Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Harvard sues the Trumpistas

Harvard's statement, including a link to the complaint.  May they prevail, and quickly!  (I am assuming that the Trumpistas will comply with court decisions.  If that assumption is wrong, then we're all dead, perhaps literally.)

Harvard sues the Trumpistas

Harvard's statement, including a link to the complaint.  May they prevail, and quickly!  (I am assuming that the Trumpistas will comply with court decisions.  If that assumption is wrong, then we're all dead, perhaps literally.)

War on the universities, Texas edition

Amazing:

SB 37, authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, fundamentally reshapes how colleges and universities approach curriculum, course selection and other elements tied to instruction. Among its provisions:

• It establishes a method to file complaints about schools suspected of not complying with such changes 
• It creates a state-appointed committee to assess which core curricula are "foundational" and which could be cut 
• The group would include members appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor  and Texas House speaker—none of whom are required to be students, faculty or university administrators to serve on the committee
• It calls for colleges and universities to end or revise degree programs if the state (under the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board review) deems the programs do not offer a return on investment for students 
• It requires that courses cannot "require or attempt to require a student to adopt any race, sex, or ethnicity or social or political or religious belief is inherently superior to any other." 

Conservatives who believe in the rule of law, 4th Circuit edition

Excellent opinion written by Judge Wilkinson (a Reagan appointee) regarding the wrongful deportation of a Maryland man to El Salvador:

It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.

This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear....

“Facilitation” [as the Supreme Court required the government to do] does not permit the admittedly erroneous deportation of an individual to the one country’s prisons that the withholding order forbids and, further, to do so in disregard of a court order that the government not so subtly spurns. “Facilitation” does not sanction the abrogation of habeas corpus through the transfer of custody to foreign detention centers in the manner attempted here. Allowing all this would “facilitate” foreign detention more than it would domestic return. It would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.

The battle for basic freedom and the rule of law is just being "joined" now by the courts, with two district courts laying the foundations for holding govenrment lawyers and officials in contempt and imposing sanctions.  The Supreme Court in the wee hours of Saturday morning also blocked the deportation of more Venezuelans without due process.  (Justices Alito and Thomas, who have almost never met an exericse of executive power they disapproved of, dissented [see Professor Dorf's comments]; but the three justices Trump appointed--Barrett, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh--all joined the majority in issuing this unusual order, one that reflects the awareness of the normal justices that they are not dealing with a normal or law-abiding executive.)

Richard Marshall interviews Jeffrey King about his recent work in philosophy of language...

...at 3:16 AM.

Austria welcoming US academics

A job site here, and a news article (auf Deutsch) here.

"The emergency is here"

Ezra Klein sums it up pretty well and, as far as I can see, he's completely correct:

The crisis is now. It is not six months away. It is not another Supreme Court ruling away from happening. It’s happening now.

Perhaps not to you, not yet. But to others. Real people. We know their names. We know their stories.

The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists. A prison known by its initials — CECOT. A prison built for disappearance. A prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, because it is a prison that does not intend to release its inhabitants back out into the world. It is a prison where the only way out, in the words of El Salvador’s so-called justice minister, is a coffin.

Harvard Law's Jack Goldsmith (former Office of Legal Counsel under GW Bush) on what has "surprised" him about Trump

Here:

[S]everal things have surprised me. I wasn’t prepared for the extent of the onslaught. It’s really just remarkable how many things they’re doing, especially inside the executive branch, to try to bring complete control of the president.

And I wasn’t expecting the extent of the loyalty tests and the insistence that the president gets to determine what the law is and that there’s no independent legal check....

[The Office of Legal Counsel] has been basically set aside and the White House is interpreting law, and the basic rule appears to be if the president wants to do something, it’s lawful.

That really does seem to be the operating principle. So the extent of that surprises me. The extortionate elements of the administration, the shakedown elements. They remind me of a book I wrote about Hoffa and the mob. That has all surprised me.

If Professor Goldsmith has been following the blog, that last bit would not have surprised him!

