Half of the best engineers I know come from a random state school, from a random country, and we should work way harder than we do on finding those people.
But also… the other half come from prestigious colleges, and the way you solve the first half is not by not hiring the second half.
Hiring costs time, money, and other engineers time and effort. Wasting money and time reviewing a pool with less good candidates will simply lose you business over time, as you waste more resources to obtain the same result.
Are American universities really turning out engineers with high GPAs and relevant coursework that are unqualified? Or even create a disadvantage for their employer?
I mean realistically you don’t know how good an engineer is until they get on projects and you see their work. But that’s true for Harvard too,
Interestingly, Dartmouth, UPenn, and Cornell aren't on the Cancelled Senior Service College (SSC) Fellowships list. So this is some select Ivy Leagues only.
Each of those three bowed their head to D&I demands, paid the bribe-fine demanded by the U.S. president, and revised their diversity definitions as demanded. So of course they’re exempt; that’s why they chose to pay their protection fee, after all. For example:
> The university was reluctant to pay $30 million to the federal government to settle the OCR complaints; however, the alternative course of action would involve years of legal actions against the government with an uncertain outcome and untold costs to careers and livelihoods.
Remember when the Oppenheimer movie taught us how we got The Bomb even though the nazis had a significant head start because ze germans got rid of the smart people studying "jew physics" and what was left of their science took them to dead ends?
Replace "jew physics" with "woke physics" and you see the idiocy of this.
I mean, they definitely expelled Jewish scientists, people like Einstein and Bohr and other prominent physicists, who would have ultimately been very useful to them. Maybe their funding choices would have been different if they hadn't ousted so many researchers.
The nazi regime destroyed a lot of what today would be classified as "woke research" by the reactionary right. Sexuality studies, social studies and so on.
The book burnings were not only about rooting out fiction, they destroyed research.
Hegseth has degrees from Princeton and Harvard. The Vice President has a degree from Yale. Trump himself graduated from Wharton, one of the Ivy League business schools (although not one directly names in the memo).
Maybe they are right to block these institutions then?
If this is the quality of product produced what’s the point?
Our Harvard/Stanford etc management seemed less capable than products of state schools. It kind of shocked me as I thought once I got into startups and scaleups with Ivy League talent I’d be way over my head. Very much a let down.
I feel attacked as a Stanford/Princeton graduate. Yes, there are pieces of shit among the graduates, especially among the legacy admissions, but you can’t write off all of us by association.
The list of replacements institutions from the memo states at the bottom:
> These institutions meet the following criteria: intellectual freedom, minimal relationships with adversaries, minimal public expressions in opposition of the Department, and Graduate-level National Security, International Affairs, and/or Public Policy Programs.
So it is definitely political and not based on merit.
Then UMich - a notably Dem leaning govt program - wouldn't be included.
Personally, I remember taking Fairbanks Center associated classes and noticing how we have the children of Chinese VVIPs sitting next to active duty members.
It sparked interesting conversations, but seeing someone who was a test pilot at Hanford sitting next to a scion of a Red Family was interesting to say the least.
The program also absolutely did used to publicly give advice to the CCP at the time, and on the listservs I'm still on I do still see publicly pronounced UFWD members responding and posting events in the Boston area.
Ofc, if I noticed this then it was absolutely known to three-letter agencies and State, and some of the institutions included are part of a larger culture war, but there is a kernel of truth - too many children of various countries dignitaries attended the program.
Edit: can't reply
> I think isolationism amongst the war party is less helpful than some degree of interaction
UMich isn't an isolationist program though - it's a program which imo is the closest to how foreign policy was managed under the Obama admin.
Noting that we have always been at war with Eurasia, given we actually are not at war with Eurasia, would it not be both normal and sensible to at least know your Eurasian counterparts?
I think isolationism amongst the war party is less helpful than some degree of interaction.
