Hearing Bob Oakes' voice in a story brings a happy tear to my eye.

Or as we used to call him 'bahbokes', one word.

#NPR #WBUR

#Harvard professors sue #Trump administration over funding cut threats

by Katie Cole, April 14, 2025, #WBUR

"The Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors sued the Trump administration Friday over what they call an 'unlawful and unprecedented' attempt to use federal funding cuts to restrict #FreeSpeech.

"The #DepartmentOfEducation announced in late March that it would review $8.7 billion in federal grants and contacts given to Harvard, alleging that the school failed to prevent #antisemitic discrimination on campus.

"The Trump administration then unveiled a broad set of demands on April 4 the university must agree to in order to keep getting federal funding, including cutting all diversity, equity and inclusion programming, and modifying any programming and departments that 'fuel antisemitic harassment.' The administration gave Columbia University a similar set of demands in March, which the school agreed to.

"The lawsuit by the professors' group, filed in #Massachusetts federal court, alleges that the administration's federal funding review violates the #TitleVI of the #CivilRightsAct, which prohibits discrimination in programs that receive federal funds. The court filing says the law requires specific procedures to cut federal funds and that the Trump administration has not taken any of those steps.

"The group said in a press release that the administration's actions are in effort to create a chilling effect among universities and faculty to stop speech that the president does not like.

" 'Eliminating discrimination and protecting all students is important,' said Nikolas Bowie, a Harvard law professor and the secretary-treasurer of the school's #AAUP chapter, in a statement. 'But Trump is defying the Civil Rights Act, terrifying students, and illegally holding hostage grants for hospitals and scientific research so he can accomplish his real goal of punishing academics for our politics.'

"The lawsuit says that the actions by the administration have 'already caused severe and irreparable harm by halting #academic #research and #inquiry at Harvard.'

"This is the second suit that the Harvard AAUP chapter has filed against the Trump administration this year. The first was a joint suit with other chapters, including one from Columbia, over federal efforts to deport #MahmoudKhalil and students that engaged in #ProPalestinian #activism."

https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/04/14/harvard-aaup-trump-funding-cuts-lawsuit

#SilencingDissent #CharacteristicsOfFascism #Fascism #Authoritarian #Authoritarianism #BibiIsAWarCriminal #FreeMahmoudKhalil #FreePalestine #AcademicFreedom #FreeSpeech #TrumpIsABully #DEI #Erasure #Censorship

UMass medical school implements hiring and spending freeze, considers layoffs

from #wbur

https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/03/12/umass-medical-school-hiring-spending-freeze

The local #NPR station #WBUR just has an interview with a former Harvard Medical School exec on the new #NIH indirect-cost rates.
He did an absolutely TERRIBLE job of explaining what that means beyond "loss of funding, jobs, and research."

SO, here's a primer on indirect expenses and why a 15% indirect rate in a research contract is stupid and harmful:

DIRECT expenses in a grant or contract pay for things used exclusively for that contract: researcher salaries, test tubes, chemicals, centrifuges.

INDIRECT (or "overhead") expenses pay to keep the institution functioning; building maintenance, electricity, the IT department, computers, support staff salaries, the cafeteria. The organization maps these expenses to contracts by assigning an "overhead rate" that enables the total of the received grants or contracts to pay for the total upkeep for the organization. OVERHEAD COSTS ARE NOT WASTE!

TL;DR: You can't do *anything*, especially research, without heat, lights, food, computers, and clerical staff.

When I worked for some small, *very lean* tech organizations, we charged overhead rates of between 70% and 125%. This was to build shoebox-sized space electronic devices.

Medical research, especially for large studies, is WAY more expensive than electronics development!

No organization - especially medical science institutions - can possibly function with an indirect expense rate of 15%.

This action is either gross incompetence or deliberate sabotage.