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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25377 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025

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Terence Tao: I’m an award-winning mathematician. Trump just cut my funding.

In just six months, the United States has seen a wholesale assault on the scientific infrastructure that helped make it a world leader in innovation. Grants have been cancelled mid-project, fellowships for the next generation of researchers gutted, and federally funded institutes stripped of the resources they need to operate. These decisions are not the result of scientific review or Congressional debate, but of abrupt political directives that bypass long-standing norms, disrupt multi-year projects, and erode the independence of our research ecosystem.

In that time, I have seen first-hand how sustained federal investment—channeled through agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF)—powers the collaborations that link universities, government laboratories, and industry. At UCLA's Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM), where I now serve as Director of Special Projects, those collaborations have laid the groundwork for both theoretical breakthroughs and practical technologies. My own research at IPAM, for instance, helped lead to the algorithms that now cut MRI scan times by a factor of up to 10. This is the America I chose as my adoptive home: a place where science is valued as a public good, and where researchers from around the world come to contribute their ideas and energy.

It is therefore stunning and devastating to discover that the new administration, in just its first six months, has deliberately attacked and weakened almost all the supporting pillars of this ecosystem. Executive actions have cancelled or suspended federal grants with unprecedented scale and speed, with billions of dollars worth of ongoing research projects and experiments disrupted. This is not because of a negative scientific assessment of the work, but instead by seemingly arbitrary justifications. Critical funding has been pulled for as insignificant a reason as the presence of a key word in the original proposal that is retroactively deemed unacceptable.

Federal support is, of course, a privilege, not a right; and Congress has the constitutional authority to set the budgets and rules for any expenditure of public funds and resources. But many of these executive actions have not waited for either explicit or implicit Congressional approval, and in some cases have even directly ignored past Congressional mandates for appropriations. Relative to the sheer size of the federal government as a whole, the amount allocated for supporting science is not massive. The NSF mathematics and physical sciences (MPS) directorate, for instance, is the largest of the subdivisions of the NSF, and has an annual budget of approximately $1.7 billion. This looks significant until one realizes that it amounts to about five dollars per US citizen per year, and less than a tenth of a percent of the federal budget as a whole.

He seems to be referring to how the admin took an axe to science funding by ctrl+F-ing for 'woke' dictionary terms: underrepresented, minority, diverse, etc. The problem is that the effects seem to be about indiscriminate regardless of whether you were a true believer or merely box checking. Will we see upgraded diversity science pledges in the next democrat admin? Researchers might have to carefully consider the political leanings of their funding proposals in election years.

Terry Tao gives all of the great reasons why we like science. And hes right on those reasons. But he does not give the reason why his funding was cut. Which is odd, he is a smart guy, but reading his letter you get the impression that Trump / the NSF just came in and randomly cut his funding. He actually say this himself:

This is not because of a negative scientific assessment of the work, but instead by seemingly arbitrary justifications.

[Side note: very lame Terry. Your entire funding just got gutted, and you can't even nut up enough to say it was "arbitrary", just "seemingly arbitrary". Weak.]

Anyways, it just seemed odd that UCLA got its funding cut for no reason, the admin has been sending letters to colleges outlining its reasons. So I looked, and this is what I found. I took it from the link to the lawsuit below, where the Trump NSF letter to UCLA is reprinted.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has undertaken a review of its award portfolio. The agency has determined that suspension of certain awards is necessary because they are not in alignment with current NSF priorities and/or programmatic goals. NSF understands that [UCLA] continues to engage in race discrimination including in its admissions process, and in other areas of student life, as well as failing to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias. We have considered reliance interests and they are outweighed by the NSF’s policy concerns.

Effective immediately, the attached awards are suspended until further notice.

NSF is issuing this suspension to protect the interests of the government pursuant to NSF Grant General Conditions (GC-1) term and condition entitled ‘Termination and Enforcement,’ on the basis that the awards no longer effectuate program goals or agency priorities. This is the final agency decision and not subject to appeal.

Costs incurred as a result of this suspension may be reimbursed, provided such costs would otherwise be allowable under the terms of the award and the governing cost principles. In accordance with your award terms and conditions, you have 30 days from the suspension date to furnish an itemized accounting of allowable costs incurred prior to the suspension date.

