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A previous blog (November 12, 2024), titled “Resilience,” was posted a few days after President Trump won the November election. It emphasized the constitutional resilience of the American government system. That blog focused on the term limits of the executive and the legislative branches. It left out the judiciary. The role of this branch, during the first two months of the Trump administration, is now rising to be a focus. An important aspect of the role that the judiciary plays in the resiliency of the US government includes the election and tenure of judges. A short summary is included in the publication of the Center for Effective Government

(20240306_Centre_of_Effective_Government_Primer_SummaryPDF_ElectedVsAppointed.pdf), the beginning of which is cited below:

In the United States, the federal judiciary is composed of judges who were nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and serve life terms. In contrast, judges in state courts come to occupy their positions through a vast array of different procedures, and once in office, generally require additional procedures to stay there. The debate over whether judges should be elected or appointed hinges on a conflict between two competing ideals of judicial independence and accountability. Judicial independence is the belief that judges should be insulated from undue or improper influence by other political institutions, interests, and/or the general public. Independence is closely related to the idea of the rule of law: legal structures should be applied in a consistent and unbiased manner irrespective of the identity of litigants or judges. Pulling against judicial independence is the demand for accountability, the belief that public officials should answer to someone for their decisions in office.

I strongly recommend that readers read through the full publication.

The code of conduct required by the judiciary is summarized by the American Bar Association as the Model Code of judicial conduct:

ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct
(2020 Edition).  The Model Code of Judicial Conduct was adopted by the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association on August 7, 1990 and amended on August 6, 1997, August 10, 1999, August 12, 2003, February 12, 2007, and August 10, 2010. (Purchase hard copy)

CANON 1
A judge shall uphold and promote the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.

CANON 2
A judge shall perform the duties of judicial office impartially, competently, and diligently.

CANON 3
A judge shall conduct the judge’s personal and extrajudicial activities to minimize the risk of conflict with the obligations of judicial office.

CANON 4
A judge or candidate for judicial office shall not engage in political or campaign activity that is inconsistent with the independence, integrity, or impartiality of the judiciary.

With the Trump administration winning majorities in the November election of the Senate, the House, and the Presidency (a trifecta) and gaining the majority vote, the judiciary became the critical battlefield.

The legal war is described by the two NYT articles, key paragraphs of which are cited below:

A Quick Guide to the Lawsuits Against the Trump Orders

The legal war over President Trump’s blizzard of executive actions is intensifying, with new lawsuits and fresh rulings emerging now day and night.

Judges are already making their mark: As of Saturday, eight rulings have at least temporarily paused the president’s initiatives. Other cases have not been decided. No matter the initial rulings by judges, many decisions are likely to be appealed, and some might reach the Supreme Court in the months to come.

The dozens of lawsuits fall into four main categories.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Immigration

• Budget Freezes and Firings

• Transgender Rights

• 6 Investigators

Why Federal Courts May Be the Last Bulwark Against Trump

More than 40 lawsuits filed in recent days by state attorneys general, unions and nonprofits seek to erect a bulwark in the federal courts against President Trump’s blitzkrieg of executive actions that have upended much of the federal government and challenged the Constitution’s system of checks and balances.

Unlike the opening of Mr. Trump’s first term in 2017, little significant resistance to his second term has arisen in the streets, the halls of Congress or within his own Republican Party. For now at least, lawyers say, the judicial branch may be it.

“The courts really are the front line,” said Skye Perryman, the chief executive of Democracy Forward, which has filed nine lawsuits and won four court orders against the Trump administration.

In addition, what appear to be solid constitutional standings such as birthright citizenship, are now being challenged:

Feb 6 (Reuters) – A federal judge in Seattle on Thursday accused Donald Trump of ignoring the rule of law for political and personal gain as he declared an executive order that the Republican president signed seeking to curtail birthright citizenship to be unconstitutional.

There was applause in the courtroom after U.S. District Judge John Coughenour extended an order he had issued two weeks ago temporarily blocking Trump’s order from being implemented into a nationwide injunction lasting indefinitely.

The battle became not only issue-oriented but personal:

United States President Donald Trump has doubled down on his criticism of a federal judge, calling him “radical left” for blocking the deportation of Venezuelan migrants, as his administration ramps up rhetoric against the courts.

Trump on Tuesday called for the impeachment of Judge James Boasberg, accusing him of putting the US at risk. “We don’t want vicious, violent, and demented criminals, many of them deranged murderers, in our country,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has criticised calls to impeach Judge Boasberg, but that has not stopped Trump from attacking the judge. The US president lashed out at Roberts as well, suggesting the Supreme Court itself was compromised by political bias.

The personal vendettas targeted not only specific judges who have ruled on present issues but also extended to revenge against judges who ruled against him between his two presidential terms:

As Donald Trump aggressively seeks revenge against multiple foes in the US, he’s waging a vendetta using executive orders and social media against judges, law firms, prosecutors, the press and other vital American institutions to stifle dissent and exact retribution.

Legal scholars say the president’s menacing attacks, some of which Trump’s biggest campaign backer, the billionaire Elon Musk, has echoed, are aimed at silencing critics of his radical agenda and undercut the rule of law in authoritarian ways that expand his own powers.

“Trump’s moves are from the authoritarian playbook,” said the Harvard law school lecturer and retired Massachusetts judge Nancy Gertner. “You need to delegitimize institutions that could be critics. Trump is seeking to use the power of the presidency to delegitimize institutions including universities, law firms, judges and others. It’s the opposite of American democracy.”

