the loop on a lot of these issues.

I hope you don't mind. No, that's okay. I just, I fail to see how universities and people who are supporting these universities think that they're entitled to government money just no matter what they do. Like, how does that work? because we at Hillsdale don't think we're entitled to government money. In fact, we're trying to avoid it. Well, I think they thought that the government would broadly support their values and their education and their universities,

which is why they viewed it as a positive for the longest time, although it is interesting that you didn't necessarily see this negative rhetoric when, like, Trump was, maybe I'm wrong, because you're more politically engaged than I am. Like when Trump was president in 2016 or other conservatives, they didn't seem to act or think that like their federal money they got was in jeopardy nearly as much as now, although now it is. And I don't know if Trump was doing anything like that.

I don't think he was in 2016. Well, yeah, I wonder if that's part of it. It seems like it was just an expectation that the federal government would support their funding. And that's not happening now. Although I do wonder if also part of it's with some of the protests and the student responses we've seen, they appear, you know, the media lies a lot, but they appear more extreme than earlier times with open support for Hamas and things like that. And Jewish professors not being really able to safely teach at their institutions. So I do wonder if that's a more extreme reaction.

But it is strange because there were student protests. in the 60s that were crazy. And I don't know if there were any threats to pull federal funding. And you see like some of the student sit-ins or protests at Columbia or stuff in the 60s where like they totally took over campus, you know, smash windows or, you know,

the Kent State situation, which was insane where four students died. Yeah. That's weird to me. Like it's just weird how people seem to have different ideas of how they want to fix things because the right seemed to more be like anti-education or like don't go to college or maybe they'd be like,

I'd hope they aren't funded, but it didn't seem like there were any known threats that I'm aware of to federal funding at the time. I could be out of the loop. It's interesting that now this is actually happening. I would contend that this has less to do with protests than both the left and right are making it out to be. Probably. Like, that's sort of the front that we're all talking about. Like, oh, these Muslim students or these foreign students were being really anti-Semitic. and that's why Trump is pulling funding. It's like, I mean, yeah, that's one good reason to pull funding. Some of the stuff they were doing is really bad and the way they were treating the Jewish students wasn't good.

But there are a lot of other demands that Trump is making, particularly with regards to DEI. Oh, yeah, that's a huge one. That's interesting. Sorry for interrupting, but that's... Yeah, no worries. I do wonder if maybe that's it. He just wants to more so have that as a front,

but ultimately getting rid of all the things. that he sees his damaging. But I don't know. It's just weird that like, am I correct? Can you recall, like, a president actually threatening and successfully getting federal funding

because of perceived, like, negative views towards education? Like, it's just interesting to me because, like, you had more traditional thinking presidents that didn't seem to do that. Does that make sense? Like, this just seems like it's a new situation. Are you asking,

has there been a president to pull federal funding from universities before? Yeah, has it happened? You might know about it and I don't. That's why I'm asking. I am not sure. Mm-hmm. It feels like it's unprecedented, but I don't know if that's the media on both sides claiming it is. Like, you know, right media being like, oh, yay, he's finally doing what's been needed to do for years with the educational system.

Left Wing media, like, this is unprecedented. He's having influence with the institutions. It's just, it's, it's. really weird to me. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure if that's happened before. But I think we should also just sort of get back to the article at hand and some of the claims that are made in this article.

First being that what Trump is doing is antagonizing universities against him and making them more anti-Trump. And that's bad because we want instituted. to be neutral. This was written by a conservative by the way who his hope is that institutions will become less politically

charged and more neutral and open to conversation about political issues and what Trump is doing is actually counterproductive because he's making these institutions lean further to the left

by being so aggressive in how he's handling it when he could just be more reasoned on it. Yeah. Well, especially because it's like, you know, I mean, a lot of their institutions are under threat or there's a lot of stuff where it's like, in my opinion, there is valuable and good research that is being affected or is even actually directly affecting me.

