Wherefore Harvard?

Harvard University has taken serious offense at the federal government’s efforts to rid it of anti-Semitism. The university insists that the Trump administration is interfering in hiring and even in the curriculum. 

The Trump administration suggests that the university is infested with anti-Semitism, to the point where Jewish students have been harassed and prevented from going to the library or to classes.

Harvard used to be 25% to 30% Jewish. Now the number is 8%.

As for school life, you might not believe me, so why not believe the New York Times last fall:

In interviews, many Jewish members of the Harvard community described their growing estrangement from campus. Protesters have disrupted lectures, shouting through bullhorns that the war in Gaza was a genocide. Antisemitic messages have been posted on social media. Some students have decided to check their Zionist beliefs in the classroom and in the residence hall. A few have traded in their kippas, or skullcaps, for baseball hats.

The Trump administration has accused Harvard of countenancing anti-Semitism. It has proposed a series of changes that the university has rejected. USA Today offers this description:

Harvard has denied the administration's accusations that it's not doing enough to combat antisemitism and declined to comply with a list of demands, including changing its recruitment, screening, and admissions of international students to prevent admitting "students hostile to the American values," paying an external party to audit the university's student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for "viewpoint diversity" and shutter all DEI programming….

Since Harvard does not seem to want to work with the federal government, the Trump administration has cut off its funding:

The Trump administration has frozen more than $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard University, called for the Internal Revenue Service to remove the university's tax-exempt status and threatened to revoke its ability to accept and host international students. Harvard sued the Trump administration on April 21 to block those measures. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that day that the administration is planning to slash an additional $1 billion in cuts to federal health research funding at the university….

Not only was Harvard severely offended by the accusation that it was not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism, but its president Alan Garber walked away from a negotiation with Education Secretary Linda McMahon. 

This side to the story has rarely been reported. It bespeaks a colossal arrogance.

The New York Post explains:

Harvard University refused to “come back to the table” after the president of the Ivy League school initially had a positive conversation with the Trump administration about cracking down on antisemitism on campus, Education Secretary Linda McMahon revealed Tuesday.

“I talked to Alan Garber, the president of Harvard … He wanted to make sure there were no antisemitism actions that were taking place on his campus,” McMahon told “Cats & Cosby Show” hosts John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby on WABC radio.

“We also talked about other aspects of negotiations, relative to doing some vetting for teachers who are coming in and students who are coming into Harvard, because there are a lot of outside agitators that are coming in and causing a lot of the disruptions on campus,” McMahon claimed.

“We thought we were in a good place,” she added. “We were exchanging negotiations back-and-forth, and then Harvard didn’t come back to the table.”

“Their answer was they sued.”

Garber has accused the Trump administration of seeking “unprecedented and improper control” over campus affairs to keep the federal funds flowing.

Harvard opts for complete independence. We understand. And yet, what harm would have come from an effort to negotiate. 

Victor Davis Hanson accuses Harvard of wanting to have it both ways. He recommends that if they wish to assert imperial authority over whatever happens on their campus, they should simply reject federal funding:

Harvard has refused to accept the orders of a Trump administration commission concerning its chronic problems with anti-Semitism, campus violence, and racial tribalism, bias, and segregation.

Yet, unlike some conservative campuses that distrust an overbearing Washington, Harvard and most elite schools like it want it both ways. They do as they please on their own turf and yet still demand that the taxpayers send them multibillion-dollar checks in addition to their multibillion-dollar private incomes….

So, if there are protracted standoffs, our elite campuses will be hard-pressed to defend the indefensible. This effort will be difficult because public confidence in higher education has already plummeted to historic lows in the most recent polls.

You might say that it’s about more than anti-Semitism. It’s about the decline of our greatest academic institutions.

Wednesday Potpourri

First, hedge fund tycoon Bill Ackman is not the only person to note the conceptual deformity, but why not begin with his succinct comment on the current political scene:

A nation in which one administration can allow millions of unvetted illegal migrants into the country, but requires that a court vet each deportation decision in an individually adjudicated case will soon lose the values our democratic system was intended to preserve.