You casually drop a lot of acronyms and references to obscure programs (here and especially in parallel comment) on the apparent assumption that everyone reading does or should be clued in to the same acronyms. I feel you do so in good faith, but I wonder where the implicit assumption comes from that the 'rest of society' ('rest' w.r..t. whatever sub-group does in fact know about these programs intimately) ought to know what this sub-group knows.
As someone enrolled in an IVY and seeing the absurd speculation by random commenter's, this is ridiculous.
I can only speak for Columbia, but the amount of work & study we do all for this country is immense. EVEN if you are partisan you should know there are RW or neoliberal elements active here. Our country and the many young people who want to be in public service will suffer from this.
And no, we are not whatever random ragebait curated LW “WOKE” that’s protrayed online.
You "work & study" all for your country? That is impressive. Where I'm from, most people educate themselves for their own benefit and not because of some greater nationalistic plan. But we also don't pledge allegiances every single day for 11+ years of schooling, maybe that helps.
> Harvard itself is an incredibly inequitable place. Student organizations — and undergraduate social life more broadly — have been criticized for being stacked heavily against those without connections. And perhaps most insidious is Harvard’s unwavering preference for so-called ALDCs – athletes, legacies, dean’s interest list, and children of faculty and staff. Without dismantling our own elitism, how can Harvard begin to fight the product of it?
Yep. I was never more proud of my alma mater than when they announced they would no longer give preferential treatment to legacy students (students of alumni). Legacy students alone make up 1/3 of Harvard’s accepted students. (I’d say that’s an embarrassment, but for Harvard that’s a feature not a bug.)
The same way people in power will always cling to the advantages power gives them, afraid of starting from the same place as everyone else for fear they won’t make it on their merits alone.
I don’t feel the same. My own alma mater is a niche school. It officially gives admissions pref to legacies, but unofficially depends on parents sending their kids as the school is not well known.
Harvard on the other hand - people go to Harvard to become elite. That only works because they get to hobnob with princes and the like. Thats the point.
The Ivy’s do a good job of admitting non-elite students. I’m glad that pathway to eliteness is there.
I’m proud of my small liberal arts Alma mater. I have no desire to network with billionaires and princes (as opposed to say, brilliant engineers and researchers).
But I’m glad the legacies at Harvard are sharing a classroom with kids from Appalachia. And that only happens if you get in the legacies.
The wild thing is that America pretends itself that it is a meritocracy while ... literally defending deeply nepotistic class based system like this.
If the Harward did not took that many legacies, they would spread out to different schools. And mixed with others there. You dont need to collect kids of powerful in one place to achieve that.
I've TFed and CAed for SSC fellows eons ago and the fact is UMich (especially the International Institute [0]), VT (CETS [1] and CGIT [2]), ASU (GSI [3] and CAPS [4]), and UNC (ASC [5], ISA [6], CES [7], and TISS [8]) remain great programs and tend to be fairly liberal.
Surprised TAMU wasn't included.
Edit: can't reply
> and lo and behold
Yep, but everyone who's an SSC will self-select for Mich, UNC, ASU, and VT. SSC fellows are smart and are gunning for top exit opps in the public and private sector. Hillsdale, Regent, and Liberty don't offer that and would limit career options as they are deeply ideological programs.
My first reaction was, "watch, they're going to replace actual rigorous educational institutions with religious colleges" and lo and behold, "Liberty University" is at the top of the list for replacement civilian institutions.
"One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong. Find which thing is not like the other by the time I finish this song!"
> Independent institutions are weakened or dismantled.
Trump filed massive frivolous lawsuits against law firms, colleges, financial first and other business entities. Most fell in line with a few exceptions.
> Courts are subordinated to the executive.
The courts broadly have not fallen, but there are judges that are purely partisan (Eileen Canon, the dude who sighed the Georgia search warrant). Given enough time the courts will fall.
> Regional governments lose autonomy.
Trump has begun putting pressure on blue states by withholding money. Ice was dispatched to Minneapolis to show everyone what will happen to those that defy him. Local government is still mostly safe, but give it time.
> Legislatures either become rubber stamps or are dissolved.