And it's like, it's like, I don't think he's aware of it, but it's like Mr. Trump, Mr. administration, I hope you know that like there are some people that actually do just want to learn or teach that aren't, you know, we're not like a threat to the, to mankind. Well, think about it this way. Yeah. And first of all, I just want to, I just want to point out one more thing about this article before I get to that point.

The solution proposed in this article by Dr. Hankins is that universities should by themselves decide to become less dependent on government funding. Yeah. And that's how we're going to solve this problem. And the question I would raise to that is how do you see these institutions of higher education becoming neutral and doing that on their own and becoming less political if you don't have some sort of outside incentive to push them in that direction? Because right now, it just sounds like a really nice wish. But how is that feasible right now? How is that feasible when a tiny percentage of the faculty at Harvard are conservative?

And it's really hard for people who have those views who are, you know, right of center to get tenure and stuff like that. How is that actually going to happen aside from just saying, well, Trump's being really mean right now and that's super not cool, guys. It's like, yeah, okay, great, but, you know, we need solutions to the problem. Well, it's really weird, too, because a lot of, from what I've heard from not Harvard, because Harvard's making the news because they aren't backing down. But a lot of other institutions like state schools or stuff that's not going to be in the news quite as much because they aren't quite as well known. From what I've heard from students at other places, what's really weird is it's like a lot of the DEI and other groups, supposedly this is at U of M, University of Michigan, but don't quote me on it. I know it was some big

state school. It's like they're getting rid of DEI or other institutions, like other factors like that. And they're giving up surprisingly easy to the point where it's almost like, how much did you actually value this? Like, if you really cared so much about diversity, equity and inclusion, wouldn't you like try and fight this? That's what's weird about it too. Like, a lot of them are giving up surprisingly easy. Well, the other thing is there are the institutions that aren't backing down like Harvard. And it's sort of like you can look at it from the perspective of Trump is cutting money from these universities. and that's affecting them negatively because they're not able to do research for, you know,

life-saving research for diseases and cancer and everything like that. And when you think about it, what Trump's really doing is he's making their funding contingent on whether or not these universities are willing to revoke these programs and get rid of these programs. And so it's like, the question ultimately becomes, what is more important to you? Is it more important to have this massive DEI infrastructure or is it more important for you to do cancer research? If Trump is being this big, mean, bad guy who's, you know, holding these universities and saying you're either going to cut the DEI or you're going to lose funding, then, I mean, there you go. it's not Trump who's doing it.

The universities could easily see to his demands and do the life-saving cancer research. So that's one of the things that really frustrates me about these arguments from the left and from the more soft conservatives is that they're saying, well, he's cutting funding for cancer. It's like, no, he's not actually. The universities could, with the literal push of a button, change that instantly. and they could bring back the funding for cancer. They're the ones that are choosing not to do that. They could easily switch.

They could easily flip the switch and make that happen. But they're not doing that. So is it ultimately Trump who's getting rid of cancer funding? Or is it the universities that think their DEI programs are so precious that they're not willing to give them away to be able to save lives? The way I see it is that the universities think diversity is more important. in the saving lives. Hot take, but I think I don't entirely agree with you. I think it's a double-edged sword. I think there are certain things the university's funder think is important that I don't necessarily agree with. But then I also think there are things Trump's cutting that are important

that or important research that's intermixed with it. So it's like, I don't know. Well, that's the thing. It's like you could easily continue to do research on things that I think everybody objectively agrees are important. All you have to do is, like I said, it's contingent on whether or not you cut the diversity and seed to the other demands. And you choose not to do that. I think we should finish this off by just talking about some of the stuff that Harvard has said. This is from the office of the president at Harvard. Yeah. the promise of American higher education.