Second, meanwhile down in Argentina, the Javier Milei reforms are bearing fruit. Mario Nawfal reports:

MILEI’S “CRAZY” PLAN WORKED—ARGENTINA’S PAYCHECKS JUST HIT A 6-YEAR HIGH Private sector wages in Argentina just spiked to their best level since 2018—real wages hit 107 in Feb 2025, up from a sad 91 in late 2023. What changed? Oh, just Milei dropping economic reforms like they were hot. People called it “shock therapy.” Turns out, it was more “money therapy.” Critics yelled, “He’ll crash the economy!” Workers are now yelling, “Payday!”

Third, obviously, everyone is talking about the big show that Democrats are putting on in regard to a Salvadoran MS-13 gang member who is currently sitting in a Salvador prison. 

Allow border czar Tom Homan to explain. This, from an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl.

Homan said this, regarding Maryland Senator Van Hollen:

"What bothers me more than that is a U.S. Senator travels on our taxpayer dime to meet with a MS13 gang member." 

"What concerns me is Van Hollen never went to the border last four years, when Joe Biden had a 600% increase in s*x trafficking of women and children." 

"What shocks me is he's remained silent about the travesty that happened our southern border — many people died."

Fourth, from Elon Musk, in conversation with Joe Rogan, from February of this year:

As bad as Twitter was, the federal government is much worse. At least, Twitter passed audits.

“Twitter was at least break-even, and it had to pass an audit. The federal government is literally losing $2 trillion a year, and it fails its own audits.

There's a case where, Senator Collins gave the Navy $12 billion for more submarines, got no extra submarines, and then held a hearing to ask where the $12 billion went.

And they were like, we don't know—that was it. Only the federal government can get away with this level of waste.

The reason I'm putting so much effort into this is that I think it is a very dire situation. America's going bankrupt. That just can't happen.”

Fifth, Larry David-- you remember him-- just wrote a nasty and stupid op-ed for the New York Times entitled: “My Dinner with Adolph.” The subject was comedian Bill Maher’s dinner with President Trump.

The concept was sufficiently stupid to make its way into the Times. And sufficiently embarrassing to be penned by a man who has no shame.

Anyway, over at CNN Scott Jennings explained the game:

“But this isn't about that dinner. It's about the next one. Because this is the modern left. It's an attempt always to intimidate people into not ever doing it again.”

“It's to silence yourselves or we'll do it for you. That's the purpose of this op ed, so that the next comedian or the next person on the American left chooses not to speak to Donald Trump.”

“This is all an effort to get people not to do what you just said, which is to talk to each other and our political leaders.”

This is how the modern left enforces obedience: torch one person in public—so no one else dares step out of line.

Sixth, meanwhile in the movie theatres, Disney’s woke Snow White continues to fail, miserably. By the numbers, via PJ Media:

In its fifth weekend on screens, "Snow White" earned about $7 million in ticket sales domestically and internationally, bringing the total box office take to an estimated $194 million. The film cost an estimated $270 million (after tax credits!) plus another $70-$100 million to market and probably needs $625 million, after theaters take their cut, just to break even.

Seventh, in the therapy world, we now have a distinguished Brooklyn therapist named Natasha Cohen. She was trying to set a good example for her child patients, so she did something stupid. The New York Post has the story:

The Brooklyn woman accused of leaving a brick scrawled with a swastika and the word “Nazi” on a parked Tesla is a super-woke family therapist who was involved in criminal justice diversion programs — and blamed Elon Musk for her heinous actions as she was taken into custody.

Natasha Cohen was released on her own recognizance following her arraignment on hate-crime charges Saturday night, according to prosecutors.

Cohen, 46, has a private practice, working with children, adolescents and their families for more than two decades.

Eighth, in once-Great Britain the Supreme Court has declared that there are only two sexes. Now, even Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has come around to this view.

Julie Burchill has mostly opposed transmania, as has J.K. Rowling. Now Burchill has a few words about Rowling’s case:

Many brave people – mostly women, but joined by a few exceptional men – have sacrificed much for the victory we finally took receipt of in the Supreme Court last week. They have been robbed of reputations, careers, relationships and – almost – sanity, as much of the world’s establishment and institutions went gender-woo gaga and told us that women could have penises, men could grow cervixes and giraffes are born without sex. …

Until she was hated, I never cared for J.K. Rowling. The idea of anyone over the age of majority who could be reading, say, Lionel Shriver instead wasting their time reading stories about boy wizards irritated me intensely. There were so many of these clowns, apparently, that special ‘adult’ covers of the Potter books were being manufactured, to cover their embarrassment. As with adult babies, I must admit an intolerant part of me felt that such people should probably have their voting rights removed if they were not willing to fully embrace the blessed state of being a grown-up.

