My first comment after years of admiring your work, Roger. I agree that Congress needs to work harder to check the executive branch, but how can we (the People) get Congress to do its job? Our power to demand transparency, initiative, results, is to a large degree a function of our literacy and interest in the issues. If we want Congress to protect scientific endeavor and freedom of thought, we need to be smarter and more persistent in our scrutiny. Our elected reps should feel steady pressure to forestall witch hunts and politically correct enthusiasms. A substack like yours can, I think, make a real difference.
What do you think public reaction would be if universities started announcing they have to extensively cut NCAA program that are subsidized by the rest of university operations in response to what’s going on?
I've read various comments here and elsewhere expressing the notion along the lines - the problems with the US government today are so significant that it is OK to ignore or violate the Constitution. I do not agree with this line of argument. At all.
Look at the comments on USAID's history below in the chain, great example. Everyone needs to be careful about what they think was done constitutionally in the first place.
"Everyone needs to be careful about what they think was done constitutionally in the first place."
If we're going to do that, we should start with James Madison, who pointed out this indisputable truth:
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
:-)
Of course, that means that virtually everything Congress is spending money on these days is unconstitutional: not just all foreign aid, but also Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, all educational grants, etc.
But I doubt even one person, including Donald Trump and every member of his cabinet, every member of Congress, and every judge on the Supreme Court, would say that Donald Trump should stop all those programs immediately, simply because they're indisputably unconstitutional.
My comments on Twitter/X about my anger at Donald Trump (or really, Elon Musk and his young minions, because Donald Trump obviously is not paying attention to what they do) stopping funding on PEPFAR (the "President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief") caused confusion (and anger) both on Twitter/X and at Reason magazine.
For those not up on developments regarding PEPFAR, the program, among other things, provides preventative AIDS medications for pregnant mothers, so their children aren't born with AIDS. That funding was stopped. It has been estimated that 100,000+ children will be born with AIDS if the funding is paused for 90 days. (In other words, more than 1000 children will be born with AIDS for every day the program funding is stopped.)
On Twitter, I was asked:
"as a strict constitutionalist who believes that (PEPFAR) spending is unconstitutional, why wouldn't you be happy about that (if in fact it's more than a transient glitch)?"
My response was:
I'm not happy because the *oath* is, "...and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution..." If Donald Trump thinks US AID is constitutional, he is *obligated* to perform the tasks that Congress has authorized US AID to carry out, such as PEPFAR.
The Constitution contains nothing that authorizes a president to simply not carry out the tasks that Congress appropriates money for him to carry out, if those tasks are constitutional...simply because those tasks don't fit in with *his* agenda.
Congress writes laws and appropriates money for tasks. The president follows laws, and carries out those tasks. The president is *not* authorized by the Constitution to pick and choose the laws he's going to follow, and the congressionally authorized tasks he'll implement.
It would be nice indeed if Congress had returned to lawmaking - in real terms - long ago. The cascade of consequences from judicial incursions to agency overreach to budget excesses and more might have been avoided, the country less at odds (the US has always been polarized, more or less). Water under the bridge. The problem now is that sunsetting agencies and programs, defunding funding that never should have been committed in the first place, reducing a vast and heavily unionized federal workforce (the main engine of job growth during Biden in direct federal employment and indirect federally funded industries and enterprises) is probably impossible without a DOGE wrecking ball.
Whereas the fundamental problem with DEI is recognized in the article - namely considerations other than the science and evidence-based conclusions of the various studies have played an outsized role in what has been accepted as viable research programs while the DEI program was forced on everyone, (academics or otherwise), there is an equal problem that conclusions not evident from the facts will be thrown into the discussion. As long as the E stands for Equity in DEI there is no academic freedom, nor has there ever been academic freedom, as it pertains to a diversity of thought and a true exploration of everything that should be included in analyzing the results of any test.
