Trump Directs Treasury to Review Tax-Exempt Status of Colleges and Universities
“Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education.”
President Trump revealed Friday in a pair of tweets that he has directed the Treasury Department to review the tax-exempt status of colleges and universities, saying many of them are “about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education.”
He is correct, they are.
This will be met by shrieking on the left, but as we have documented countless times, higher education in America lacks even a thin veneer of political balance.
What would the left be saying today, if liberal speakers were routinely shouted off stage at colleges and universities? If conservative students rioted when progressive speakers came to campus?
Kevin Stankiewicz reports at CNBC:
Trump threatens tax-exempt status of colleges, says many are about ‘Radical Left Indoctrination’
President Donald Trump said Friday he is asking the Treasury Department to review the tax-exempt status of universities and school systems, suggesting in a tweet that too many were about “Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education.”
Trump also said he would have their funding revoked “if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues.”
“Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!” he wrote.
See Trump’s tweets below:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1281616586273468416
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1281616590060965888
Rush Limbaugh reacted to this news on his show:
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a golden opportunity staring us in the face, and that is an opportunity to do great, great damage to academe. I love that word. That’s the academy, meaning institutions of higher learning, which means these indoctrination centers known as universities…
Let me get to the education. You know, I’ve been harping on this all week, that I believe the real problem that we face in America, or the problems, can be boiled down to one particular area that we lost that has given birth to all of this left-wing insanity, and it is our education system. We’ve lost it. We’ve lost the education. We lost the teachers. We lost the presence.
And I don’t just mean a conservative presence.
Tyler Olson of FOX News has more on this:
Republicans have long railed against alleged left-wing indoctrination in public schools and universities, citing “free speech zones,” cases of professors and administrators showing hostility toward conservative students, and saying that in many cases faculty donate overwhelmingly to Democratic politicians and left-wing causes.
But it’s unclear what exactly Trump was referring to in his tweets and it’s also unclear whether he would be able to follow through on the threat. An attempt to remove the tax-exempt status of universities over political grievances could run into constitutional issues, and public school systems are largely funded by state and local taxes.
It’s also unclear what exactly prompted Trump to make the threat on Friday, but the tweets come as he is engaged in rhetorical sparring with teachers unions, which have resisted his push to get children back into schools with few if any restrictions or anti-coronavirus measures.
I don’t know what prompted this from President Trump, but I would suggest it is appropriate and long overdue.
Conservative students and campus visitors have been subjected to verbal and physical abuse in recent years. This has been one of the best arguments against ‘free’ college. Why should taxpayers be forced to fund colleges and universities when half of the American public is not even welcome on most campuses?
To borrow a line from one of higher education’s favorite political figures, isn’t it time for extremely wealthy organizations like Harvard, Yale, and Brown to pay their fair share?
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The Progressive Church is under scrutiny for deceptive advertising, insidious indoctrination schemes, and billions of dollars in redistributive change. Baby steps.
“The left have planted the seeds of their own destruction with the “virus will destroy humanity” hoax .” – unknown
It is all about power in this power grab.
Fyi
A sustainable global economy must arise once COVID-19 pandemic is reversed, UN chief tells G-20 summit
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/03/1060442
LA Teachers Union Says Schools Can’t Reopen Unless Charter Schools Get Shut-Down, Police Defunded
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/la-teachers-union-says-schools-cant-reopen-unless-charter-schools-get-shut-down-police
If monies donated to BLM by student governments are any indication of what they have been taught, then yes, their tax exempt status ought to be revoked.
That report quoted by the Fox News anchor from earlier this year stated that 97% of college employees had donated to the Democratic party.
“Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!”
This is good. Public discourse is propelled by soundbites. If you can’t express something in a dozen words or less, might as well not bother.
Something the Soviets knew very, very well. Look at their old posters from the 20s and 30s. Rarely more than four words, and frequently just three. They understood this — use as few words as possible to communicate the point.
Trump seems to understand this as well.
Defund the universities! It may happen – until the corruption from the courts opine about a university’s ‘right’ to public money shall not be infringed.
A pox on all.
Isn’t it time for Yale and New York to change their names? Why do Democrats honor slave traders? Why are Republicans so wimpy to not use the cancel culture to their advantage?