Last but not least, I now have some free consulting hours in my life coaching practice. If you are interested email me at StuartSchneiderman@gmail.com. 

What Went Wrong?

By all appearances, something went wrong. The world is not as we would wish it to be. Economies are stagnating, not growing. What can we do to right these floundering ships of state?

According to Professor Aaron Benanav, the solution lies in socialist redistribution. By his lights the problem lies in slowing economic growth. Benanav does not explain how wealth redistribution will improve economic growth. Or better, why you will feel better about stagnation if we redistribute Elon Musk’s fortune.

Benanav writes in the New York Times:

Across the world, governments have been losing elections — or barely holding on — in the face of rising discontent. From the United States to Uruguay, Britain to India, an anti-incumbent wave swept through democracies in 2024. But not only democracies are in crisis. China, too, is grappling with social unrest and economic instability. Strife, these days, is global.

By his lights, the cause lies in slowing economic growth:

In the past, G20 economies regularly grew 2 to 3 percent per year, doubling incomes every 25 to 35 years. Today, many growth rates are 0.5 to 1 percent, meaning incomes now take 70 to 100 years to double — too slow for people to feel progress in their lifetimes. The significance of that change can’t be overstated. 

Stagnation does not have to be absolute to collapse expectations:When people no longer assume their or their children’s living standards will improve, trust in institutions erodes and discontent rises.

Why have world economies all ceased to grow? The author says that the reason lies in the shift from manufacturing to services. Apparently, this has undermined productivity growth:

One reason is the global shift from manufacturing to services. This has stalled the primary engine of economic expansion: productivity growth. Productivity — the output per hour worked — can rise quickly in manufacturing. A car factory that installs robotic assembly lines, for example, can double production without hiring more workers, perhaps even firing some. But in services, efficiency is much harder to improve. A restaurant that gets busier usually needs more servers. A hospital treating more patients will require more doctors and nurses. In service-based economies, productivity is always slower to rise.

This seismic shift, in the making for decades, has a name: deindustrialization. In America  and Europe, we know what that looks like: lost manufacturing jobs, amid declining demand for industrial goods. But deindustrialization is not limited to wealthy economies. The move from manufacturing to services is happening across the G20, dragging down growth rates nearly everywhere. Today about 50 percent of the world’s work force is employed in the service sector.

You might imagine that someone must be producing things. Not everyone is pushing paper. Curiously, the Trump administration is saying that America lost manufacturing jobs because they moved overseas. 

One hesitates to mention it, but over the past four decades China has grown its economy, significantly. So, the notion that growth has stopped in all the world economies is short-sighted.

It is a fair point that a lower birth rate requires less construction, less housing and less food. 

There’s another reason for global stagnation: slowing population growth. Birthrates surged after World War II, creating strong demand for housing and infrastructure construction and spurring the postwar boom.

This is a big problem for the economy. Shrinking workforces mean smaller future markets, discouraging businesses from expanding — especially in service-based economies, where, along with limited productivity gains, costs tend to rise. Investment falters. At the same time, a falling share of working-age people means fewer taxpayers supporting more retirees, driving up pension and health care costs and pressuring governments to raise taxes, increase debt or cut benefits.

Must we remark that, for all we know, the shrinking workforce might well be a temporary phenomenon. And, there are certain third world countries where the workforce is expanding.

For another, the industries generally targeted for revival — semiconductors, electric vehicles and renewable energy — employ relatively few workers. The era when manufacturing could provide mass employment is over.

You might think that this analysis is hiding something. As we read on we discover that the author is shilling for renewable energy sources, for overcoming fossil fuels, and for instituting more socialist programs, especially for income redistribution:

A major push toward a green transition, for example, could drive economic activity for years to come. 

In truth, European countries have been promoting a transition to green energy solutions. They have discovered that the push toward renewables has damaged their economies. In Germany they are looking to return to coal plants. They are shutting down their windmills. As is America.