The lawsuit gives details on claims/allegations from a second NSF / Trump letter:

• UCLA engages in racism, in the form of illegal race-based preferences in admissions practices;

• UCLA fails to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias;

• UCLA discriminates against and endangers women by allowing men in women’s sports and private women-only spaces

What does Terrance Tao say about these allegations? Nothing. Totally ignores them. Doesn't acknowledge them.

I am sympathetic to the argument he makes. But he is willfully blind to the larger systemic issues in his employer and university system at large. UCLA has been told over and over again to stop doing affirmative action. Its the law. And in response UCLA just sticks its fingers in its ears and mumbles something about holistic admissions and does it anyways. Which, to be fair, got them by with doing what the wanted to do for the last few decades.

But not anymore. Sorry Terry.

https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/9e9d118f-51fb-4e98-a9c0-fa060ea131ad.pdf

  • UCLA engages in racism, in the form of illegal race-based preferences in admissions practices;

Affirmative action is a bad thing. One might argue that forcing universities to adjust admission rules through threats of withholding research funding is also bad. OTOH, this is something I could have seen the Obama administration doing as well if the admission rules were against their ideology.

  • UCLA fails to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias;

"bias" seem extreme weak-sauce. Everyone is biased. Of course, sometimes biases are bad, but that would require going very much into the specifics.

The antisemitism thing is more plausible. Of course, for Nethanyahu, anyone who criticizes him is an antisemite, which is a great way to get people not to care about antisemitism.

Personally, I think that if the UCLA does not want to deal with Israeli institutions, that is ok. If they want to allow students to burn Israeli flags, that is also defendable. However, they do have a duty to protect their students and staff from verbal or physical attacks. If they turned a blind eye to Jews or Israeli citizens getting singled out and attacked, that would be bad.

  • UCLA discriminates against and endangers women by allowing men in women’s sports and private women-only spaces

Discrimination in sports? Like 73% of the NBA players being black? There are no level playing fields in sports. You can compensate for some genetic advantages (like high testosterone), but then the people who win will simply win through other genetic advantages. That does not mean that trans women in women's sports are necessarily good, but just that yelling "help, help, I am being oppressed" is just not a thing you do in sports. Are transwomen even winning most competitions?

And the "endangering women" thing is even worse. Are there credible accusations of people abusing their trans status to rape or grope women in their protected spaces, above the base rate? This seems to be a moral panic like the D&D satanism thing.

UCLA is alleged to be violating actual black letter law. Do you think Bob jones shouldn’t’ve been forced to integrate?

Yup. This is what I proposed six months ago. Later, I got showered in downvotes when I said maybe, perhaps, they should do something like this, targeting the institutions and policies in a way that could actually affect change rather than using 'indiscriminate chemotherapy' on academia. Tons of people here seem to have bought into the idea that the entire university system is 'enemy' and must be destroyed rather than changing their behavior.

I find that perspective mostly ignorant of theoretical premises, instead jumping in at the level of 'grunt'. That is, one should start by considering the conceptual nature of war. Clauswitz and all; politics by other means. Even modern political science treatments talk about war with the phrase "coercive bargaining". You actually have a goal that you want to accomplish. Usually that goal is not to simply genocide a people.1 It may be that war or the threat of war furthers that political/bargaining objective.

Now, it's only after elites think that war or the threat of war may further their political/bargaining objective that you start propagandizing the proles about the other side being the 'enemy' that must simply be eliminated. Their weak minds lap that drivel up, likely blind to the political/bargaining objectives that are underlying the entire endeavor in the first place. These are the 'grunts'.

Early on, from what I could tell from the grapevine, they were genuinely just blowing up shit randomly. From what I heard, there was no rhyme or reason that could be discerned; just some random things getting cut randomly, without any meaningful reason attached. Like if some private was suddenly thrust into generalship, not even knowing the terminology or how the systems worked to align efforts with the objective. Such a private would, understandably, make all sorts of random decisions with random and unpredictable effects. Some here were happy with that pathway, with the aforementioned analogy to 'indiscriminate chemotherapy'.

