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Radio War Nerd EP #442 — University Power Structure & Campus Protest, feat. Jacob Bacharach (Patreon)

Published:
2024-05-04 19:43:29
Imported:
2024-05
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Guest: Jacob Bacharach, writer

Recorded: May 2, 2024

This episode we do something a bit different: instead of discussing kinetic wars, we interview writer & university administrator Jacob Bacharach about power — real power, financial and structural power — in elite US universities & campuses, a key battlefield today in the Israel-Palestine war.

Buy Jacob Bacharach's books: The Bend of the World, and The Doorposts of Your House and On Your Gates. Follow Jacob on Twitter.

Total time: 1:29:59

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

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Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Check out the Radio War Nerd Merch store here!

Order your print or ebook of John Dolan's new book Erdogan Pizza: Dispatches from a Violent & Grotesque World

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Comments

ploob

LFG!

GC

Great interviewee get and timely under the fucking circumstances. I've enjoyed Bacharach's writing for a while now. Really looking forward to the episode.

Michael

Thank you guy very much for covering this

Jon Spiegler

The American institutional legitimacy crisis ain’t going away!

CR

The next generation will be just as loyal to Israel and AIPAC’s money as Biden is. Just look at The Fucking Squad, save for the literal Palestinian refugee member and the other Muslim refugee from western predations.

William

Rising costs are coming for the universities. Lecturers are also becoming a larger share of the teaching workforce

Danny Duplex

Great episode guys! I graduated from Columbia as an undergrad a year ago. This is an anecdote, but a lot of my friends who still go there decided to demonstrate and learn about Palestine because of how the Admin handled the protest. There is a pretty good article in the Columbia Daily spectator called "Should Columbia’s President Resign?" Judging from some of the stuff in that article, Shafik has pissed off even a lot of the Pro-Israel students and professors. She and the president of Barnard(the women only undergraduate school) might go. They have alienated famous, tenured professors and a large percentage of the student body. If she is still in next year, she might not be able walk around the campus without getting heckled and filmed on video every week.

NYCM&AHole

No mention of Epstein and research donations?

MoldyTolge

The RAND building is like, one block from CMU campus. Underlines Jacob’s point.

Ellen Harold

This episode ought to be made public, if it isn't already.

J P 3

The members are facing an onslaught of $100 million for simply advocating and signing onto a ceasefire legislation in October 2023. Cori Bush in Missouri's first district introduced the ceasefire resolution in October before any other member -- she absolutely stuck her neck out. In response she is facing a major challenge for re-election (not just the money, but these groups start leaking completely unrelated smear campaigns trying to damage the candidate). The Jamaal Bowman House re-election campaign is facing a $20 million onslaught. There are people who aren't even in Congress who are simply suspected of being mildly critical of Israel who are facing the onslaught (Susheela Jaypal in Oregon's 3rd -- not even formally a "Squad Member" -- just someone who will likely be a member of the progressive caucus, has had $3 million flooding into her race). Andy Levin a former Democratic House member from Michigan had $4 million dumped in his race for the sin of defending Rashida Tliab. The Squad Members have stuck their necks out on this issue -- and have been taking hits during their short-term in Congress. Obviously, if all these members get wiped out in this election cycle (or even a majority do), future members of Congress are more likely to be cowed in response. If these members survive the onslaught yet again -- I do not think beating AIPAC will make them more inclined to support AIPAC. If these members lose, yes, it will have an impact on future members. For context too, the spending campaigns against progressive candidates in this one election cycle are multiples more than AIPAC spent supporting Joe Biden's political career.

Dec

Super engaging and present episode. Thank you <3

Philippe Duhart

The administrations didn’t wait the protests out because they really wanted to prove their “seriousness” (which in the US means willingness to use violence) to their crypto-authoritarian and outright authoritarian donors.

Dorst Savijeski

I did my masters, and am now jobless. The whole cling to be right, even after school is even worse. I don't care about you IMF, or Chicago transparent trading philosophy. Starting a 7/11 over here.

#1 Caleb Foster Fan

Great episode, would love to share it with some people if you wouldn’t mind making it public!

Kawaii Leonard

suggested reading for you guys: look into the UAE financed smear campaign that ended up targeting a random academic in Austria as being a member of Muslim Brotherhood. The Director of George Washington University’s “extremism” program took 3,000 euros from UAE to participate in the slander

Aiden

Folks this is a classic mixup. She was acting under her aegis as a baroness at the time she issued the letter to nypd. Totally different rules than role as Columbia pres. Same deal as when she invokes prima noctae. Might seem unfair to the peasants but its just how it is.

Christopher Small

"They're going to cut funding to schools that criticize Israel, and every college is cutting Math and basic research so they can cram money into studying fake AI LLM and whatever other hot new vaporware we're throwing capital at" Holy shit, we're seeing the gold goose get killed in real time, aren't we?