The fear of hostile presidential power has encouraged many to capitulate without a fight:

Feb 21 (Reuters) – The American Bar Association will temporarily suspend enforcement of its diversity and inclusion standard for law schools.

The ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar voted on Friday to halt enforcement of its current standard until August 31 while it reviews a pending proposed revision to the rule.

All of these battles came on top of the expanding role of the judiciary in deciding the blame for climate change-related natural disasters (see blogs June 13, 2023 and July 23, 2024 on needed prerequisites). See Figure 2 for the expanding climate change litigations.

Figure 2 – Global climate litigations (Source: Nature)

In August of last year, prior to Trump’s second term, the International Court of Justice got involved:

This is where the entry of the world’s highest court could be a game changer. In the next few months, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ principal judicial organ in The Hague, the Netherlands, will begin hearing evidence on two broad questions: first, what are countries’ obligations in international law to protect the climate system from anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions, and second, what should the legal consequences be for states when their actions — or failure to act — cause harm?

By the time this blog is posted, I will be giving a talk to law school students, trying to map my experiences to their prospective experiences after graduation. To have them leave class with a smile, I don’t intend to mention that according to Bill Gates their whole profession (and most others) will disappear shortly after their graduation.

They might find some remedy for this issue (or a postponement) by moving to Europe.

Stay tuned.

(Source: ASU)

 Last week’s blog was focused on learning, from the Warsaw Ghetto under Nazi occupation, how to try to oppose a deadly hostile environment in a non-violent manner. The proposed remedy was to create a modern (computer-based) Ringelblum archive that is opaque to the hostile environment, and that can be opened when the political environment gets more friendly. At the end of that blog, I promised to show an example in this blog. Not surprisingly, the examples that I will use relate to the current global trends that may lead to existential global threats.  Collectively, I define the processes as “self-inflicted genocide.”

Before I go into these trends, I need to discuss two important elements in the concept: my degree of certainty in its continuation and the embedded assumption of “business as usual,” without which we might mitigate the crisis. The best entry to these uncertainties is through an invited talk that I gave on December 1, 2016, at the University of Pennsylvania. The assembly aimed to convince the University to disconnect from investing in fossil fuels. I was invited by a student, Richard Ling, who—together with Thomas Lee—wrote a detailed paper summarizing the concept. I strongly suggest that you read the full manuscript. Here, I am including part of their summary that includes my position on the issue:

As a Holocaust survivor and professor of physics at Brooklyn College, Micha Tomkiewicz has a nuanced understanding of genocide in the context of climate change. In a talk at the University of Pennsylvania on December 1, 2016, Tomkiewicz painted climate change as a prospective “self-inflicted genocide.” With greenhouse emissions (whose increase is primarily attributed to fossil fuel combustion) threatening irreversible harms to ecosystems, living organisms, and the human race, Tomkiewicz makes it salient that his comparison of climate change to genocide should be used as a marker of direction and pointer to clear evil. He warned: “It’s easy today to teach students to condemn the Holocaust, but it’s much more difficult to teach them how to try to prevent future genocides.” As moral agents, we ought to maintain an active memory of past injustices and proactively act in the face of new moral evils. Truth and justice ought not to be dismissed in 19 words.

Following the talk, I wrote a blog that summarizes my position on that event, including some relevant information not included by the students’ summary:

Richard’s request forced me to take another look at my claim that by the end of this century the impact of climate change would amount to “self-inflicted genocide.” I decided to see whether such an association didn’t need some narrowing. Reading Philippe Sands’ new book, East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity helped me with this reassessment. The word “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin and used in the 3^rd indictment of the Nuremberg Trials. The definition used in the trial was: “Extermination of racial and religious groups, against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people and national, racial, or religious groups, particular Jews, Poles, Gypsies and others.” From Sands’ book I also learned that Lemkin’s best friend in Poland was my great uncle. I suddenly started to feel even more personal pressure to specify my use of the term in a context that I am almost sure Lemkin would not have agreed with.

The definition of genocide is now moving well beyond Lemkin and the UN’s original definition.

I went to AI (through Google) for a recent summary of the definition:

• • Definition:

Genocide is an internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. 

• • Key Elements:
    • Intent to Destroy:The most crucial element is the intent of the perpetrators to destroy the group, not just to harm or persecute individuals. 
    • Targeted Group:The victims are targeted because of their membership in a specific group, not because of their individual actions or characteristics. 
    • Acts of Destruction:These acts can include killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 
  • Historical Context:

The term “genocide” was coined in 1943 by Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish-Polish lawyer, who combined the Greek word “genos” (race or tribe) with the Latin word “cide” (to kill). 

• • Distinction from Other Atrocities:

While genocide is a specific crime with a unique intent requirement, it’s important to distinguish it from other mass atrocities like crimes against humanity and war crimes, which may not involve the intent to destroy a group. 

The global trends that we are currently experiencing were summarized in a previous blog titled “What Are We Trying to Teach Our Children?” (June 11, 2024). A key paragraph from that blog is given below:

Humanity is in the middle of at least 5 existential transitions; all of these started around WWII. They include climate change, nuclear energy, declining fertility, global electrification, and digitization. These transitions started around the time that I was born, but they will hopefully last (if some of them do not lead to extinction in the meantime) at least through the lifetime of my grandchildren (I call this time “now” in some of my writing).