As I said, the author is a socialist. He favors redistribution. Dare we say that this policy has been tried and has failed miserably. In Great Britain today, the Labour Party believes in redistribution. Wealthy Brits are naturally moving their fortunes out of the country. Why are we not surprised?

The second approach is redistribution. In the past, the primary rationale for policies that enriched wealthy households was to stimulate growth from the top down, but this strategy has evidently failed. Instead, governments could place much higher taxes on the rich and redistribute income to the rest of society.

Naturally, this economic historian does not recognize that wealth is relative. It is not absolute. It’s about market value more than about intrinsic value. If you are taxing people excessively they will not work as hard. They will not be as productive. Or they will take their talents to places where they are appreciated.

That requires investing to improve people’s lives: repairing ecosystems, rebuilding infrastructure and expanding housing. Doing so could also help create conditions for poorer nations to pursue export-led development on fairer and more predictable terms.

In a stagnant economy there will be neither the money nor the human capital to do these things. The author sounds clever, like the academic he is, but his solutions have largely been tried and failed. They are the problem, not the solution.

Is Transmania Over?

Perhaps she is being overly optimistic, but Julie Burchill tells us that transmania is over and done with in Great Britain. Since it is not over and done with on our side of the pond, we can only hope that the British are leading the way.

While dumber-than-a-post American judges are trying to ensconce transmania in our legal system, the British Supreme Court recently declared that there are only two sexes, male and female. 

Burchill has applauded the British Supreme Court for taking:

… a definitive step towards the overthrow of the crazed, tyrannical cult which has inexplicably gained power all around the world.

A crazed, tyrannical cult-- Julie Burchill has never minced her words. She reflects on the horrors that the cult have visited on people who have dared defy it, who have dared insist that there are only two sexes:

In the process of dignifying a male sexual fetish – autogynephilia – into the latest human rights crusade, careers have been ruined and reputations wrecked by trans activists and their creepy ‘allies’: all in the name of the ultimate patriarchal plan; to colonise everything won by women, from toilets to trophies, until we have nothing left of our own except the wombs in which the young among us may carry foetuses for rich homosexual men.

Is she right? Is transmania an effort to colonize women’s spaces? To compromise women’s privacy. We recall a high school student in California who was recently forced to change into her gym clothes in the presence of a male who was pretending to be female. 

And we recall that the girl testified in front of school officials, asserting a right to privacy, a phrase that should have been inscribed in every feminist mind, but which apparently has been sacrificed to the right of a man to force people to accept his delusional beliefs.

Burchill continues, pointing out that Tories were too weak to stop it, but that the Labour Party advanced the trans cause:

Yes, the Tories looked the other way and let it all happen, but it was Labour who embraced ‘trans rights’ with the slobbering fervour of a teenage fan getting hold of a boy-bander.

For Burchill, transmania is an assault on women, a failure to protect and defend them against cultists who insist that reality is what they think it is:

Time and again we see the aggression of males attempting to rob women of their hard-won necessities and pleasures. Brave women stand up against these wolves in ewes clothing, often to have their livelihoods and even lives ruined; cowardly women give in to them and become Transmaids.

Among those who have suffered for affirming the existence of two sexes in Great Britain is journalist Graham Linehan. 

Writing in the Times of London in support of the Supreme Court decision he explains that transmania resembles anorexia, an eating disorder that became fashionable some years ago.

I think that the trans movement for young girls has been a kind of anorexia 2.0. But the difference is that in the Seventies and Eighties people were very rightly saying, ‘No, you’re not fat. This is just a thought in your head and we need to work on that.’ But with the trans issue, the whole of society was saying [the equivalent of], ‘Yes, you are fat. It’s a problem.’

The tyrannical side of the trans cult lies in the notion that certain delusional individuals can force everyone to take them at their beliefs.

Linehan believes that the fight to preserve the right to privacy has been won, but that we are not done with surveying the damage and correcting it:

He does think the fight to preserve women’s single-sex spaces in public lavatories, changing rooms and women’s sports is probably won but argues that the toll on the health of biological girls who took gender-altering hormones and on biological boys prescribed oestrogen will persist. While fewer people will be fired for holding gender-critical views, the pro-trans bias will persist in the television, theatre and publishing industries “because those areas are heavily captured”.