We'll see what happens in the midterms.
> Emergency powers are often invoked and then made permanent.
IEEPA comes to mind. But his invasions emergencies too.
> Second, they eliminate political opposition. Rival parties are banned.
The midterms may be the last chance before opposition is either banned or entirely impossible.
> Opposition leaders are jailed, exiled, or killed.
Charges against political opponents like Leticia James, Adam Schiff, James Comey. Broadly thrown out for now, but if the courts fall this will happen. ICE has been charging protestors with bullshit charges constantly.
> Trade unions are dissolved or absorbed into state-controlled structures.
Businesses accomplished this years ago on their own.
> Elections, if they continue, become symbolic rather than competitive.
Midterms. We'll see
> Third, they cultivate loyalty to a single leader. The regime builds a personality cult around a figure presented as the embodiment of the nation. Loyalty shifts from constitution and law to the leader personally. Oaths of allegiance are often rewritten to bind military, civil servants, and professionals directly to that individual.
This is just MAGA. I don't believe oaths have been changed yet.
> Fourth, they fuse nationalism with identity politics. The state defines a “true people” and casts minorities, dissidents, or outsiders as internal enemies. This often leads to discriminatory laws and, in extreme cases, ethnic cleansing or genocide, as occurred under Adolf Hitler.
Rise of white Christian nationalism, branding of protestors/opposition as domestic terrorists.
> Fifth, they control information. Independent media is suppressed or co-opted. Propaganda becomes a primary governing tool.
Bari Weiss reshaping CBS, Bezos reshaping wapo, Sinclair media refusing to air Jimmy Kimmel, Brendan Carr threatening licenses for speech. Every single thing trump does on twitter and truth social.
> Education systems are reshaped to reinforce ideology. Culture, art, and science are pressured to align with the state narrative.
DOGE cancelling grants for non approved research. Integration of Turning Point USA into schools.
> Sixth, they militarize society. Paramilitary groups are normalized or integrated into state power.
ICE.
> Public life adopts martial symbols and rhetoric.
Not much, but soon.
> Foreign policy often becomes expansionist, framed as reclaiming national greatness.
Greenland, Venezuela, Iran.
> Seventh, they restructure the economy around state direction and political loyalty. Private property may remain formally intact, but major industries operate in alignment with state priorities. Business leaders who cooperate are rewarded; those who resist are sidelined or punished.
Anthropic/openai drama this week, golden shares in US Steel, Nvidia export controls, tariffs.
> The through-line is loyalty over legality. Institutions stop being neutral frameworks and become instruments of the ruling ideology. The regime reframes dissent as treason and criticism as sabotage.
If you don't see this you're not paying attention.
One thing not mentioned is blatant massive corruption, nepotism, cronyism. We see that every single day.
Half of the best engineers I know come from a random state school, from a random country, and we should work way harder than we do on finding those people.
But also… the other half come from prestigious colleges, and the way you solve the first half is not by not hiring the second half.
Hiring costs time, money, and other engineers time and effort. Wasting money and time reviewing a pool with less good candidates will simply lose you business over time, as you waste more resources to obtain the same result.
Are American universities really turning out engineers with high GPAs and relevant coursework that are unqualified? Or even create a disadvantage for their employer?
I mean realistically you don’t know how good an engineer is until they get on projects and you see their work. But that’s true for Harvard too,
The decision has nothing to do with any of that tho. Te goal is to punish suspect liberals.
And to give advantage to candidate from right wing and conservative institutions. Because that is the oficial state ideology now.
[dead]
This is a plain admission that the administration has lost on the merits of their arguments.
Interestingly, Dartmouth, UPenn, and Cornell aren't on the Cancelled Senior Service College (SSC) Fellowships list. So this is some select Ivy Leagues only.