For the purpose of this blog, I will now change the word “hopefully” to probably.

In “business as usual” scenarios, some of these trends could lead to global genocide. Such trends include: climate change, global epidemics, nuclear war, a large asteroid hitting Earth, and the digitization that has led to AI.

All of these threats are projected to take place in the future. Some of these threats are the same age as Lemkin and myself (digitization/AI, climate change, and nuclear war) while two others have a longer history (global epidemics and a large asteroid hitting Earth).

I will go now through the projections of the magnitude of these threats, starting with the newest and “simplest” threat – AI.

AI

About two weeks ago, an article came out describing how AI can revolutionize science:

Across the spectrum of uses for artificial intelligence, one stands out.

The big, inspiring A.I. opportunity on the horizon, experts agree, lies in accelerating and transforming scientific discovery and development. Fed by vast troves of scientific data, A.I. promises to generate new drugs to combat disease, new agriculture to feed the world’s population and new materials to unlock green energy — all in a tiny fraction of the time of traditional research.

Technology companies like Microsoft and Google are making A.I. tools for science and collaborating with partners in fields like drug discovery. And the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year went to scientists using A.I. to predict and create proteins.

This month, Lila Sciences went public with its own ambitions to revolutionize science through A.I. The start-up, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., had worked in secret for two years “to build scientific superintelligence to solve humankind’s greatest challenges.”

Relying on an experienced team of scientists and $200 million in initial funding, Lila has been developing an A.I. program trained on published and experimental data, as well as the scientific process and reasoning. The start-up then lets that A.I. software run experiments in automated, physical labs with a few scientists to assist.

The description of the global threats posed by this technology is much shorter:

I can ask it a “simple” question: “how to destroy the world” or “how to prevent the destruction of the world?” For certain individuals within our 8 billion people, the two opposing perspectives of the question are basically the same. If these individuals have the right prerequisites to be able to put the AI suggestions to work – would the result be considered genocide?

Nuclear War

Threats of nuclear war (often labeled WWIII) are now spreading. The Russians are reacting negatively to almost any step associated with the West’s help for Ukraine. Trump is threatening Zelensky that there will be major consequences if the US continues to defend Ukraine. Meanwhile, the West is trying to strategize on a new nuclear umbrella to replace the US.

The results, if the current nuclear arsenal of both the US and Russia were to be triggered, have been summarized by Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:

A global all-out nuclear war between the United States and Russia with over four thousand 100-kiloton nuclear warheads would lead, at minimum, to 360 million quick deaths.*  That’s about 30 million people more than the entire US population.

360,000,000

*  This estimate is based on a scenario of an all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States involving 4,400 100-kiloton weapons under the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) limits, where each country can deploy up to 2,200 strategic warheads. The 2010 New START Treaty further limits the US- and Russian-deployed long-range nuclear forces down to 1,550 warheads. But as the average yield of today’s strategic nuclear forces of Russia and the United States far exceeds 100 kilotons, a full nuclear exchange between the two countries involving around 3,000 weapons likely

An asteroid hitting Earth

From Center for NEO Studies (CNEOS):

CNEOS analysis of near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4, which is estimated to be about 40 to 90 meters wide, indicates it has a more than 1% chance of impacting Earth on Dec. 22, 2032 — which also means there is almost a 99% chance this asteroid will not impact. These analyses will change from day to day as more observations are gathered. The CNEOS analyses are used for NASA’s contribution to the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN). After the impact probability for this asteroid reached 1%, IAWN issued its official notification for the potential impact.

Cosmological collisions are not unusual. However, the last one that hit Earth was about 66 million years ago, well before the emergence of humans:

The Cretaceous mass extinction event occurred 66 million years ago, killing 78% of all species, including the remaining non-avian dinosaurs. This was most likely caused by an asteroid hitting the Earth in what is now Mexico, potentially compounded by ongoing flood volcanism in what is now India.

A 1% probability within 7 years leaves a 99% probability of a non-event. But in case that 1% were to grow, a human response would take time. As small of a probability as it is, we can’t discount the effects of the last asteroid.

Epidemics

Covid-19 – 14.9 million excess deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 (According to the UN)

Spanish Flu – (Wikipedia)

The 1918–1920 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 subtype of the influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was March 1918 in Kansas, United States, with further cases recorded in France, Germany and the United Kingdom in April. Two years later, nearly a third of the global population, or an estimated 500 million people, had been infected. Estimates of deaths range from 17 million to 50 million,^[6][7] and possibly as high as 100 million,^[8] making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

Climate change – New Health Data Shows Unabated Climate Change Will Cause 3.4 Million Deaths Per Year by Century End – V20: The Vulnerable Twenty Group

Unabated climate change will cause 3.4 million deaths per year by the end of the Century, new data presented to COP27 today shows. Health-related deaths of the over-65s will increase by 1,540%, and in India alone there will be 1 million additional heat-related deaths by 2090, if no action to limit warming is taken, the data shows.

Back to the definition and inclusion of the modern Ringelblum Archive. The point is to protect the ideas and arguments that could currently be dangerous to publish in this hostile environment. Inclusions into the archive should include arguments for and against a contribution and it should be used, as all research should be used, as an argument to encourage further research on the issue. In this case, we are talking about the lifespan of infrastructure (e.g. the built environment) that is estimated based on the global threats (e.g. climate change) that the hostile environment (e.g. the government) discounts. In many cases, two versions of the same related issue could be collected; one might be acceptable and publishable in the present environment and the other, with the “speculation” of future consequences, could be stored in the archive.