Oh for the wailing and gnashing of teeth as they go down.
The problem that I have with this is that Trump appears to have no filter. He strikes out with a sledgehammer on everything – even issues where he has little control. Hidin’ Biden could be a corpse and will win, unless Trump gets his act together, becomes more Presidential, focuses on the key issues of current importance to the American people and articulates a roadmap for a second term. For example, I just heard on the news this morning that 24 countries have reopened their public schools with few problems. How many people in the USA know that?
“The problem that I have with this…”
Like all progs you wish to “filter” those that fight back against any and all of your anti American activities.
Your “advice” is the same advice Trump gets from people that wish him to lose.
I am about as far from “progressive” as you can get. Mark my words, Trump will lose if he does not change his tactics to focus on the issues people care about. It is not liberals in college ivory towers; but will their kids go to school full time in the Fall, with a degree of safety consistent with kids very low risk, so their parents can make a living. Striking out against peripheral garbage is off-message versus what is needed.
(By the way, I think listening to Kushner has been a huge mistake for him – led to a lot of bad appointments.)
Schools is an issuse the folks care about. They want their offspring to have the same or better advantages than they have. Education is also the backbone of any economic system, especially the Capitalist system. Not just the high paying sheepskin type of jobs, but also the blue collar ones, like welding and construction.
We are at war.
Trump is identifying the many ways America has been compromised by the enemy. Waking patriotic America from the complacency of the last several decades that enabled this present lunacy to embed itself in our institutions, requires a Trump sized bull-horn.
I would hope school-age parents would be more concerned about the direction of the country their children will grow up in (November) than in whether or not they’re returning to school in September.
Reading you further, you’re as prog as any marxist.
Your advice is to stop struggling and enjoy the rape.
becomes more Presidential
Apparently many Americans are tired of “Presidential”—we prefer “effective”.
As to “effective”, I consider Trump’s biggest achievement to be creating a business and regulatory environment for companies, employment and wages for absolutely everyone to thrive. The tax cut was fairly good, but anyone can give away money. The judges was more the Senate and McConnell, with Gorsuch a bit of a question mark. His foreign policy has been good, but that is not a bread-and-butter issue. He has been quite mixed on the Pandemic, tolerating too much incompetence from the CDC and waffling from advisors. Schools are still up in the air. So on the 3 key issues for the election that the average citizen cares about – the economy, the pandemic and schools – people vote where they are, which is not in great shape.
The one issue, not mentioned, that gives Trump a chance is “law and order”. If the Dems think what is going on is getting them votes, they are fools. People are fleeing NY City. The implications of that are good for Trump.
Trump’s greatest achievement is saving the country from the rule of Lying Crooked Hillary and the progressive fascists.
“The tax cut was fairly good, but anyone can give away money.”
Prog think. Tax cuts are not giving away money. Tax cuts mean the government appropriate, at the point of a gun, less from those that earn it.
Jb4, either you miss the point or you pointedly mean to miss the point. This is a culture war and President Trump is addressing the enemy we face, the public education system and the “academe” . Both have been engaged in subverting our Constitution and Capitalist system for the last fifty years and they are going for the kill shot now.
We have an election in less than 4 months. If Trump is commenting on an issue that will not garner him a single additional vote – as I believe this issue is – he is wasting air time. I do not disagree on his view but on his tactics. He needs to have people going into the voting booth thinking that this is the man who cares about what is important to me. Hillary gave away the election with her “Deplorables” remark. This is not a Trump vs Hillary election, but a Trump vs Anyone but Trump election.
Jb4, I don’t argue that President Trump needs to improve his message but the cesspool of anti-Americanism that is the university system is of primary importance right now, they are driving the narrative and it needs to be hindered.
Most Americans are not college graduates and a large number of college educated Americans don’t subscribe to this Marxist pap being forced on us now by the MediaDemocrats.
We are in a culture and ideology war that is being driven by a powerful minority who have gained control of education, media and much of the government but the economy is still being controlled by the general public and that is who they seek to finally dominate. It is the working majority that needs to be motivated to save themselves and so far it is mainly President Trump who is motivating.
It’s unfortunate that Hillary, Obama and their crew aren’t in prison or on trial. They need to receive justice!
