Apologies for this coming in so late. I was waiting to see if we were in for any after 5:00 on a Friday news. Hopefully I didn’t just jinx us all…
Today’s update includes details on the continuing government shutdown, a Faustian bargain for academia, turnover at the National Institutes of Health, and news out of the University of California, Harvard, and WashU.
The government is still shut down.
In an interview with Politico, Senate Majority Leader John Thune stated that he will be open to negotiations only if a “critical mass” of Democrats agree to support the version of a continuing resolution that passed the House, which was written without Democrat input.
Thune, in discussing the potential for layoffs, stated “This is the risk of shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought”. The OMB Director met with the President on Thursday to discuss the cuts they’d like to make.
The next Senate vote is on Monday. Today the House cancelled all of its votes for next week, effectively narrowing the possible negotiations until then to 1. Accept the Republican CR that has already passed the House or 2. Keep the government shut down.
The White House has sent nine universities a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” which, if signed, will purportedly give them preferential access to federal funding.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has stated any university in the state that signs the compact will lose their state funding. So far the only university in the state known to have been sent the compact is USC.
The full list of universities are: Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Arizona, Brown University and the University of Virginia. The compact will be reportedly be sent to other institutions in the near future.
The full text is here. The requirements laid out are quite expansive. The New York Times and Ars Technica both have good summaries.
The President is (again) saying that a deal between his Administration and Harvard University is close.
I’m not linking to any of these but the President is also posting AI videos about the shutdown, including one set to Blue Öyster Cult. The Department of Homeland Security also posted an anti-immigration vaperwave video set to The Cure today, so I just don’t even know anymore.
Today, the academic council of the University of California called upon the UC Office of the President to reject the demand letter sent to UCLA by the federal government.
After being placed on leave earlier this year, multiple NIH ICO directors have now been fired. Jeanne Marrazzo, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), recently filed federal whistleblower complaint and has stated that her removal was for political reasons.
Washington University in St. Louis is the latest institution to announce substantial layoffs due to “drastic reductions in federal research funding”.
Today’s image is from Unsplash.