Undoing the harm this cult has visited on countless children will require special care for those who have mutilated themselves in its name:

But does he feel any sympathy for a trans person who had undergone treatment, and perhaps surgery, only now to find their gender recognition certificate effectively worthless? “Well, I guess so but it’s just one of those things that should never have happened in the first place,” he replies, reciting the dangers of hormone therapy and the “lie” that puberty blockers are reversible. “I do have sympathy for them but I don’t have sympathy for the people who lied to them. They’re the ones who I really, really hate.”

And Brendan O’Neill has a few words of his own in Spiked about those poor pitiful souls who have been denouncing the court decision::

I’ve found my soundtrack for spring: the caterwauling of fellas in dresses following yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling. It’s delicious. They’re raging about the ‘fascism’ of no longer being allowed to get their knobs out in the women’s changing room. They’re agonising over where they’re supposed to take a shit now. Their Adam’s apples are getting a mighty fine workout as they wail into the void about being ‘erased’ by ‘transphobes’. It’s the sound of men being stripped of their entitlements by women who’ve had enough of their crap, and I am so here for it.

Sunday Fundraising

With a warm welcome to new subscribers. And, a special thank-you to paid subscribers.

Being as today is Sunday, we take the day off from opining in order to request donations. They are the fuel that keeps this work going. 

Not to be overly obvious, but it takes time and effort to put up a new post daily. Very few others manage to do so. Thus, it’s a job, one that is worthy of compensation. 

If you would like to donate please make use of the Paypal link on this page. If you prefer, you can mail a check to 310 East 46th St. 24H. New York, NY 10017. Please make the check out to my name, Stuart Schneiderman.

I’m counting on you. 

If you have already donated, please pass the word along to your friends, family, neighbors, associates and colleagues.

Please accept this expression of my gratitude for those who will donate and for those who have done so already. Many thanks!

Saturday Miscellany

First, from Lord Pearson, a member of the British House of Lords, a statistic that is so awful that you doubt its validity. And yet, in once-Great Britain, grooming gangs of Muslims have been allowed to prey on British girls for decades now.

250,000 WHITE British girls have been raped in the last 25 years, OVER 90% by Muslims - Lord Pearson in the House of Lords. The numbers are staggering, an absolutely Satanic presence overshadows all of the West, fueled by literal demons.

Second, in the meantime the inept Democratic Party has chosen a hill to die on-- a Salvadoran member of MS-13, a wife beater and suspected human trafficker. 

Bill Melugin reports at Fox News:

NEW: @FoxNews has obtained the written domestic violence allegations from Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wife in 2021, in which she alleges he is a repeat wife beater & writes “At this point, I am afraid to be close to him. I have multiple photos/videos of how violent he can be and all the bruises he bas left me.” In her own handwriting, she alleges that Abrego Garcia punched and scratched her on her eye, leaving her bleeding after throwing her laptop on the floor. She writes that on another day, he got angry again, started yelling, and ripped her shirt and shorts off, then grabbed her arm, leaving marks.  She also writes that in two times in 2020, he hit her.  "In November 2020, he hit me with his work boot". "In August 2020, hit me in the eye leaving a purple eye."

Evidently, the details appeal to Senator Van Hollen.

Third, to sustain the argument made yesterday about the coming civil war in Europe, a word from Vienna, Austria-- where Christian students are being displaced by Muslims.

Remix News reports:

For the first time, Muslim students are the largest religious group in Vienna’s schools, underlining the incredible demographic transformation taking place in the Austrian city. The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) is now raising the alarm.

Muslim students now account for 41.2 percent of all students, while Christian students fell to 34.5 percent. The trend is only growing, and is accompanied by rising problems, including violence in schools, anti-Semitism, and contempt for women.

Failing to adopt to the local customs, these new pupils are bringing violence, anti-Semitism and misogyny to Europe. Way to go, Austria.

Fourth, if you want to book a speech from former president Biden, it will cost you $300,000, and a private jet and accommodations for five staffers.

Funnily enough, the agency that books Biden is having a problem finding takers.