Blast from the past: what kind of background needed for graduate work in philosophy of physics?

Back in 2009, with reader discussion.

Trump is so bad, even Thomas Friedman has to notice!

Good for him for using his big platform to say this:

This whole Trump II administration is a cruel farce. Trump ran for another term not because he had any clue how to transform America for the 21st century. He ran in order to stay out of jail and to get revenge on those who, with real evidence, had tried to hold him accountable to the law.....

The world is now seeing Trump’s America for exactly what it is becoming: a rogue state led by an impulsive strongman disconnected from the rule of law and other constitutional American principles and values.

Legal actions on behalf of those whose NEH grants have been terminated?

A scholar elsewhere writes:

Though I haven’t been notified, so I am not completely sure, it seems [my NEH Fellowship] has been terminated. At least that is what I have just now gleaned from the website for my grant. Are you aware of any legal actions by individuals or organizations whose grants have been terminated?

Readers, any information?

Statement of the Columbia Philosophy Department on the federal kidnapping of their student

Here:  

It has come to the attention of members of the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University that one of our students, Mohsen Mahdawi, was detained in Vermont by agents of the Department of Homeland Security.

We express our horror and dismay at the fact that a legal resident of the United States — someone who has been accused of no crime — should be detained in this manner. We would like to convey our sympathy and our support to Mohsen, to his family, and to his friends.

We call upon the Provost and Acting President of Columbia University to assist by all means, including through the provision of material and legal resources, any Columbia student targeted or detained—and seemingly only for having exercised their right to the free and peaceful expression of political opinion.

The case of the man wrongfully deported to El Salvador

The district court judge's patience is wearing thin:  she's laying the foundation for holding the government lawyers in contempt and imposing sanctions.  It's pretty clear, as the judge says, that nothing has been done to "facilitate" the return of the victim here.  The depositions of government officials and lawyers will no doubt confirm this over the next two weeks.  Then the judge will have to act.

ADDENDUM:  As reader Henry Cohen rightly points out to me, since almost all those deported to the El Salvador concentration camp were not afforded due process, their cases may all be as egregious wrongdoings as the case currently garnering all the attention.  

ANOTHER:  See also:  U.S. citizens are next.

Three philosophers win 2025 Guggenheim Fellowships

They are:   James Dwyer (William & Mary), Hannah Ginsborg (Berkeley), and Simon Hutteger (UC Irvine).

Trump's defiance of the courts continues

The Associated Press was still barred from a Trump press conference, despite a court order  Just to be clear: if  Trump does not obey the courts, the courts do have some options.  But when those options are exhausted, then the rule of law is officially over, and the United States is officially a dictatorship.  Courts are the last bulwark for civil society.  Harvard, after all, can't get its federal monies back by sending its militia to DC to seize it.

Another green card holder--a philosophy major at Columbia--kidnapped by federal agents...

...because of his lawful political speech.  A court has already ordered the government to keep the victim in Vermont, where he was attending a citizenship interview.  We will see how this court order fares.

(Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)

Leading research universities sue Trump Department of Energy over unlawful withholding of monies

Complaint here.  Plaintiffs include Brown, Caltech, Cornell, Michigan, MIT Illinois, Princeton, and others.  Another hopeful sign, although only if the Trumpistas comply with adverse court decisions!

Harvard Law School negotiation expert advises law firms: do *not* negotiate with Trump

Good advice for universities too.

Some good news: Harvard will *not* capitulate

Harvard President Garber just sent out this message to the Harvard community:

Late Friday night, the administration issued an updated and expanded list of demands, warning that Harvard must comply if we intend to “maintain [our] financial relationship with the federal government.” It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner. Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the “intellectual conditions” at Harvard.
 
I encourage you to read the letter to gain a fuller understanding of the unprecedented demands being made by the federal government to control the Harvard community. They include requirements to “audit” the viewpoints of our student body, faculty, staff, and to “reduc[e] the power” of certain students, faculty, and administrators targeted because of their ideological views. We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement. The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.
 