As I am finishing writing this blog, President Trump is issuing another executive order:

March 19 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Wednesday related to state and local infrastructure preparedness for responding to natural disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes, along with other threats like cyber attacks.

“This order empowers state, local, and individual preparedness and injects common sense into infrastructure prioritization and strategic investments through risk-informed decisions,” the order said.

The only way to comply is to make a new, modern Ringelblum Archive that can stay transparent to any administration.

Stay tuned!

The last few blogs explored some of the steps that the new Trump administration is taking against the roles of government that many of us cherish. My emphasis in these blogs was on academic institutions, but I went well beyond that.

One good example could be seen on Tuesday, March 4^th, when President Trump gave his televised speech to a joint session of Congress (technically it was not a State of the Union because of his short tenure as President) where he gave a list of his government’s accomplishments since his inauguration on January 20^th and his plans for the future of his presidency. One could clearly see a house divided: Republicans were enthusiastic, and Democrats didn’t like any of it. Figure 1 shows the dominant Democratic response – they raised tiny placards with objections to almost every reference that the president brought up. The most popular placards said “False” or “Save Medicaid.” One Democratic congressman, representative Al Green from Texas, heckled Trump loudly and consistently. He got the attention of viewers but was ejected from the chamber and was later denounced by the Republican House majority.

Figure 1 – Democratic lawmakers hold up signs in protest as President Donald Trump delivers an address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on March 4, 2025 (Source: Politico)

April is approaching with its many Holocaust-related events. One of these is Yom HaShoah (which translates from Hebrew to “Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day”). It commemorates the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and the heroism of both survivors and rescuers. The date was set by the Israeli parliament (Knesset) to coincide with the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in the Hebrew calendar (27^th of Nisan). This year it begins on the evening of April 23^rd. Meanwhile, International Holocaust Day, as decided by the UN, is dated to commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Union. Bergen-Belsen, the concentration camp where I spent two years with my mother and uncle, was liberated by the British army on April 15, 1945. However, my mother, uncle, and I were liberated earlier—on April 13, 1945—from our train “ride” through Farsleben from Bergen-Belsen to Theresienstadt. I was invited to participate in a commemoration of the 80^th anniversary of these events and my wife and I will leave for Europe in April (see the April 12, 2022 blog for more details about our previous visit). Aprils are busy for us and for many others.

Figure 2 – the exhibition Underground: The Hidden Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto, organized in cooperation with the Jewish Historical Institute and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland, and the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism

Uprisings against evil are not unusual throughout history but intellectual uprisings are more rare. One such piece of resistance, which took place during the Nazi occupation of the Warsaw Ghetto, is not as popularly known as the Ghetto uprising. This is called the Ringelblum Archive, or in Hebrew, “Oneg Shabbat,” and its post-war discovery is shown in Figure 2:

The Ringelblum Archive is a collection of documents from the World War II Warsaw Ghetto, collected and preserved by a group known by the codename Oyneg Shabbos (in Modern Israeli Hebrew, Oneg Shabbat; Hebrew: עונג שבת), led by Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum. The group, which included historians, writers, rabbis, and social workers, was dedicated to chronicling life in the Ghetto during the German occupation. They worked as a team, collecting documents and soliciting testimonies and reports from dozens of volunteers of all ages. The materials submitted included essays, diaries, drawings, wall posters, and other materials describing life in the Ghetto. The archive assembly began in September 1939 and ended in January 1943; the material was buried in the ghetto in three caches.

After the war, two of the three caches were recovered and today the re-discovered archive, containing about 6,000 documents (some 35,000 pages),^[1] is preserved in the Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw.^[2]

An earlier blog that was posted on September 17, 2024, a few months before last November’s elections, started with the following paragraph:

From my perspective, the top photograph encapsulates the way we vote. The picture is not AI generated or even edited; I took it with my iPhone. It shows a mirror in my apartment that faces my terrace, which looks out onto my city. It is a mixture of the “me,” “us,” and “them” that constitute the general trajectory of every political election. The collective weight that we put on each component determines the outcome. In the US we are now facing the presidential election, which has already started in some states and will be concluded on Election Day (November 5^th).

Almost every action that we take is a mixture of “me,” “us,” and “them” in various proportions. This is true for individuals, groups, and institutions. The amount of power that surrounds us determines our responses to various issues that we confront. Obviously, there are large differences between our present environment and the environment that surrounded the Jewish population of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi occupation. Ringelblum and his followers were aware that in terms of deadly conflicts, history is written by the winners. From 1939-1943, the Nazis looked to be the sure winners; many in the Ghetto, with Ringelblum in leadership, wanted to make sure that the truth was not forgotten and they succeeded. In many cases, the “us” won (after the war) while often the “me” lost their lives (including Ringelblum) in circumstances not connected with the archive.

Back to our present reality:

The Republican party presently controls the presidency and the two arms of Congress. They fully control the executive branch and, to a lesser degree, the legislative branch. However, unlike the Ghetto environment, their absolute control is time-limited by constitutional guardrails. As I mentioned before (November 12, 2024), the American governance system is among the most resilient systems known. The nation’s fathers didn’t write a perfect constitution but the Constitution is good enough to offer a lot of resiliency. Opposition to the government which is associated with fear, such as that shown in Figure 1, does not have very effective results.