Fifth, from the satirical site, The Babylon Bee:

In a desperate attempt to return to family and friends they haven't seen in over a year and a half, American hostages being held by Hamas reportedly disguised themselves as MS-13 gang members so Democrats would fight to bring them home to the U.S.

After being held captive since late 2023 with little sign of their elected officials being motivated to bring them home, sources said the Americans still in the custody of Hamas had devised a clever plan to cover themselves in MS-13 tattoos so congressional Democrats would advocate for them.

Sixth, on the therapy front, our intrepid mental health professionals have just discovered a new way to enhance your emotional well being. You guessed it-- the answer is gossip.

The New York Post reports that it’s a social bonding ritual:

There’s no denying that everyone loves a good gossip sesh. And it turns out — spilling the tea to a friend is actually good for your mental health.

Sure, gabbing gets a bad rep, as it’s usually viewed as rude or impolite.

However, it’s also considered a relatively healthy way to socially bond with other people, according to Dr. Charles Sweet, medical advisor at Linear Health and a board-certified psychiatrist.

In addition to the trust and liking for a person that gossiping builds, it also serves as an emotional release. Getting off the phone with a friend and feeling like a weight was lifted off your shoulders is an unmatched feeling.

Doesn’t this feel like therapy? At a slightly lower price, I must add:

“Being heard and seen is a big mental health benefit of gossip. If something’s really weighing on you and you’re able to speak it out loud with people who are listening, that is going to reduce some of the stress in your body,” said Hoerr.

I’m the first one to admit when I see someone post about something on social media that I personally don’t agree with — I’ll dish to my mom or a close friend about it.

“Gossip can be harmful when it’s used to exclude others, spread misinformation, or make someone look bad. But in its basic form, it’s a fundamental part of communication. When used productively, gossiping can help us learn, connect, and protect ourselves.”

So, connecting with other people, especially to discuss trivial details or events, can improve your mental health. Who knew?

Seventh, according to the City Journal, America’s real problem is overregulation. Too many bureaucratic regulations have stifled industrial productivity. 

Over the past eight years, federal agencies have issued more than 500 new rules, each carrying an average annual cost of $100 million. The burden on businesses is immense. A recent report finds that complying with federal regulations costs large firms $29,100 per employee per year—and an even steeper $50,100 for small firms.

This expanding regulatory state is doing more to cripple American manufacturing than taxes or tariffs, writes Mark P. Mills. Since 2000, the U.S. has shed 3 million manufacturing jobs. Had the sector declined by only half as much, domestic manufacturing output would be $1 trillion higher—enough to erase the entire trade deficit.

Eighth, also from the City Journal, a note about what are called gender-affirming surgery, that is, mastectomies performed on adolescent females:

After nearly four decades as a plastic surgeon, Richard T. Bosshardt has watched “gender-affirming” surgeries become more common—especially among adolescent girls. The most frequent procedure, known as “top surgery,” removes healthy breast tissue to give the appearance of a male chest. Some patients are as young as 13.

Bosshardt considers these procedures a medical and ethical disaster. He warns of serious risks, including infection, bleeding, and blood clots, and compares the current enthusiasm for such interventions with the now-discredited practice of frontal lobotomies. “We will one day view ‘gender-affirming care’ in minors with the same revulsion,” he writes.

Ninth, speaking of transmania, Wesley Yang has an excellent description:

Inflicting the ultimate sexual violence on a person brainwashed to yearn for it and taught to threaten suicide if they can’t get it while proclaiming that one is thereby helping them to be their “authentic self” and that this violent disfigurement is “lifesaving” and “medically necessary” is a terminal travesty — the ultimate corruption of medicine and science by a cult that enables self-destructive pathology, preens as virtuous protectors of the marginalized as it consigns those it affects to save to ruined health in damaged bodies, and calls all those who seek to stop this mania the worst and most toxic polticized insults in order to justify taking their basic freedoms of speech and conscience. All this proceeds from a basic failure of diagnosis and treatment, of being able to preserve a concept of health distinct from the desires of the individual, especially when those desires are so plainly induced by a cultish multi-level marketing scheme masquerading as a civil rights movement exploiting troubled children in order to propagate itself.

Last but not least, I have some free consulting hours in my life coaching practice. If you are interested, email me at StuartSchneiderman@gmail.com.