Each of those three bowed their head to D&I demands, paid the bribe-fine demanded by the U.S. president, and revised their diversity definitions as demanded. So of course they’re exempt; that’s why they chose to pay their protection fee, after all. For example:
https://info.cornell.edu/executive-orders/federal-agreement/
> The university was reluctant to pay $30 million to the federal government to settle the OCR complaints; however, the alternative course of action would involve years of legal actions against the government with an uncertain outcome and untold costs to careers and livelihoods.
Maybe they like Cornell's existing military affiliation?
Meredith: You know, I once dated a couple of guys from Cornell. They were really nice, gave me a ride home.
Andy: I seriously doubt anyone from Cornell dated you.
Creed: It's pronounced "colonel." It's the highest rank in the military.
Andy: It's pronounced Cornell! It's the highest rank in the Ivy league.
Cornell guys are assholes. I know this from experience. I hope it’s changed, but doubt it has.
Remember when the Oppenheimer movie taught us how we got The Bomb even though the nazis had a significant head start because ze germans got rid of the smart people studying "jew physics" and what was left of their science took them to dead ends?
Replace "jew physics" with "woke physics" and you see the idiocy of this.
Foot, meet gun.
That was not my takeaway from the Oppenheimer movie.
Or from … history.
The Germans chose to extremely underinvest in their nuclear program to maintain financial and political support for their rocket program.
The rocket program was so fundamentally different from the Manhattan Project it’s hard to see the Germans doing anything like it.
I mean, they definitely expelled Jewish scientists, people like Einstein and Bohr and other prominent physicists, who would have ultimately been very useful to them. Maybe their funding choices would have been different if they hadn't ousted so many researchers.
Fascism always trends to incompetency because loyalty is more important than skill and knowledge.
So it’s just a matter of time before the US crashes?
I wouldn't say crash, but more decline. But many Americans including on HN and in SV don't like to see it.
The nazi regime destroyed a lot of what today would be classified as "woke research" by the reactionary right. Sexuality studies, social studies and so on. The book burnings were not only about rooting out fiction, they destroyed research.
Hegseth has degrees from Princeton and Harvard. The Vice President has a degree from Yale. Trump himself graduated from Wharton, one of the Ivy League business schools (although not one directly names in the memo).
Maybe they are right to block these institutions then?
If this is the quality of product produced what’s the point?
Our Harvard/Stanford etc management seemed less capable than products of state schools. It kind of shocked me as I thought once I got into startups and scaleups with Ivy League talent I’d be way over my head. Very much a let down.
I feel attacked as a Stanford/Princeton graduate. Yes, there are pieces of shit among the graduates, especially among the legacy admissions, but you can’t write off all of us by association.
They network their way to the top. Everybody else has to develop real skills.
Too much willingness to disobey unlawful orders from the "woke left" I assume
The list of replacements institutions from the memo states at the bottom:
> These institutions meet the following criteria: intellectual freedom, minimal relationships with adversaries, minimal public expressions in opposition of the Department, and Graduate-level National Security, International Affairs, and/or Public Policy Programs.
So it is definitely political and not based on merit.
[flagged]
This is just made up bullshit. Pete could list this info with examples but instead just hand-waved excuses.
[flagged]
Making these excuses is unreal.
Then UMich - a notably Dem leaning govt program - wouldn't be included.
Personally, I remember taking Fairbanks Center associated classes and noticing how we have the children of Chinese VVIPs sitting next to active duty members.
It sparked interesting conversations, but seeing someone who was a test pilot at Hanford sitting next to a scion of a Red Family was interesting to say the least.
The program also absolutely did used to publicly give advice to the CCP at the time, and on the listservs I'm still on I do still see publicly pronounced UFWD members responding and posting events in the Boston area.
Ofc, if I noticed this then it was absolutely known to three-letter agencies and State, and some of the institutions included are part of a larger culture war, but there is a kernel of truth - too many children of various countries dignitaries attended the program.
Edit: can't reply
> I think isolationism amongst the war party is less helpful than some degree of interaction
UMich isn't an isolationist program though - it's a program which imo is the closest to how foreign policy was managed under the Obama admin.
Noting that we have always been at war with Eurasia, given we actually are not at war with Eurasia, would it not be both normal and sensible to at least know your Eurasian counterparts?