However, it leaves the door open for congressional election-driven resiliency in two years that could be tested by the judicial arm by removing a legislative majority of at least one chamber. Some issues that the government is facing are critical long-term ones that cannot be disrupted and reintroduced with fluctuating governments as is happening with the shutdowns of important departments. These issues need to be handled in a way that prevents the easy destruction of vital information. What we need in such cases is an equivalent, modern version of the Ringelblum archives. Examples of such issues will be explored in the next blog.

In the next blog, I will return to the issue of “self-inflicted genocide” (December 3, 2019) but this time expand the concept well beyond climate change. Per definition, every global catastrophe that inflicts death on hundreds of millions and was anticipated but not mitigated can be labeled as a collective “self-inflicted genocide.” The blog will include a few concrete examples. Since the possible triggers for any such event are now ignored by the present administration, I will try to be discreet. Mitigating most of these triggers takes time. I am now approaching 13 years since I started to write this blog, and from the beginning of this process, I have tried to connect my “status” as a survivor of one of the larger global genocides—the Holocaust—with my small effort to contribute to preventing the next one. Per definition (it has been 80 years since my liberation by the American army from transport from Bergen-Belsen to Theresienstadt) my life span is approaching its end. If I want to have a chance to prolong my legacy, I must connect with an institutional objective. Fortunately, there is one familiar to me: The Holocaust Institute in the US, with its Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, has a collection of 23 country case studies. “All I must do” is to add one more case study: the global one. However, around 50% of the support of the Holocaust center comes from the government. The danger of having the government stop its support and close the genocide center the way they did the Kennedy center needs to be addressed. An electronic Ringelblum archive needs to be designed.

Below are two cherry-picked opinions on President Trump’s attitude toward academia and academic research, one from the NYT and the other from Forbes:

Michelle Goldberg in the NYT: (Opinion | Trump Wants to Destroy All Academia, Not Just the Woke Parts – The New York Times):

“But there’s a lot of madness in the air these days. In December, Max Eden of the American Enterprise Institute published an article about how Linda McMahon, the former World Wrestling Entertainment chief executive whom Trump nominated to be secretary of education, could give the “college cartel” the “body slamming they deserve.” One of the first items on Eden’s list was capping the reimbursement of indirect research costs at 15 percent, exactly as the Trump team is trying to do. From there, Eden proposed that McMahon “should simply destroy Columbia University” — home, among other things, to one of the best medical schools in America — as a warning to other schools about the price of tolerating anti-Israel protest.

“Ultimately, however much some in the Trump administration want to gut American universities, Carey doesn’t think they’ll fully succeed. These are deeply rooted institutions, some older than the Republic itself, many with powerful constituencies. After four years of Trump, he said, “they’ll still be there, but they certainly could be weakened. The quality of their work could certainly be diminished in ways that will take time to recover from.” Their weakness could be an opportunity for others. Eden suggested that Trump take steps to make it easier to start schools like the anti-woke University of Austin, ‘and even newer ones that no one has dreamed up yet. Musk University?’ But why stop there? Trump University could be due for a comeback.”

David Rosowsky in Forbes: (The Role Of Research At Universities: Why It Matters):

“Universities engage in research as part of their missions around learning and discovery. This, in turn, contributes directly and indirectly to their primary mission of teaching. Universities and many colleges (the exception being those dedicated exclusively to undergraduate teaching) have as part of their mission the pursuit of scholarship. This can come in the form of fundamental or applied research (both are most common in the STEM fields, broadly defined), research-based scholarship or what often is called “scholarly activity” (most common in the social sciences and humanities), or creative activity (most common in the arts). Increasingly, these simple categorizations are being blurred, for all good reasons and to the good of the discovery of new knowledge and greater understanding of complex (transdisciplinary) challenges and the creation of increasingly interrelated fields needed to address them.

“It goes without saying that the advancement of knowledge (discovery, innovation, creation) is essential to any civilization. Our nation’s research universities represent some of the most concentrated communities of scholars, facilities, and collective expertise engaged in these activities. But more importantly, this is where higher education is delivered, where students develop breadth and depth of knowledge in foundational and advanced subjects, where the skills for knowledge acquisition and understanding (including contextualization, interpretation, and inference) are honed, and where students are educated, trained, and otherwise prepared for successful careers. Part of that training and preparation derives from exposure to faculty who are engaged at the leading-edge of their fields, through their research and scholarly work. The best faculty, the teacher-scholars, seamlessly weave their teaching and research efforts together, to their mutual benefit, and in a way that excites and engages their students. In this way, the next generation of scholars (academic or otherwise) is trained, research and discovery continue to advance intergenerationally, and the cycle is perpetuated.”

Not all research, pure or applied, is the prerogative of universities. There are many research institutions that do not do research for the benefit of students and industrial research, such as Bell Laboratories, that are responsible for some of the most outstanding research, not to mention Nobel Prize recipients, for achievements such as the semiconducting transistor. The other side of this coin is also true: not all universities are research universities. Two weeks ago (February 25^th), I discussed the research ranking of universities. In addition, research on various levels plays an important role in the earlier academic life of students in high schools and elementary schools. The new attacks on academic research will likely have direct impact on advanced degrees such as PhD and Masters degrees that are based on student’ research.