It appears that one conclusion has come from the evidence that funding of specific programs in one area being paused, pending a review of the application being funded, that this then is a backlash demonstrating anti-academic freedom. People may have that tendency on a personal level but on a professional level, no business will survive, let alone thrive, if individuals are allowed to stay in their job who believe it's necessary to limit innovation. It's the limit to independence and innovation that has created the massive rejection of the DEI & CRT philosophies. This nation was founded by people rejecting the limits placed on them by a ruling class and the reason this nation grew to the strongest and wealthiest nation as quickly as it did was this underlying belief system. The backlash to DEI you describe correctly is the inevitable result of suppressing free-thinking individuals in this manner.
There is little doubt professors who subscribe wholeheartedly to the DEI philosophy will be overly offended by the legislation telling them they can't apply the principles of Equity in their lives just as those who recognized the problem with Equity at the onset, so many years ago, where equally offended by the obvious limitations imposed by this philosophy. In reality, the only limits to Academic freedom, created by the legislation removing the formal DEI references, are from the affected professors. Since we have taken such large strides in removing the thought police the only limits to academic freedom are the imaginations of those involved. If they believe their grant proposals are being rejected by anti-DEI "thought police" then perhaps they should do one of two things, either examine the reasons for the rejection for validity or rewrite the grant proposal so it doesn't sound the way it's being interpreted and do it anyway. An honest test should ultimately yield honest answers.
Final thoughts, when individuals refuse to recognize the underlying foundation of any principle they have learned in the past then what was once will be again and again and again. It is our ability to innovate, create, and question that allows us to grow and if not then principles equal politics so clearer thought is still opaque we just can't recognize it.
The academic establishment is racist giving preference to various races they like. They diminish races they don't like such as Asians. This is nothing new but at least they kept quiet about the Jewish quota. They are not a bit better than the worst Southern racists of years past. They deserve to be put out on the street for violating federal law and the constitution.
Seducing young students with student loans is a moral crime. Steeling from naive youth to feather their own nest.
Science is highly corrupt. Witness the acceptance of the IPCC and the crushing of anyone who tells the truth.
Congress can not create independent administrative agencies, e.g. USAID. This violates the Constitutional provision that all executive powers are vested in the president. Watch for this issue to reach the Supreme Court in the next year or two. We have only 3 branches of government under the Constitution, not 4.
I don't see much mention of "supply chain" and national defense in the tariff discussion, so let me just add that tariffs and some protectionism can be virtues if done for purposes of keeping us relatively independent of countries who might control us if they hold the keys to vital resources. They are, also, enough of an economic lever/threat that they can be used to get the attention of other countries that need to change their policies toward the USA. They are certainly a gentler tool than declaring war or declaring total sanctions to get our interests addressed. Unfortunately, tariffs often get hijacked by political interests beholden to a specific industry with political clout. Like almost everything, "good" or "bad" is an oversimplification regarding tariffs -- but memories are short (no one remembers COVID PPE supply chain issues or oil dependence on OPEC) and nuanced thinking doesn't play well in the media or politics.
Thanks for the list! On the last point—all of government is too powerful, but yes, Congress must do more legislation and the Executive less rule writing to plug the gap. But the overall volume of rules must come down dramatically; pretty good heuristic for personal freedom and economic growth I’ll bet.
“After his inauguration as president on January 20, 1961, JFK created the Peace Corps by Executive Order on March 1, 1961. On March 22, he sent a special message to Congress on foreign aid, asserting that the 1960s should be a "Decade of Development" and proposing to unify U.S. development assistance administration into a single agency. He sent a proposed "Act for International Development" to Congress in May and the resulting "Foreign Assistance Act" was approved in September, repealing the Mutual Security Act. In November, Kennedy signed the act and issued an Executive Order tasking the Secretary of State to create, within the State Department, the "Agency for International Development" (or A.I.D.: subsequently re-branded as USAID), as the successor to both ICA and the Development Loan Fund”
“In 1995, legislation to abolish USAID was introduced by Senator Jesse Helms, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who aimed to replace USAID with a grant-making foundation. Although the House of Representatives passed a bill abolishing USAID, the measure did not become law. To gain congressional cooperation for his foreign affairs agenda, President Bill Clinton adopted in 1997 a State Department proposal to integrate more foreign affairs agencies into the department. The "Foreign Affairs Agencies Consolidation Act of 1998" (Division G of PL 105-277) abolished IDCA, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the United States Information Agency, which formerly maintained American libraries overseas. Although the law authorized the president to abolish USAID, President Clinton did not exercise this option”
Trump ‘does not have the authority to abolish’ USAID: Congressional Research Service
Ashleigh Fields
Tue, February 4, 2025 at 2:10 PM EST
The Congressional Research Service, a federal agency tasked with legislative research and analysis, published a Monday report declaring President Trump does not have the “authority” to abolish USAID.