The administration’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 party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.

Kudos to Harvard and President Garber!  Every university in the country has to join the amicus briefs.

ADDENDUM:  I note that Harvard has tapped as one of its two lawyers, William Burck of Quinn Emmanuel, who has represented Steve Bannon and Trump in other matters.  The other, Robert Hur of King & Spalding, was the independent counsel who prepared the report on Biden's mishandling of classified information.

UPDATE:  The Trumpistas have retaliated by freezing more than $2 billion in grants and contracts.  Harvard will now file suit, I assume.

The moment of truth has arrived: Trump Administration now openly defying a Supreme Court decision...

...regarding a man wrongfully deported to El Salvodor.   The district judge handling this case needs to hold the lawyers in contempt, and then jail them and/or fine them personally until they comply.  (The tinpot dictator of El Salvador is now just doing the bidding of the wannabe tinpot dictator of America.  No one doubts that if Trump told El Salvodor to deliver the victim for return to the US, El Salavdor would instantly comply.)

ADDENDUM:  As this author notes, in the same meeting between Trump and the El Salvador leader, Trump explicitly mentioned deporting citizens.   Since he's already ignoring the courts, nothing will stop him from doing so.

Trump's litany of tyrannical actions...

...so far, but a useful list.

The "red line" for the universities with respect to Trump should be "academic freedom"

I agree with my colleague Tom Ginsburg's assessment, although disagree about Columbia:  putting a program into receivership at the behst of the government for political reasons is a clear violation of academic freedom. 

Trump "doesn't give a damn" about anti-semitism

This seems right:

“Donald Trump doesn’t give a damn about antisemitism. If he did, he wouldn’t be dining with known antisemites,” Yohnka said. “What Donald Trump cares about is power and nobody criticizing him, and he realizes that academic institutions are going to study his failed policies.”

"Little Marco Rubio" (as Trump dubbed him) tells court that the authoritarian government...

MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 10, SINCE THE WICKED NEVER REST

...can deport permanent residents of the U.S. if they have the wrong beliefs.  Yes, seriously.  How long before they get to citizens?

UPDATE (4/12/25):  These fascists are already talking about deporing U.S. citizens (only "criminals" of course, but even so, it's illegal, and they'll move beyond criminals quickly).

Harvard AAUP chapter (and national AAUP) sue federal government over extortion of Harvard

The lawsuit is here; the "prelimimnary" statement of the facts sums up well the outrageous and unlawful misconduct of the Trumpistas.

Can international students safely study in the US for an extended period of time?

Probably not.  Please explore your options in more civilized countries, given what's happening here.

Tariff humor

As most readers will know, the monster child, who is as ignorant as he is depraved, imposed tariffs on island countries inhabited mostly by penguins.  Hence this amusing item making the rounds on social media:

BBVA "Foundations of Knowledge" prize in humanities goes to Philip Kitcher...

...only the third philosopher (along with Noam Chomsky and Peter Singer) to receive this lucrative (400k euros) award, sponsored by the Spanish financial firm of BBVA.

It's been three weeks since Columbia University capitulated to Trump's extortion

Is there any sign they are getting the $400 million?  Please post links or information about where the university stands in its effort to recover the illegally withheld monies.

UPDATE:  As commenters point out, below, the NIH has also cut another $250 million in grants to Columbia since the capitulation!  Surely now they have to get a court to enjoin this lawless behavior.

ANOTHER:  And new comes a report that the Trump Administration may seek a consent decree, which would mean a federal judge would monitor Columbia Univeristy for compliance with the terms the Trumpistas want to impose.

STILL MORE:  Recall the earlier warning.  Lee Bollinger should "lawyer up" given who is he is dealing with.  So should Harvard!  And better lawyers than the ones who advised Claudine Gay before her congressional appearance last year.