Trump is presidential, and he is building he wall. How can you possible not know that? Looks like willful ignorance to me. Maybe even blog comment blather, eh?
Trump has a gift for communicating ideas in a simple way that gets right to the point. That’s why people like you want him to shut up.
What you call presidential looks like candya@@ to me. Trump is president because people got tired to candy@@@ presidents. That’s how simple it is.
I think that they should start losing funding for their institution of what amounts to a religious oath.
Under section 501(c)(3), its going to be very difficult to revoke the tax exempt status of any school. Left leaning politics is not going to be a criteria unlike the racial discrimination in the Bob Jones University case decided by the US Supreme court in 1983. 461 U.S. 574, 103 S. Ct. 2017 (1983)
I do not see a rationale for revocation of tax exempt status either. There may be one, but I do not see it, and would welcome enlightenment and reasoned comment.
It is true that universities as a whole have become intensely intolerant of non-leftist ideas. The criticisms in the post are accurate, and as much as I may despise the current state of the university, I do not see and have not been presented a reason to revoke a tax exempt status.
The solution is for parents to demand campus reforms, or better yet, herd their children to schools that respect their values, and then loudly protect those values.
Also remember, for all of us that are ageing and who may have some excess wealth you may like to provide to a beneficiary before it is confiscated and redistributed by a mob, please remember that the university you fondly recall from 50 years ago, though it may have been only singed around the edges by radicalism, is now fully charred through and through.
Do not give money on sentimentalism. Give only with purpose to support, promote, and expand a cause to protect your values, and not to fund those who hate you and who would take from you, and everyone you hold dear, everything you have, to include your dignity, freedom, and perhaps, even your life.
Be warned they will gladly put on a coat and tie and mimic your manners. They will smile and speak soothing words. And when they get your money, they will do everything possible to divert it a radical cause you would curse.
Defund the cops? No, defund the university!
Defund the universities –
One of the primary causes of the rising cost of tuition are the numerous programs designed to make college more affordable, tax credits, tuition credits, pell grants, student loans etc. The increase in revenue for the colleges created more employment in the government/education “industrial complex” (remember eisenhower).
Government money tends to create more people that believe in government largess, etc, etc.
In summary, removing the incentives for “free college money” such as the student loans, and tax credits would have the double benefit of actually reducing tuition costs and reducing employment of left wing indoctrinators
When a university violates civil rights they should lose their tax exempt status.
What assurance do we have that the long-time members of the government who’ll be doing the review even know that there’s a problem? How far to the left are they?
I have very little confidence that this will accomplish anything. It could backfire very badly.
Give us an example of the “backfire” you see as possible.
They will revoke the tax exempt status of the few conservative leaning colleges and universities that remain, and spare the rest.
That ship sailed decades ago. Revoking the tax exempt status of a school because the Communists hate it has already happened decades ago (Bob Jones University).
https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/37/bob-jones-university-v-united-states
Ironically, BJU lost its tax exempt status for 30 years because of supposed racial discrimination. Today universities are implementing the trendy Jim Crow “separate but not exactly equal” policies the clearly discriminate against whites. Everything old is new again.
“supposed racial discrimination”
I could walk from my house in those days to the BJU campus.
There was no “supposed” about it.
I remember my dad remarking once about the barbed wire strung at an angle across the top of the fence seeming odd. “Dad, no one wants to break in, that wire is to keep people in, not out.”
That’s from the 60’s. I understand it’s quite different today.
I also know from teaching in higher education there are periodic attempts to revoke the accreditation of Christian universities (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, or SACS). The MSM/DNC axis has long waged war against “for profit” schools, and homeschooling is one election away from becoming illegal again (I would not be surprised if the Department of Education under a future Democrat administration required all homeschool parents to be certified teachers following a government approved curriculum, thus effectively ending it).
Somebody has to publicize ideas. The Presidential “bully pulpit” is one way to do this; one of the few ways which isn’t controlled the press.
Even if nothing happens immediately, ideas must be floated, agendas promoted, programs outlined. Yes, much of it is nothing but talk, but it’s still indispensable.
Swift, I couldn’t agree more! Expressing the fact that universities have become Left Wing cells needs to be done as frequently and loudly as possible. The Left, do find of boycotts, needs to feel the pain of financial deprivation.