“Because Congress established USAID as an independent establishment (defined in 5 U.S.C. 104) within the executive branch, the President does not have the authority to abolish it; congressional authorization would be required to abolish, move, or consolidate USAID,” wrote author Emily M. McCabe, a specialist in foreign assistance and foreign policy.
McCabe cited portions of the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 which temporarily granted the president authority to “reorganize” the agency but argued the power to do so expired in 1999.
I worked on USAID contracts from 1999-2013. The wiki history is correct. The expansion of AID under Clinton is a terrific case study of federal expansion writ large.
Roger, I just saw a TV broadcast by Mark Moyar, a whistleblower who was employed by USAID. He explained how the USAID staffers are experts at hiding the true nature of projects from political appointees by changing the names to "align" with stated congressional goals. One example he gave was an Obama era project sending money to feminists in Iraq. When Trump's first term began, they changed the title to something about "anti-terrorism". Changed again to something about LBGTQ when Biden took office. Moyar discovered corruption in USAID, but when he reported it, he was accused of leaking classified documents and fired. He took USAID to court but for the last 3 years, the agency has defied the court and refused to produce the "classified" documents. Moyar asked for help from his congressman, but USAID stonewalled the congressman as well. Now we are hearing that something like 10% of the USAID budget actually made it to the recipients. 90% went to "overhead", "contractors" "consultants" and such. If a government agency defies congress and the courts, action by the executive branch is the only arm of government left to bring it under control.
Roger, Michael Schellenberger has a post out today describing how USAID set up the first bogus impeachment of Donald Trump through one of its "journalistic" subsidiaries. This is treason by any reasonable definition of the word. Today Marco Rubio explained that when he was a senator, USAID would never submit to any congressional oversight of its activities, would never even list where its funds were going, USAID security officers would not admit DOGE investigators to its offices, on the grounds that the investigators did not have proper security clearances. If they are doing virtuous humanitarian projects only, why would USAID activities be secret? When the USAID security officers were swept aside, we now have a flood of information about USAID money going to terrorist organizations. If you were president, what would you do with an out-of-control agency of this sort? If Trump resists the temptation to have these people stood before a firing squad at dawn, he will exhibit more self-control than I could summon in his situation.
Is academic freedom reduced by Trump's banning of funding for DEI in research and teaching? Yes for those who want to use their research and teaching to promote DEI concepts. But if you don't want the limitation, don't take the funding.
For years, DEI based selective hiring and conformity pressures on career advancement has been a powerful force of implicit limitation on academic freedom. What the academy needs for true academic freedom is to be free of the Oppressive Progressive Overlord. How much that changes is an open question.
Re "academic freedom:" a cloak for too many sins! It is past time for us to stop indulging some academics' sophomoric shenanigans. There have to be consequences for actions and speech that indicate (often flat-out state) that certain groups of students (Jews, conservatives...) will not be treated fairly. An institution of higher education is both a business and (ideally) a community of scholars. Faculty and student anti-semitism harms the IHE's business "brand" - in a business they would be terminated for something that egregious (I'm ignoring the immorality of anti-semitism).
The best way to protect academic freedom is for IHE's to adopt something like the U of Chicago principles, and then enforce them. Freedom is not License; the lack of responsibility on the part of too many IHE's is licentious.
Best advice ever:
• My view: Congress — Do your job as described in the U.S. Constitution. That goes for members of both parties.
My first comment after years of admiring your work, Roger. I agree that Congress needs to work harder to check the executive branch, but how can we (the People) get Congress to do its job? Our power to demand transparency, initiative, results, is to a large degree a function of our literacy and interest in the issues. If we want Congress to protect scientific endeavor and freedom of thought, we need to be smarter and more persistent in our scrutiny. Our elected reps should feel steady pressure to forestall witch hunts and politically correct enthusiasms. A substack like yours can, I think, make a real difference.