Andrews from York U/Toronto to CUNY Graduate Center

MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 8--UPDATED

Kristin Andrews (philosophy of mind and cognitive science, especially "animal minds"), who holds a Canada Research Chair in York and cognitive science at York University, Toronto, has accepted a senior offer from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she will start this fall.  That's a significant hire for CUNY, which is already one of the top programs in philosophy of the psychological, cognitive and brain sciences.

UPDATE:  Professor Andrews writes:  "I think it might be worth noting that York retained Kevin Lande from Oxford. This was a significant retention for York, which continues to have an excellent philosophy of cognitive science/mind program with Beck, Lande, Rini, Mahr, and our latest hire, Soter."

Declining Admissions Offers in a Timely Way

MOVING TO FRONT, SINCE RELEVANT AGAIN (originally posted 2011)

============================================

Keith DeRose (Yale) writes:

    Since prospective graduate students read your blog for information and advice on applying to graduate programs, I was wondering whether it might be a good idea for you to run a short post on an important way that applicants can help one another.

     Every year, many applicants get into better programs than they otherwise would have by eventually being accepted by a program that initially put them on a waiting list.  (I myself got into the program I attended off their waiting list.  In fact, I think I was quite a ways down UCLA's waiting list.)  Often, though, the management of waiting lists gets extremely messy, especially right before and on April 15, and the consequences of this messiness are often results that are far from optimal for the students involved.

     I don't think there's any feasible way to completely solve these problems, but the applicants themselves can make things much better for one another by declining offers as soon as they're in a position to, so the programs involved can then go to their waiting lists.

     Sometimes this can be done simply by making one's decision earlier.  Once they have all the relevant information, given it a little chance to sink in, mulled it over a  bit, and talked things over with their advisers, students can often do everyone -- including themselves!-- a favor by making a decision significantly in advance of April 15. 

    However, I realize that for various reasons, some will delay making their decision until the bitter end.  In addition to reasons of personal psychology, sometimes this is done because students are hoping themselves to get into a better program than they've so far been accepted at off of a waiting list.

Most cited works in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Courtesy of Professor Schwitzgebel.  It will be interesting to see how this list changes over time.

Brown University has a lot of staff (and some faculty) doing DEI work

A Brown undergraduate put together this list--since he's a bit clueless, he thinks these positions are "illegal" (they are not:  just because the Trumpistas don't like DEI, doesn't make it illegal).  What's stunning is how many there are.

The latest targets of the Trumpistas

Cornell and Northwestern.  Cornell faculty have initiated a letter to their Board of Trustees urging them not to capitulate.  The Northwestern President, former Dean of the Law School here (he was a very good Dean), is a lawyer, and I am hopeful he will fight in the courts to put a stop to this lawlessness.

Philosophy job applicants in 2024

Interesting data from philosopher Charles Lassiter.

Suitably scathing assessment of the first two months of authoritarian government under Trump...

...from Andrew Sullivan; an excerpt:

Trump has also abandoned habeas corpus and due process by invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to seize mere suspects off the streets and transport them instantly to a terrifying foreign jail in El Salvador. The law has only been used twice before in wartime, and, ahem, we are not at war. Anyone with brown skin and the wrong kind of tattoo is therefore now at risk of being carted off to torture by the US government, with absolutely no safeguards that they have gotten the right people. Or do you think that an administration that confuses billions with millions, and puts classified intelligence on a Signal app, is incapable of making an error?

We therefore have no way of knowing if a makeup artist who legally sought asylum was rightly grabbed off the street to face certain rape and violence. And when Tom Homan was asked about due process in this case, he actually answered: “What due process did Laken Riley get?” Unbelievable that this thug is in charge of anything.

Then the utter indecency. These wannabe fascists publicly delight and revel in their acts of domination in a manner that even despotic regimes avoid. For the DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, to posture in front of a third-world gulag, with a $50,000 Rolex on her wrist, in order to scare any brown person with a tattoo in the US, is an exercise in authoritarian pornography. It is fascistic in its essence. For the White House to put out photographs of an obese criminal detainee, and add a cartoon of her in tears so that Trump can get a dictator’s boner, is pure depravity. No Christian, no believer in human dignity, no decent human being, would ever do such a thing.