And let me just read one of these paragraphs. The administration, that is Trump's, prescription, goes beyond the power of the federal government. It violates Harvard's First Amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the government's authority under Title VI. And it threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge. No government, regardless of which parties in power, should dictate what private, universities can teach, whom they could admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue. News slash Harvard, nobody's making you teach anything. Nobody's telling you you have to teach these Trumpian doctrines to everybody. Nobody's making you do anything. You are not entitled

to money from the government. It's being revoked. That doesn't mean anyone's making you do anything. and Trump isn't dictating what you teach, you're still free to teach whatever you want as a private university. It's weird to think that the future of higher education is changing, and I know that sounds like a very AI-type phrase that I've heard everywhere, but it does seem we're on a shift in how things are going to be run. There just seems such a perceived, lack of understanding or separation.

It's weird because supposedly our society is supposed to be more egalitarian or whatnot, but really weird dichotomy of poor working middle, you know, middle class folks who are, you know, becoming more supportive of Trump don't, are not as educated versus those at private institutions. Obviously, there's exceptions. And it feels always so. weird to me as some attending hillsdale to be at an institution of higher learning humanities major sociology major of all things and to be more on the right it's it's just such a bizarre dichotomy and separation i don't know there's just this increased lack of understanding i think on both sides

and distrust and distaste and it's really weird but that's something i think i like about going here at Hillsdale kind of, it's really weird on both ends because it's like you have this upper, upper generally speaking, wealthier background of people who are educated, but then they don't represent the stereotypical political views that are more common, which is what, it's kind of, I'm kind of like that we're weird like that here. We are weird here. I think Hillsdale actually serves as a great example of the solution to a lot of the things that this article talks about, where, you know, we don't take government funding. And actually, our staff is objectively more divided on politics and more diverse about their opinions than any other university.

I mean, at Harvard, we're dealing with 3% conservative faculty. Here it's obviously the liberals are in a minority, but they're not 3% of the faculty. Yeah. 3% of our faculty is, that's just a tiny percentage. I would put the percent of liberal faculty, we have at at least 30. So we're not dealing with single digit numbers here. We are objectively way more diverse in thought. And I think that probably would come as a shock to a lot of people who look at Harvard or look at Hillsdale and see as the super conservative school.

And it's like, well, actually, that's not true at all. I mean, there are some professors who are actually allowed to say what they believe and aren't scared to say what they actually think because they're afraid of not getting tenure or something, which is how it is at the Ivy League's, by the way, people who are really smart can't say what they think. I mean, how can you call that an education if you can't even say what you believe? Yeah. I'm tempted to contest you, but that's besides the point. I mean, can you at least like not contest the fact that there's no way that only 3% of our faculty are liberals?

Yeah, no, I think it's higher than that. No way. I think it's higher than that. I don't know the exact percentage. It's really hard to measure. There was a poll that came out in the Collegian, which is our student newspaper, that had a surprisingly high amount of professors

for Kamala, but we decided to not include that as a definite resource. because I've heard from multiple people, they don't know how reliable it was because professors that maybe were more likely to be like, hey, I want to show there's diversity voted versus other professors just like in Trump. So there's some sort of bias in the survey methods. But nonetheless, like that goes to show, like even if, you know, 10 or so people voted in that survey and said that they supported Kamala, in comparison to the rest of the faculty body, that's not 3%. Although it is interesting because the article mentions that for those who chose to answer surveys about their

politics, 32% said they're very liberal, 45% merely liberal, and 20% who think they're moderate, which is interesting. Well, yeah, moderate. But only 3% are a conservative. Moderate at Harvard means that you're like pretty liberal. Let's be honest. So like you're dealing with, oh, well, you know, only 5% said that they're very, very, very liberal and only 25% said that they're very, very liberal. And it's like, yeah, but like add the numbers together and you're going to come out to like 80 or 90 percent that are either liberal or, you know, anti-Trump or however you want to spin it. And there's just not a lot of actual diversity going. Right. That's all we have time for today. You're listening to Fliverr features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Emma Vareni and I'm here with

Sophia Mant.