What do you think public reaction would be if universities started announcing they have to extensively cut NCAA program that are subsidized by the rest of university operations in response to what’s going on?
I suspect something like this
Shot:
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/11967626/uab-blazers-shut-football-program
Chaser:
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/12991674/uab-blazers-football-return
I've read various comments here and elsewhere expressing the notion along the lines - the problems with the US government today are so significant that it is OK to ignore or violate the Constitution. I do not agree with this line of argument. At all.
Look at the comments on USAID's history below in the chain, great example. Everyone needs to be careful about what they think was done constitutionally in the first place.
"Everyone needs to be careful about what they think was done constitutionally in the first place."
If we're going to do that, we should start with James Madison, who pointed out this indisputable truth:
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
:-)
Of course, that means that virtually everything Congress is spending money on these days is unconstitutional: not just all foreign aid, but also Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, all educational grants, etc.
But I doubt even one person, including Donald Trump and every member of his cabinet, every member of Congress, and every judge on the Supreme Court, would say that Donald Trump should stop all those programs immediately, simply because they're indisputably unconstitutional.
My comments on Twitter/X about my anger at Donald Trump (or really, Elon Musk and his young minions, because Donald Trump obviously is not paying attention to what they do) stopping funding on PEPFAR (the "President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief") caused confusion (and anger) both on Twitter/X and at Reason magazine.
For those not up on developments regarding PEPFAR, the program, among other things, provides preventative AIDS medications for pregnant mothers, so their children aren't born with AIDS. That funding was stopped. It has been estimated that 100,000+ children will be born with AIDS if the funding is paused for 90 days. (In other words, more than 1000 children will be born with AIDS for every day the program funding is stopped.)
On Twitter, I was asked:
"as a strict constitutionalist who believes that (PEPFAR) spending is unconstitutional, why wouldn't you be happy about that (if in fact it's more than a transient glitch)?"
My response was:
I'm not happy because the *oath* is, "...and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution..." If Donald Trump thinks US AID is constitutional, he is *obligated* to perform the tasks that Congress has authorized US AID to carry out, such as PEPFAR.
The Constitution contains nothing that authorizes a president to simply not carry out the tasks that Congress appropriates money for him to carry out, if those tasks are constitutional...simply because those tasks don't fit in with *his* agenda.
Congress writes laws and appropriates money for tasks. The president follows laws, and carries out those tasks. The president is *not* authorized by the Constitution to pick and choose the laws he's going to follow, and the congressionally authorized tasks he'll implement.
This is very good
https://reason.com/2025/02/07/has-doge-already-lost-its-way/
It would be nice indeed if Congress had returned to lawmaking - in real terms - long ago. The cascade of consequences from judicial incursions to agency overreach to budget excesses and more might have been avoided, the country less at odds (the US has always been polarized, more or less). Water under the bridge. The problem now is that sunsetting agencies and programs, defunding funding that never should have been committed in the first place, reducing a vast and heavily unionized federal workforce (the main engine of job growth during Biden in direct federal employment and indirect federally funded industries and enterprises) is probably impossible without a DOGE wrecking ball.
Whereas the fundamental problem with DEI is recognized in the article - namely considerations other than the science and evidence-based conclusions of the various studies have played an outsized role in what has been accepted as viable research programs while the DEI program was forced on everyone, (academics or otherwise), there is an equal problem that conclusions not evident from the facts will be thrown into the discussion. As long as the E stands for Equity in DEI there is no academic freedom, nor has there ever been academic freedom, as it pertains to a diversity of thought and a true exploration of everything that should be included in analyzing the results of any test.