It must be remembered and reinforced that the majority of Americans are NOT college graduates and they have a say in how this country will exist.,
Marxism offers nothing but subjugation and terror for the non college educated middle class.
Errata, « the Left, so fond of boycotts… »
I hate to invoke the free market, but parents who want their children to receive a valuable education without far-left indoctrination should only choose the schools that meet that high standard. Initially, the schools they choose may not have the highest brand name reputation, but I believe the high ratings of the Harvard and Yale type brands are going to have a drastic downturn very soon. Those smart Asians and conservatives who are discriminated against by the Ivies etc. have to go somewhere. Follow them to places of true open discourse and enlightenment. When it becomes generally known that the school you chose is one where students emerge actually knowing how to do something, bye bye to the unearned swagger and swag of the current brand leaders.
You mentioned the magic word “parents”. Most of them are waiting for somebody else (government, President Trump) to solve the leftist indoctrination problem. Meanwhile they continue to send their children to the K-PhD leftist indoctrination centers.
“I hate to invoke the free market…”
What part of higher education do you think operates in a “free market’ beyond the students are not forced to go to a school they wish not to attend?
The state supported schools are certainly not a free market, nor is any “private” receiving state or federal dollars.
Dennis Pager has labled them Leftist Seminaries for years for their turning out Leftist religion fanatics
As an appetizer, I propose defunding Oberlin College. It’ll only take 5 minutes.
Does anyone really think this will survive the inevitable legal challenges?
Yeah, you’re right. Why even try. Their lawyers are so much better than ours. Trying is the first step to failure.
Phil, get that sarcastic tongue out of your cheek
It’s not the lawyers, it’s the judges
Good point. The hundreds of new judge appointments McConnell crammed through the Senates since 2016 certainly aren’t going to help. We’re doomed!
Not being a lawyer myself, I was hoping some of the legal minds here could provide a plausible defense of this action.
It’s not about the law– it’s about communicating something to people they may not have thought about. I know people who need to think about what they are doing making the sacrifices to send kids away to college.
Don’t hold your breath. Once the lawyers get into it here, it always seems to be detailed discussions on case law that prove that we can’t win. That’s why we stormed Omaha Beach with well-equipped soldiers with guns rather than lawyers with yellow legal pads.
There is only one solution to leftist tide: crush the Democrats in November!!!
Let’s get every vote out!
Should have and could have been done 3-1/2 years ago. This is a case of Trump cozying up to the leftists who continued to stick a knife in him for 3-1/2 years. It is too late now.
Ohio, how do you figure? Elaborate.
I believe we have the dumbest internet comment of the week, right here.
More notes on the Globalist power grab…..
The New Normal: Extremes Of Neofeudalism, Incompetence, Authoritarianism, & Relocalization
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/new-normal-extremes-neofeudalism-incompetence-authoritarianism-relocalization
Go to about 20 minutes in where it gets really good, although the whole thing should be required watching for every student in any school in the world.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=e-y0MtreTb4
The Black Book of the American Left:
….. David Horowitz
More Twitter blather from our president. Some traffic court will issue a nationwide injunction, and then Trump will again defer to the court and appeal. The case will eventually go to SCOTUS, where we will be raped again.
Look, if Trump cannot manage to build a freaken wall–his biggest campaign promise and something clearly in his area of expertise–he won’t do anything to the universities.
You’re repeating yourself. We heard you and disagreed with you the first time. Give it up, Brilliant Elegant and Informed One–unlike you, we’re hopelessly stupid and ill informed. In one word– deplorable! Too late! We already drank the coffee! Absolutely no way to dent the thick Neanderthal skulls. heh
Oops, the dumbest internet comment of the week has been tied.
Free speech is non-negotiable. You either have it or you don’t. No in-between. No such thing as hate speech. And people who advocate banning free speech are the enemy. – zero hedge
Agree, but insidious conspiracies to bring down the government and economy should be punished. Love zero hedge!
The president should establish a commission on un- and anti-American activities. The purpose of the commission is to find and punish organizations that undermine the country by insidious subversive activities.
We need to be careful about that and proceed very cautiously if we want success. It was tried before in the early 50s and it didn’t work out well for Joe McCarthy.
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