Now, it seems like the administration has either gotten up to speed or put someone in charge who actually knows how to be a general. They might still not be perfect at it, but I'm glad they're at least trying something more like my six month old suggestion. Concerning Tao, specifically, I wrote previously on how this affects individual incentives:

Moreover, it also changes the individual incentives. If you're a hard sciencer who doesn't give a shit about wokeness, you might still find yourself accepting a job at a woke-ass uni, because that might be the place that really enables you to get grants, have equipment/space, top students, whatever. If suddenly, it doesn't matter what you personally do/don't do in your research, but staying at a woke uni means you're forbidden from getting grants, while moving to a cleaned up uni means gravy train, the unis that manage to clean house are going to get showered in top tier talent. No more unis managing to somehow attract some set of possibly politically-neutral, bank-making talent that they skim from to fund their crazy wokies.

1 - Possibly one might have a goal for which genociding a people is the most effective means by which to attain one's goal. Without getting into that conversation too deeply, the actual end being served is still not the actual genocide.

Affirmative action is a bad thing. One might argue that forcing universities to adjust admission rules through threats of withholding research funding is also bad. OTOH, this is something I could have seen the Obama administration doing as well if the admission rules were against their ideology.

Your last sentence is the most relevant. I'm fairly sure there are actual rules (if not statutes) under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act which disallow Federal research funding to schools which engage in racial discrimination. This is not some new thing; it's just Trump using it against schools who discriminate against whites and Asians and Jews instead of just "underrepresented minorities". You can't (in a morally consistent way) nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki and then call "no nukes" when the Japanese take out New York and Chicago. Of course, the Japanese didn't have any nukes, and the affirmative action people thought the Republicans didn't have any weapons either. They were wrong.

UCLA fails to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias;

"bias" seem extreme weak-sauce. Everyone is biased. Of course, sometimes biases are bad, but that would require going very much into the specifics.

I expect you'll find that "bias" here has some specific technical meaning.

The antisemitism thing is more plausible. Of course, for Nethanyahu, anyone who criticizes him is an antisemite, which is a great way to get people not to care about antisemitism.

I'm pretty sure nobody's being called an antisemite by the Department of Education for criticizing Bibi. There may be questionable cases but they won't go that far. I suspect the antisemitism thing is largely because the institutions (both universities and enforcement bureaucracies) haven't been purged of Jews nor even pro-Israeli Jews (though the latter has likely been keeping its head down at the worst places), so it gets Trump some internal support. Of course, Trump's personal connection to pro-Israeli Jews is also part of it.

Discrimination in sports? Like 73% of the NBA players being black?

UCLA is not, of course, responsible for the NBA. Trump here is referring to Title IX gender discrimination, not racial discrimination, anyway. The rules (again, not statutes -- Title IX has been extended beyond reason by rulemaking and court decisions) require as much money to be spent on women's programs as on men, so Trump is on pretty solid ground if men are taking advantage of women's programs with the university's connivance.

You can't (in a morally consistent way) nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki and then call "no nukes" when the Japanese take out New York and Chicago.

But I can object when the previously-nuked side runs on a platform of nuclear disarmament (i.e. cancel culture is bad, free speech must be protected), and then, the moment it wins, starts nuking its enemies instead (i.e. just try to cancel the left harder)

You could, if you were able to point out where it happened.

Trump very much did not run on nuclear disarmament. The mild respectable Romney types haven’t been in charge for a while. I’m sure Romney would let UCLA get away with discriminating against Asians and Jews. But Trump and his ilk are not hypocrites for punching back.

Trump has definitely spoken about cancel culture in terms that clearly pointed to the means themselves as being disgraceful, not just the ends.

We must reclaim our independence from the left’s repressive mandates. Americans are exhausted trying to keep up with the latest list of approved words and phrases, and the ever-more restrictive political decrees. (…) The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated, and driven from society as we know it. The far-left wants to coerce you into saying what you know to be FALSE, and scare you out of saying what you know to be TRUE. (…) We will appoint prosecutors, judges, and justices who believe in enforcing the LAW – not their own political agenda. We will ensure equal justice for citizens of every race, religion, color and creed. We will uphold your religious liberty, and defend your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

There just isn't a reasonable reading of that speech where he's saying that the "firing, expelling, shaming, humiliating"-style tactics are neutral weapons that he intends to use just as much once he wins. What he told his voters in that speech was "the Left has made a mockery of true freedom and equality; Americans are rightly exhausted by the climate of fear and hypocrisy; vote for me and I will restore true normalcy and freedom, with genuinely de-politicized institutions and true equality before the law". He was definitely not saying "vote for me and I'll fire, expel, shame, terrify, humiliate and drive out anyone who disagrees with me".