It appears that one conclusion has come from the evidence that funding of specific programs in one area being paused, pending a review of the application being funded, that this then is a backlash demonstrating anti-academic freedom. People may have that tendency on a personal level but on a professional level, no business will survive, let alone thrive, if individuals are allowed to stay in their job who believe it's necessary to limit innovation. It's the limit to independence and innovation that has created the massive rejection of the DEI & CRT philosophies. This nation was founded by people rejecting the limits placed on them by a ruling class and the reason this nation grew to the strongest and wealthiest nation as quickly as it did was this underlying belief system. The backlash to DEI you describe correctly is the inevitable result of suppressing free-thinking individuals in this manner.
There is little doubt professors who subscribe wholeheartedly to the DEI philosophy will be overly offended by the legislation telling them they can't apply the principles of Equity in their lives just as those who recognized the problem with Equity at the onset, so many years ago, where equally offended by the obvious limitations imposed by this philosophy. In reality, the only limits to Academic freedom, created by the legislation removing the formal DEI references, are from the affected professors. Since we have taken such large strides in removing the thought police the only limits to academic freedom are the imaginations of those involved. If they believe their grant proposals are being rejected by anti-DEI "thought police" then perhaps they should do one of two things, either examine the reasons for the rejection for validity or rewrite the grant proposal so it doesn't sound the way it's being interpreted and do it anyway. An honest test should ultimately yield honest answers.
Final thoughts, when individuals refuse to recognize the underlying foundation of any principle they have learned in the past then what was once will be again and again and again. It is our ability to innovate, create, and question that allows us to grow and if not then principles equal politics so clearer thought is still opaque we just can't recognize it.
The academic establishment is racist giving preference to various races they like. They diminish races they don't like such as Asians. This is nothing new but at least they kept quiet about the Jewish quota. They are not a bit better than the worst Southern racists of years past. They deserve to be put out on the street for violating federal law and the constitution.
Seducing young students with student loans is a moral crime. Steeling from naive youth to feather their own nest.
Science is highly corrupt. Witness the acceptance of the IPCC and the crushing of anyone who tells the truth.
Many professors should get useful jobs.
Congress can not create independent administrative agencies, e.g. USAID. This violates the Constitutional provision that all executive powers are vested in the president. Watch for this issue to reach the Supreme Court in the next year or two. We have only 3 branches of government under the Constitution, not 4.
I don't see much mention of "supply chain" and national defense in the tariff discussion, so let me just add that tariffs and some protectionism can be virtues if done for purposes of keeping us relatively independent of countries who might control us if they hold the keys to vital resources. They are, also, enough of an economic lever/threat that they can be used to get the attention of other countries that need to change their policies toward the USA. They are certainly a gentler tool than declaring war or declaring total sanctions to get our interests addressed. Unfortunately, tariffs often get hijacked by political interests beholden to a specific industry with political clout. Like almost everything, "good" or "bad" is an oversimplification regarding tariffs -- but memories are short (no one remembers COVID PPE supply chain issues or oil dependence on OPEC) and nuanced thinking doesn't play well in the media or politics.
Thanks for the list! On the last point—all of government is too powerful, but yes, Congress must do more legislation and the Executive less rule writing to plug the gap. But the overall volume of rules must come down dramatically; pretty good heuristic for personal freedom and economic growth I’ll bet.
Interesting how the left comes out for a weaker Presidency when they loose. We were they during the Biden (or whoever was in charge) administration.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/History_of_the_United_States_Agency_for_International_Development
“After his inauguration as president on January 20, 1961, JFK created the Peace Corps by Executive Order on March 1, 1961. On March 22, he sent a special message to Congress on foreign aid, asserting that the 1960s should be a "Decade of Development" and proposing to unify U.S. development assistance administration into a single agency. He sent a proposed "Act for International Development" to Congress in May and the resulting "Foreign Assistance Act" was approved in September, repealing the Mutual Security Act. In November, Kennedy signed the act and issued an Executive Order tasking the Secretary of State to create, within the State Department, the "Agency for International Development" (or A.I.D.: subsequently re-branded as USAID), as the successor to both ICA and the Development Loan Fund”
“In 1995, legislation to abolish USAID was introduced by Senator Jesse Helms, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who aimed to replace USAID with a grant-making foundation. Although the House of Representatives passed a bill abolishing USAID, the measure did not become law. To gain congressional cooperation for his foreign affairs agenda, President Bill Clinton adopted in 1997 a State Department proposal to integrate more foreign affairs agencies into the department. The "Foreign Affairs Agencies Consolidation Act of 1998" (Division G of PL 105-277) abolished IDCA, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the United States Information Agency, which formerly maintained American libraries overseas. Although the law authorized the president to abolish USAID, President Clinton did not exercise this option”
The implication of this is that Donald Trump has the authority to abolish US AID. He does NOT. Not according to the Congressional Research Service:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-does-not-authority-abolish-191020922.html
Trump ‘does not have the authority to abolish’ USAID: Congressional Research Service
Ashleigh Fields
Tue, February 4, 2025 at 2:10 PM EST
The Congressional Research Service, a federal agency tasked with legislative research and analysis, published a Monday report declaring President Trump does not have the “authority” to abolish USAID.