Here is how AI (through Google) discussed the role of research in students’ learning:

Research significantly impacts students by developing their critical thinking skills, enhancing problem-solving abilities, improving communication skills, fostering a deeper understanding of their field, and preparing them for further academic pursuits or professional careers by exposing them to the process of inquiry and knowledge creation; essentially, it allows students to actively engage with information and contribute to new knowledge rather than passively absorbing facts.

Key benefits of student research participation:

• • • Critical thinking:

Research encourages students to analyze information critically, evaluate evidence, and form informed opinions based on data, not just assumptions. 

• • • Problem-solving skills:

By designing research questions, collecting data, and interpreting results, students develop strong problem-solving skills applicable to various situations. 

• • • Communication skills:

Writing research papers and presenting findings to peers enhances students’ ability to communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively. 

• • • Deeper knowledge acquisition:

Engaging in research allows students to explore a subject in greater depth, gaining a nuanced understanding beyond basic textbook knowledge. 

• • • Research methodology skills:

Students learn how to design research studies, collect data, analyze results, and interpret findings using appropriate methodologies. 

• • • Career preparation:

Research experience is highly valued by employers, demonstrating a student’s ability to think critically, solve problems, and contribute to new knowledge. 

• • • Increased motivation and engagement:

When students actively participate in research, they often feel more invested in their learning, leading to increased motivation and engagement. 

• • • Exploration of interests:

Research provides opportunities for students to investigate areas of personal interest within their field, potentially sparking future research endeavors or career paths. 

Important considerations:

• • • Access to research opportunities:

Students need access to faculty mentors and research projects suitable for their level to fully benefit from research experiences. 

• • • Ethical considerations:

Students must be aware of ethical guidelines when conducting research, particularly when involving human subjects. 

• • • Time commitment:

Research can be time-intensive, requiring students to manage their workload effectively.

We live in a period in which the global penetration of digitization has revolutionized teaching and learning in a way that can only compare (in my opinion) to the mid-15^th century’s printing press. (See the August 13, 2024 blog.)

Here is how Britannica Kids describes the impact of the printing press on teaching and learning:

“Few single inventions have had such far-reaching consequences as the printing press, a machine by which images are transferred to paper by means of ink. It was invented in Europe in the mid-15th century, during the period known as the Renaissance. The printing press made possible the mass production of printed books and other texts. Before its invention, most books were copied out individually by hand, a time-consuming process. Books were rare and so expensive that only the very wealthy could afford them. There were no newspapers. The printing press allowed books and other texts to be produced quickly, accurately, less expensively, and in large numbers. It thus led to a revolution in communications.”

Computer science departments are the fastest growing departments in many universities and many of the details of how to use the new technologies are research intensive. In the ongoing attempts by various universities to change majors, the shift from purely disciplinary majors to bi-disciplinary majors in which computer science pairs with traditional disciplinary majors, plays an important role. The fast progress in the research achievements of these shifts could be likened to the fast shift that was forced on all of us with the emergence of Covid-19, when we had to quickly replace teaching and learning on campus with online activities.

The shift away from academic research is not yet global but it is quickly starting to have global impacts (from South China Morning Post):

“China’s top universities are aggressively recruiting Chinese undergraduates abroad to skip traditional academic pathways and enroll directly into PhD programs – as the US tightens funding for graduate studies and geopolitical tensions grow.

It is a move that analysts have said reflects Beijing’s push to lure young academics from the United States.”

Every American is now proud of the number of Americans that are winning Nobel prizes every year. The prizes are being viewed as the ultimate markers of American education excellence.

The disparity was not always there. Figure 1 shows the 20^th century shift in excellence from Europe to the US. The definition of the country’s contributions is not determined by the birth of the prize winners but by the frequency that the biography of the winners determines the institutions in which they were affiliated either as students or teachers. The excellence of the American research institutions were the attractive magnets.

Figure 1 (Source: National Bureau of Economic Research)

This sharp rise of the US in both research and Nobel Prizes can be quickly turned around and start to fall precipitously if we are not careful here.

Last week’s blog and its figures emphasized three main issues related to university research:

1. The US trails other countries in government funding for university research (The US ranks 28^th; the top 10 are all developed countries with GDPs much smaller than ours).
2. In terms of government subsidies for research, two agencies stand out: the NIH in terms of the resources it offers and the NSF in terms of its support for basic research. Recent changes in the government have impacted these agencies and are affecting basic research.
3. Support for research by the federal government is declining and there is increasing support for research from private businesses. The new government is bound to have major impacts on accelerating these trends.

The distinction between government support and business support needs some clarification. The figure in last week’s blog that shows this trend is titled “Funding sources for research and development in the US.” It is obvious that development plays a much more important role in business support than it does in government support. Another difference between government and business support is that government-supported research is more likely to be published on a platform that is open to anybody interested, whereas the results of business-supported research are more likely to be published either as patents or internal reports to safeguard from competitive eyes. In these two supporting modes, government-sponsored research is aimed at advancing public knowledge, while business-supported research is often targeted at enhancing corporate knowledge.

One important question often raised is why governments (and taxpayers) should pay for research. Trysh Travis from Time gives an opinion:

The new NIH guidance justified reducing the IDC [indirect costs] it would pay as a commonsense market reform: since private foundations pay a lower percentage of universities’ IDC, the federal rate must be padded. Meanwhile, Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s manifesto for a second Trump administration, argued that IDC actually paid for “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts” on university campuses.

But both claims ignore the real reasons the federal government embraced this complex method of funding scientific research during the Cold War and oblivious to how it has evolved. Paying for IDC was a way to build and maintain a free and uniquely American way of doing science—and it has proved deeply successful for three-quarters of a century.