Granted, that was 2020 and I don't recall if/whether he made similar statements during the last election. If your point is that he'd already given up on those principles by 2024… I guess I can't disprove that, but that's somewhat besides the point. The point is that he was saying this stuff a few years ago, and I approved of that for all that I've always disagreed with much of his platform, and now he's falling far short of that promise. It isn't that I'm surprised, but I am disappointed.

When Terence Tao is being treated like James Watson or Tim Hunt, THEN you can give me a villain speech about cancel culture. Not before.

UCLA isn't being punished for its speech. The grants are being revoked in accordance with a long-standing legal precedent that allows the Federal government to take away public money from institutions that illegally discriminate on the basis of race. The only difference between previous applications of this strategy and the present one is the race of the people being illegally discriminated against.

The First Amendment does not actually guarantee the rights of large institutions to discriminate against Asian kids.

Oh, I was arguing under the premise that Tao was indeed being targeted for signing the open letter etc., with the discrimination thing as a handy cudgel. I am open to a factual argument that this is not the case, and have no objection to UCLA being punished for discrimination against Asian kids; I am generally against affirmative action. But lots of people in this conversation were saying "well if Tao was punished for signing the letter, it serves him right" and I find that to be a position worth arguing against even if that's not the fact of the matter in this particular instance.

People on this forum are arguing that Tao deserves to be caught in the blast radius because of his speech, but that's separate from the formal legal justification that the Executive used for its actions against UCLA. Freedom of speech is about what powerful institutions are and are not allowed to do, not about whether individuals who suffer misfortune did or did not have it coming.

I don't think Trump was running as a classical liberal. Those guys were pretty much successfully extinguished by the last decade. The joke is no longer "imagine if the roles we're reversed", it's "we're going to kill you".

If you successfully destroy the disarmament party, you can't object that the nukemback party wins.

Discrimination in sports? Like 73% of the NBA players being black? There are no level playing fields in sports. You can compensate for some genetic advantages (like high testosterone), but then the people who win will simply win through other genetic advantages.

Precisely. If we let everyone play, women would simply be shut out.

Which is why women's sports gives women a place to play that they otherwise wouldn't have, society has decided that 50% of the population being mostly locked out is bad, even if we don't care that Michael Phelps crushes the dreams of all his male competitors daily. There are critiques of Title IX and how it's interpreted wrt what counts as a "sport" but the plain purpose was not to facilitate males destroying the whole point of having female sports.

There's no point in trying to even have a philosophical discussion about which biological advantages society decides counts: what they're doing is just against the law. There's already a law passed to protect women's sports and many universities are simply acting against those rules. That they may feel coerced by a past administration to do it simply says that that administration was also wrong.

If you want to have that debate push for another law and we can have a real discussion on the merits of mixing sports, with a positive case made for this stuff outside of bogus definitional arguments and suicide threats, instead of skin-suiting Title IX and then pushing the burden of proof unto the side that wants to stick to it as it was.

And the "endangering women" thing is even worse. Are there credible accusations of people abusing their trans status to rape or grope women in their protected spaces, above the base rate?

Can you explain your thought process here? Like...why is it that people always go to "a trans person wouldn't abuse their trans status"?

Besides the obvious problems with this, it's a bit akin to saying there's no problem waving through Orthodox Jews in airport security because Jews aren't as likely to do suicide bombings. The point is obviously that weakening the standard allows any bad actor to exploit the situation because trans status isn't exactly based on having completed surgeries now.

This seems self-evident to me. But it is not to a whole swath of people, the question is why we have a gap here.

I was going to suggest that it's caused by priming but OP did say "men in women's spaces" not "transwomen in women's spaces" so I don't even have that explanation.

And the "endangering women" thing is even worse. Are there credible accusations of people abusing their trans status to rape or grope women in their protected spaces, above the base rate? This seems to be a moral panic like the D&D satanism thing.

It's actually a physics thing. The nature of most common team sports in America is such that, if college aged trained athletes attempted to play at the best of their abilities in mixed-sex format, the odds of the women being injured due to inevitable contact with men who are far bigger and faster than them skyrockets relative to just women-only. If we decided to mix the NBA and WNBA and have them play in mixed format, that would also endanger women, ie the WNBA players. No rape or groping required or implied.

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