PostmasterFenian

I hate a lot of the AI shit as do a lot of disgruntled statisticians. There is a tendency of a lot of computer scientists to ignore assumptions and reinvent shit that statisticians have know about for a while. Although, i think they mesh a lot better with tech companies and they are kind of starting to encroach on our turf in pharma

PostmasterFenian

I'm a stats phd dropout and I don't know if i'd say that statistics AI stuff is necessarily simplistic from a mathematical perspective https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.02516. I would say that its remarkably easier to get a job if you did a doctorate in computer science or statistics as opposed to math or physics. As anecdotal evidence I went to a middling program 34th at the time of my application 30th currently and the lab i left has placed people at UNC biostats (tenure tract professor), UW biostats (postdoc), Rochester (tenure tract), JHU biostats (postdoc), UMass amherst (tenure tract professor in mathematics) just in the time that I have been here. It's pretty straightforward to be competitive for tenure tract roles if you want that outcome but a lot of talented students just get a sweet gig with the feds or in industry. You'd be lucky to get a postdoc at most comparable math or theoretical physics programs. My friend that is a particle physicist has over 40 papers and is on his third postdoc with no clear job leads. Meanwhile if I had just finished my damn degree my undergrad advisor had a job lined up for me. In any case I'm glad to hide in one of the federal agencies that doesn't do explicitly evil shit (Maryland side as opposed to the Virginia side). The Maryland side of the DC area is home to the CDC, NIH, FDA, census bureau, and some NOAA offices (outside of the iron triangle that exists between these bureaus and industry for some reason that feels less icky to me than the spook ones).

Mack Beveridge

Very interesting episode, I would have appreciated more discussion about divestment though. Jacob mentioned that university endowments are very different from in the 80s and said that divestment would be more difficult but didn't elaborate on how it could be done today.

Ltfinn

I recommend the most recent episode of Columbia professor (and fantastic historian of European war and finance) Adam Tooze's podcast ("Ones and Tooze") for a more detailed review of university financials and a view from within the Columbia faculty.

Dorst Savijeski

Love the variety of topics, especially with the political cadres going far from public objectives. This puts a lot of perspective to their education.

Jason Thompson

My own astounded frustration with all those supposedly progressive university presidents is that none of them had the brains or guts to correctly clarify that “from the river to the sea” or calling for the abolition of Israel is not a call for genocide. Fucking idiots. Unbelievable

HarshMalarkey

Always punching down on royalty. Do better.

a clash of purple

Is there any reason why the U.S. doesn't assassinate Netenyahu and wipe out the current Israeli regime, just to bring them in line? Why keep putting up with this criminal who's going to be arrested by his own country the second he leaves office and the other insane morons in the leadership? Surely they could find someone to take over who can conduct a genocide less ineptly. It's just so bizarre to me. Libya and Syria never annoyed the empire as much as Israel does, and we set those countries on fire. Why is America so indulgent of Israel's infantile tantrums and incompetence, and so harsh against people who couldn't harm the empire even if they wanted to?

Boobs123

The notion of college presidents being caught between a rock and a hard place when activist donors pick fights with activist students is an interesting one, and the points about the encampment skewing bougie because only the children of the wealthy have the privilege to play chicken with campus authorities is a very good one that supporters of the camps rarely bring up. However, the guest seems to be willfully ignorant of how bad it is for the cause that some of these places were shaping up into new CHOP/CHAZ style sites, but his Twitter-progressive shibboleths explain quite clearly why he might not think that. Blowing off the House of Representatives as a gaggle of powerless boomers is also bizarre given that these campus crackdowns were carried out as a reaction to the harranguing from the House.

John Flanagan

Most Americans’ retirement accounts (IRA’s, pensions, 401(k)’s) are invested in things like index funds and ETF’s, fwiw

AG

Funnily, I find it heartening that research in not practical programs is diminished because I hope that means there is less support of diversity, inclusion, and equality related fields.

David Andrews

Thirty five years ago my uncle tried to convince me to get a PhD in economics which would "set me up for life". Boy am I glad I didn't listen!

J Schuster

as a current grad student weathering funding cuts to my program, I wish i hadnt listened to this episode. lol

Sean Atkinson

God, what Liberal Brain Rot, at 31:20 this guy claims that the police riots on campus are an attempt to preserve the autonomy of the university presidential autonomy. No, its an attempt to do exactly what the activist donors want.

Sean Atkinson

Simple, as long as Netanyahoo keeps causing more orders for military equipment (by continuing the war), he has the US establishment blessing. That the president is "embarrassed" is irrelevant. The President is just a PR person for the US, he's not really in charge. The last two presidents to make that mistake JFK and Nixon got it explained to them.

Sean Atkinson

You do know what the NIH has been up to, right?

PostmasterFenian

well i'm sure every major agency related to public health here has some odious aspects connected to pharma so I guess I should have said less evil. But what were you thinking of?

a clash of purple

My point is, theoretically couldn't someone else who's less of a public embarrassment do the same job, keep up the war, etc.? Why are they so attached to this one guy and his idiot cadre?

xnfec

Might the patience shown by the administrators in the 70's and 80's be in part due to them being a wartime generation? I'm aware of two UK universities that got rid of their Chemistry departments. One brought it back after a few years.

Sean Atkinson

1) Credibility- There is a Netanyahoo in every "allied"'country. If they see him fair poorly, it threatens the US aristocracies ability to co-opt. 2) Not so easy to replace "a good earner". Look at any toxic sales worplace. Owners will gladly destroy the emotional lives of most employees than fire a higjly productive salesperson.

Maggie+Al

Extreamly greatful that I fucked up my undergrad and had to become a postal worker.

ADDTTHBJK

thx for the dave emory/kfjc shout out only true south bay refugees will know

Mark Ames

a fellow traveler!