Three weeks ago (February 11^th), my blog was focused on the administration’s anti-DEI  campaign in universities. Now the anti-DEI measures are extending to research, almost guaranteeing  that social study or interdisciplinary research, such as that focused on climate change, will be seriously discouraged:

Federally funded scientific research has become the latest target of the diversity antagonists now in control of Congress and the White House.

Earlier this month, Republican senator Ted Cruz of Texas released a database of “questionable” university research projects—funded by the National Science Foundation to the tune of $2.04 billion—that he accused of pushing “a far-left ideology” by promoting diversity, equity and inclusion and advancing “neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda,” according to a news release from his office.

Cruz, who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, called for “significant scrutiny” of the 3,400-plus projects listed in the database, which contain terminology he said are related to concepts of status, social justice, gender, race and environmental justice.

The cuts in research overhead that I discussed in last week’s blog are now forcing colleges to cut graduate programs; this will have a direct impact on the availability of professional manpower for related fields in the near future:

Several colleges and universities are pausing admissions to some graduate programs, reducing class sizes or rescinding offers to students in an effort to cut costs amid uncertainty in federal funding.

The disruption to graduate school admissions is the latest cost-cutting move for colleges. After the National Institutes of Health proposed cutting reimbursements for costs related to research, several colleges and universities said they would pause hiring and cut spending, Inside Higher Ed previously reported. (A federal judge has blocked the NIH plan from taking effect for now.)

These dynamics are bound to have a direct impact on US higher education’s global ranking:

This month, Global Citizen Solutions released its first-ever Global Education Report naming the top destinations for higher education. The 10 countries were ranked based on factors like university prestige, quality of life, visa options, and post-graduation opportunities.

The Global Citizen Solutions report shows that international higher education is growing, Laura Madrid, research lead in the Global Intelligence Unit at GCS, tells CNBC Make It. According to their findings, there should be 10 million students studying abroad by 2030.

“You have more instability and instability in general leads to the movement of families,” she says. “People look for places where they feel safer, and they can experience different contexts.”

The report evaluated over 72 countries, using five key sub-indexes:

1. Higher education systems

2. Quality of life

3. Higher education costs

4. Career prospects

5. Innovation and business friendliness

Some examples of these increases in the vulnerabilities of US higher education and the field of science are described in a recent Nature article:

After a month of repeated threats to US science funding, many early-career researchers such as Autrey are fearing for their careers. These scientists are especially vulnerable: graduate students, postdocs and scientists who are just starting their own laboratories are the researchers most likely to be living pay cheque to pay cheque, most reliant on federal grants for their income and least likely to have job security. Some are considering changing jobs, leaving the country or abandoning research altogether.

“Disruption and uncertainty are the enemy of science,” says Donna Ginther, an economist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. And when disruption and uncertainty strike, she adds, “the people who lose their jobs are students and postdocs”.

If that happens now, science in the United States could undergo its own generational shift, she says: “Early-career scientists are the future.”

Details of some of these issues in NIH, the largest grant-generating agency, are described in the two articles below:

NYT: Trump Cuts Target Next Generation of Scientists and Public Health Leaders

The notices came all weekend, landing in the inboxes of federal scientists, doctors and public health professionals: Your work is no longer needed.

At the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s premier biomedical research agency, an estimated 1,200 employees — including promising young investigators slated for larger roles — have been dismissed.

At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two prestigious training programs were gutted: one that embeds recent public health graduates in local health departments and another to cultivate the next generation of Ph.D. laboratory scientists. But the agency’s Epidemic Intelligence Service — the “disease detectives” who track outbreaks around the world — has apparently been spared, perhaps because of an uproar among alumni after a majority of its members were told on Friday that they would be let go.

President Trump’s plan to shrink the size of the federal work force dealt blows to thousands of civil servants in the past few days. But the cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services — coming on the heels of the coronavirus pandemic, the worst public health crisis in a century — have been especially jarring. Experts say the firings threaten to leave the country exposed to further shortages of health workers, putting Americans at risk if another crisis erupts.

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Trump Wants to Cut Billions in Research Spending. Here’s How Much It Might Cost Your University.

A memo released late on Friday announced that the National Institutes of Health would limit indirect-cost funding to 15 percent, approximately half of the average rate it previously offered.

Twenty-two states sued the NIH over its new overhead-funding cap and requested a federal judge issue an injunction against the new policy, saying that “work to cure and treat human disease will grind to a halt” because of the move, which was set to take effect on Monday. A judge in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts on Monday night temporarily blocked implementation of the policy in those 22 states.

As mentioned before, the NSF is one of the main agencies providing grants for basic research. Such research is the foundation of any long-term research; it is also, by its nature, a lot riskier than more applied research. Such research is judged more by the questions posed in its proposals than the answers expected in the publication results. However, even for such research, instructions for merit review are summarized in the following way:

Reviewers evaluate the proposal using the two National Science Board-approved merit review criteria: intellectual merit and broader impacts. These criteria cover both the quality of the research and the project’s potential impact on society. Program solicitations may also contain additional review criteria.

The potential impact on society is one of two criteria (in addition to extending the known science) that determine support for proposals.

The two articles below summarize what is now happening at the NSF:

NPR: National Science Foundation fires roughly 10% of its workforce

The National Science Foundation fired 168 employees on Tuesday. According to an NSF spokesperson, the firings are to ensure compliance with President Trump’s executive order aimed at reducing the federal workforce in the name of efficiency.