I think isolationism amongst the war party is less helpful than some degree of interaction.
You casually drop a lot of acronyms and references to obscure programs (here and especially in parallel comment) on the apparent assumption that everyone reading does or should be clued in to the same acronyms. I feel you do so in good faith, but I wonder where the implicit assumption comes from that the 'rest of society' ('rest' w.r..t. whatever sub-group does in fact know about these programs intimately) ought to know what this sub-group knows.
As someone enrolled in an IVY and seeing the absurd speculation by random commenter's, this is ridiculous. I can only speak for Columbia, but the amount of work & study we do all for this country is immense. EVEN if you are partisan you should know there are RW or neoliberal elements active here. Our country and the many young people who want to be in public service will suffer from this.
And no, we are not whatever random ragebait curated LW “WOKE” that’s protrayed online.
You "work & study" all for your country? That is impressive. Where I'm from, most people educate themselves for their own benefit and not because of some greater nationalistic plan. But we also don't pledge allegiances every single day for 11+ years of schooling, maybe that helps.
Hegseth went to Princeton and Harvard, FYI
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/2/26/langer-harvard-...
> Harvard itself is an incredibly inequitable place. Student organizations — and undergraduate social life more broadly — have been criticized for being stacked heavily against those without connections. And perhaps most insidious is Harvard’s unwavering preference for so-called ALDCs – athletes, legacies, dean’s interest list, and children of faculty and staff. Without dismantling our own elitism, how can Harvard begin to fight the product of it?
Yep. I was never more proud of my alma mater than when they announced they would no longer give preferential treatment to legacy students (students of alumni). Legacy students alone make up 1/3 of Harvard’s accepted students. (I’d say that’s an embarrassment, but for Harvard that’s a feature not a bug.)
The same way people in power will always cling to the advantages power gives them, afraid of starting from the same place as everyone else for fear they won’t make it on their merits alone.
I don’t feel the same. My own alma mater is a niche school. It officially gives admissions pref to legacies, but unofficially depends on parents sending their kids as the school is not well known.
Harvard on the other hand - people go to Harvard to become elite. That only works because they get to hobnob with princes and the like. Thats the point.
The Ivy’s do a good job of admitting non-elite students. I’m glad that pathway to eliteness is there.
I’m proud of my small liberal arts Alma mater. I have no desire to network with billionaires and princes (as opposed to say, brilliant engineers and researchers).
But I’m glad the legacies at Harvard are sharing a classroom with kids from Appalachia. And that only happens if you get in the legacies.
The wild thing is that America pretends itself that it is a meritocracy while ... literally defending deeply nepotistic class based system like this.
If the Harward did not took that many legacies, they would spread out to different schools. And mixed with others there. You dont need to collect kids of powerful in one place to achieve that.
I’m reassured by the fact that grads of non-Ivy Leagues do extremely well.
The focus on Harvard is really overblown.
The actual announcement - https://media.defense.gov/2026/Feb/27/2003881802/-1/-1/1/ALI...
I've TFed and CAed for SSC fellows eons ago and the fact is UMich (especially the International Institute [0]), VT (CETS [1] and CGIT [2]), ASU (GSI [3] and CAPS [4]), and UNC (ASC [5], ISA [6], CES [7], and TISS [8]) remain great programs and tend to be fairly liberal.
Surprised TAMU wasn't included.
Edit: can't reply
> and lo and behold
Yep, but everyone who's an SSC will self-select for Mich, UNC, ASU, and VT. SSC fellows are smart and are gunning for top exit opps in the public and private sector. Hillsdale, Regent, and Liberty don't offer that and would limit career options as they are deeply ideological programs.