The right to voluntary euthanasia

Philosopher Antony Flew discusses in 1980.

(Thanks to Richard Marshall for the pointer.)

Finlay, formerly of ACU and Southern California, will join Illinois/Urbana

Stephen Finlay, a leading figure in metaethics, will become Professor of Philosophy at the Univeristy of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (from which he received his PhD many years ago) this fall.  Finlay was formerly Professor of Philosophy and Director of the ill-fated Dianoia Institute of Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University, and, before that, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California.  Finlay's hire is the latest senior recruitment at Illinois, which returned to the top 50 in last year's PGR.  This latest appointment should push the department closer to the top 40.

More than 380 books purged from the Naval Academy Library...

...which is what fasicsts do when they don't simply burn books.  Philosopher George Yancy tells me his books were among the purged, as were books by other philosophers, including Linda Alcoff and Charles Mills, among others.

The Multi-Day In-Class LockDown Browser Essay Assignment

Interesting proposal from philosopher John Robison:  Download Lockdown browser post 3.30.2025

 

Universities must make a collective commitment to fight the lawlessness of the Trumpistas in court

A sensible proposal from three law professors (Samuel Bagenstos [Michigan], Ryan Doerfler [Harvard], David Pozen [Columbia]).  Faculty should send a link to this piece to their university leadership!

Another journal (this time in math) abandons Wiley

In this morning's email, a letter from the former editors of Mathematical Logic Quarterly:

Today, 7 April 2025, the entire editorial board of the journal "MLQ: Mathematical Logic Quarterly"

published by Wiley-VCH GmbH has announced its coordinated resignation.

The editors (with the exception of those still under contract with Wiley) have simultaneously launched

a new English-language diamond open access journal "ZML: Zeitschrift für Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik" available here:

   https://zml.international

At the journal website, you can find the letter explaining their decisions, and the concerns are familiar.

If you could change one thing in the world...

...what would it be?  Academics, including philosophers, discuss on this podcast.

With students being blacklisted and rounded up...

...philosopher Mathias Risse issues a "call to action."

The Trump war on universities

The targets so far:  Columbia, Penn, Harvard, Princeton, Brown.  All but Princeton have medical schools, and research medical schools get very large amounts of money from the federal government through the NIH.  Major research universities without med schools--like Princeton, but also Berkeley, MIT, and Caltech--may be somewhat less vulnerable precisely for this reason, although they all get non-trivial amounts of federal money for research in the natural and life sciences, but typically less than the comparable universities with med schools.  Ironically, liberal arts colleges are likely to be least scathed by the Trumpista rampage, precisely because of lower amounts of federally funded research.   As the research capabilities of the leading research universities are degraded, expect a migration of faculty to countries in Europe and Asia with better funding.

Now the Trumpistas come for Brown University...

....let's hope they also don't capitulate.

The ruling class can't be happy with Trump's destruction of global markets...

...and there are signs they've been speaking to their bought-and-paid-for Senators.  Manuavering in the House of Representatives may be trickier, but I will bet the votes are there.

NEH grants cancelled

It starts.  Garbage people like Musk and the Trumpistas have no use for culture, of course.

Anti-government speech no longer allowed at NYU...

...or at least at the medical school.  The fear of medical schools of losing government support has been a thread in many of these capitulations.  

National Endowment for the Humanities under attack from Musk & the Trumplodytes

Several philosophers have asked me to share this message from the National Humanities Alliance:

 

"I am reaching out from the National Humanities Alliance to give you an important update on the NEH. On Monday, March 31, 2025 we learned that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is targeting the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) with the aim of substantially reducing its staff, cutting the agency’s grant programs, and rescinding grants that have already been awarded. You can read our full statement and see resources on our website.

As we have seen with similar actions, including the recent attack on IMLS, these actions have the potential to devastate the agency and, of course, the humanities community that relies on these government funds.