“Because Congress established USAID as an independent establishment (defined in 5 U.S.C. 104) within the executive branch, the President does not have the authority to abolish it; congressional authorization would be required to abolish, move, or consolidate USAID,” wrote author Emily M. McCabe, a specialist in foreign assistance and foreign policy.
McCabe cited portions of the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 which temporarily granted the president authority to “reorganize” the agency but argued the power to do so expired in 1999.
I worked on USAID contracts from 1999-2013. The wiki history is correct. The expansion of AID under Clinton is a terrific case study of federal expansion writ large.
Roger, I just saw a TV broadcast by Mark Moyar, a whistleblower who was employed by USAID. He explained how the USAID staffers are experts at hiding the true nature of projects from political appointees by changing the names to "align" with stated congressional goals. One example he gave was an Obama era project sending money to feminists in Iraq. When Trump's first term began, they changed the title to something about "anti-terrorism". Changed again to something about LBGTQ when Biden took office. Moyar discovered corruption in USAID, but when he reported it, he was accused of leaking classified documents and fired. He took USAID to court but for the last 3 years, the agency has defied the court and refused to produce the "classified" documents. Moyar asked for help from his congressman, but USAID stonewalled the congressman as well. Now we are hearing that something like 10% of the USAID budget actually made it to the recipients. 90% went to "overhead", "contractors" "consultants" and such. If a government agency defies congress and the courts, action by the executive branch is the only arm of government left to bring it under control.
Roger, Michael Schellenberger has a post out today describing how USAID set up the first bogus impeachment of Donald Trump through one of its "journalistic" subsidiaries. This is treason by any reasonable definition of the word. Today Marco Rubio explained that when he was a senator, USAID would never submit to any congressional oversight of its activities, would never even list where its funds were going, USAID security officers would not admit DOGE investigators to its offices, on the grounds that the investigators did not have proper security clearances. If they are doing virtuous humanitarian projects only, why would USAID activities be secret? When the USAID security officers were swept aside, we now have a flood of information about USAID money going to terrorist organizations. If you were president, what would you do with an out-of-control agency of this sort? If Trump resists the temptation to have these people stood before a firing squad at dawn, he will exhibit more self-control than I could summon in his situation.
Is academic freedom reduced by Trump's banning of funding for DEI in research and teaching? Yes for those who want to use their research and teaching to promote DEI concepts. But if you don't want the limitation, don't take the funding.
For years, DEI based selective hiring and conformity pressures on career advancement has been a powerful force of implicit limitation on academic freedom. What the academy needs for true academic freedom is to be free of the Oppressive Progressive Overlord. How much that changes is an open question.
Re "academic freedom:" a cloak for too many sins! It is past time for us to stop indulging some academics' sophomoric shenanigans. There have to be consequences for actions and speech that indicate (often flat-out state) that certain groups of students (Jews, conservatives...) will not be treated fairly. An institution of higher education is both a business and (ideally) a community of scholars. Faculty and student anti-semitism harms the IHE's business "brand" - in a business they would be terminated for something that egregious (I'm ignoring the immorality of anti-semitism).
The best way to protect academic freedom is for IHE's to adopt something like the U of Chicago principles, and then enforce them. Freedom is not License; the lack of responsibility on the part of too many IHE's is licentious.