[0] - https://ii.umich.edu/ii/about-us/centers-programs.html
[1] - https://liberalarts.vt.edu/research-centers/ceuts.html
[2] - https://www.cgit.vt.edu/index.html
[3] - https://nationalsecurity.asu.edu/
[4] - https://www.capsresearch.org/
[5] - https://africa.unc.edu/
[6] - http://isa.unc.edu/
[7] - https://europe.unc.edu/
[8] - https://tiss-nc.org/
My first reaction was, "watch, they're going to replace actual rigorous educational institutions with religious colleges" and lo and behold, "Liberty University" is at the top of the list for replacement civilian institutions.
Religious schools have long had the strongest cancel culture out there.
"One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong. Find which thing is not like the other by the time I finish this song!"
Yeah, thats smart. /s
[flagged]
Did you use AI to write an HN comment?
[dead]
> Independent institutions are weakened or dismantled.
Trump filed massive frivolous lawsuits against law firms, colleges, financial first and other business entities. Most fell in line with a few exceptions.
> Courts are subordinated to the executive.
The courts broadly have not fallen, but there are judges that are purely partisan (Eileen Canon, the dude who sighed the Georgia search warrant). Given enough time the courts will fall.
> Regional governments lose autonomy.
Trump has begun putting pressure on blue states by withholding money. Ice was dispatched to Minneapolis to show everyone what will happen to those that defy him. Local government is still mostly safe, but give it time.
> Legislatures either become rubber stamps or are dissolved.
We'll see what happens in the midterms.
> Emergency powers are often invoked and then made permanent.
IEEPA comes to mind. But his invasions emergencies too.
> Second, they eliminate political opposition. Rival parties are banned.
The midterms may be the last chance before opposition is either banned or entirely impossible.
> Opposition leaders are jailed, exiled, or killed.
Charges against political opponents like Leticia James, Adam Schiff, James Comey. Broadly thrown out for now, but if the courts fall this will happen. ICE has been charging protestors with bullshit charges constantly.
> Trade unions are dissolved or absorbed into state-controlled structures.
Businesses accomplished this years ago on their own.
> Elections, if they continue, become symbolic rather than competitive.
Midterms. We'll see
> Third, they cultivate loyalty to a single leader. The regime builds a personality cult around a figure presented as the embodiment of the nation. Loyalty shifts from constitution and law to the leader personally. Oaths of allegiance are often rewritten to bind military, civil servants, and professionals directly to that individual.
This is just MAGA. I don't believe oaths have been changed yet.
> Fourth, they fuse nationalism with identity politics. The state defines a “true people” and casts minorities, dissidents, or outsiders as internal enemies. This often leads to discriminatory laws and, in extreme cases, ethnic cleansing or genocide, as occurred under Adolf Hitler.
Rise of white Christian nationalism, branding of protestors/opposition as domestic terrorists.
> Fifth, they control information. Independent media is suppressed or co-opted. Propaganda becomes a primary governing tool.
Bari Weiss reshaping CBS, Bezos reshaping wapo, Sinclair media refusing to air Jimmy Kimmel, Brendan Carr threatening licenses for speech. Every single thing trump does on twitter and truth social.
> Education systems are reshaped to reinforce ideology. Culture, art, and science are pressured to align with the state narrative.
DOGE cancelling grants for non approved research. Integration of Turning Point USA into schools.
> Sixth, they militarize society. Paramilitary groups are normalized or integrated into state power.
ICE.
> Public life adopts martial symbols and rhetoric.
Not much, but soon.
> Foreign policy often becomes expansionist, framed as reclaiming national greatness.
Greenland, Venezuela, Iran.
> Seventh, they restructure the economy around state direction and political loyalty. Private property may remain formally intact, but major industries operate in alignment with state priorities. Business leaders who cooperate are rewarded; those who resist are sidelined or punished.
Anthropic/openai drama this week, golden shares in US Steel, Nvidia export controls, tariffs.
> The through-line is loyalty over legality. Institutions stop being neutral frameworks and become instruments of the ruling ideology. The regime reframes dissent as treason and criticism as sabotage.
If you don't see this you're not paying attention.
One thing not mentioned is blatant massive corruption, nepotism, cronyism. We see that every single day.
Thanks for the list.
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