Prior to the firings, about 1,700 staff worked at NSF, managing their $9 billion federal budget that funds research on everything from astrophysics to civil engineering. Staff were called to an emergency meeting at 10 a.m. ET, held on Zoom and in person, where they were told by Micah Cheatham, NSF’s chief management officer, that they’d be terminated by the end of the day, without severance. According to sources who were present, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan, who ordered the firings, did not attend the meeting.

The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Rise (and Fall?) of the National Science Foundation

For most of the past century, the United States has been the global leader in scientific discovery. In just the last five years, American scientists have won more Nobel Prizes than the rest of the world combined. But we weren’t always leaders in scientific advancement. It wasn’t until the 1950 establishment of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the largest funding source for basic research in the country, that America became a powerhouse of modernization.

Under the Trump administration, the same system that boosted the United States to scientific dominance is being recklessly dismantled. In the past few weeks, the newly created Department of Government Efficiency has ordered the NSF to reduce its staff by 25-50 percent to meet strict new budget targets. They have already fired 168 workers. Even more alarming, the administration is considering slashing the NSF’s $9-billion budget to just $3-4 billion, jeopardizing funding for thousands of scientists and their research. Beyond budget cuts, political interference is reshaping the NSF’s priorities. A recent executive order from President Trump mandates a review of all funded projects for flagged terms associated with DEI initiatives such as “gender,” “ethnicity” and “systemic.” Any projects containing these words must be modified to comply with the order or risk losing funding. Not only does this policy effectively roll back critical diversity initiatives, it will make research into important topics like health care much more difficult to fund.

Because many scientists conduct their work at universities, these policies are a profound threat to higher education. Many of the technologies and medical breakthroughs we rely on today — from computers to Viagra — were first developed within university research labs. American universities’ renowned science programs attract the brightest minds from around the world. In fact, 43 percent of America’s STEM work force was born in other countries. This is due both to the quality of education in our university system and the groundbreaking scientific advancements made within these institutions — made possible in large part by the National Science Foundation.

​One immediate impact is an attempt to restrict research by non-tenured faculty. This is bound to have a destructive impact on the future of every research university:

The University will no longer allow non-tenure-track faculty to pay for personal research expenses using “professional development” funding, according to an Office of the University Provost memo obtained by the Maroon. The Office of the University Provost announced the change to the faculty College Council on February 25 and has already communicated the updated guidelines to instructional faculty in several divisions.

The next blog will focus on the impact of all these changes on the students.

A little more than a year ago, my wife and I retired from our university jobs (November 21, 2023). Our retirement took place in the middle of some critical transitions in higher education throughout the US. One element of these transitions is driven by declining enrollment, which is rooted in part in declining fertility (see the January 7, 2025 blog). The declining fertility is a global situation that already impacts almost all developed countries and is starting to penetrate developing countries.

A month ago, the Trump administration was inaugurated in the US. In a short time, the new administration added new concerns to educational institutions that seem to have a much more immediate impact than the fertility decline. Previous blogs have focused on the role of the advocated changes in the DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) policies at various universities (February 11, 2025). The next three blogs will be focused on research in colleges and universities. This blog will focus on the broad aspects of funding for research. Next week’s blog will focus on the impacts of the new policies on some major funding organizations, while the third blog on the topic will focus on the importance of research in teaching higher education. Throughout the 13 years that I have been writing this blog, I have associated research with attempts to secure the future of the next generations. So, productive research means collective work to better the lives of the next generations. Very little has been written on the importance of research in academia in preparing our students for productive life after school. I hope to rectify this oversight in the third blog in this series.

Figure 1 shows that the US is lagging (compared to its wealth) in our government’s funding of university research.

Figure 1 – List of countries that spend the most on research universities (Source: Statista via World Economic Forum)

Figures 2 and 3 (from Wikipedia) show the distribution of agencies that fund federal support for research and the declining role that the federal government is playing in supporting research.

Figure 2

Figure 3

The expectation is that with the inauguration of the new administration, federal support for university research will further decrease at an accelerated rate but that it will not be applied uniformly. Here is what Nature wrote about the expected trend:

The incoming US president is expected to gut support for research on the environment and infectious diseases, but could buoy work in artificial intelligence, quantum research and space exploration.

What can universities do about it?

University researchers rely on billions of dollars of federal funding—from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation—to develop the technological and medical advances that have built the United States’ reputation as a wellspring of innovation. Congress, which has the final say on spending, ultimately didn’t support those proposed cuts during Trump’s first term.

“The most important thing we are telling our member universities to do now is to educate the new members of Congress and new administration officials about just how important the work of research universities is for our country’s success,” Tobin Smith, senior vice president for government relations and public policy at the AAU, said in an email. “America’s research universities have been the world’s envy for decades. Why? Because the education we provide and the research we conduct on behalf of the federal government help make America stronger, safer, healthier and more prosperous.”

Most research universities require external support. The support comes largely from grants with competitive applications. Typical grant applications constitute direct and indirect requests for supporting funds. Direct support covers specific expenses that the proposed research entails. The nature of an indirect request for support is summarized by AI (through Google) below:

An indirect cost rate is a percentage that allocates an organization’s indirect costs to its programs. It’s a standardized way to charge programs for their share of general management costs.

“Indirect costs” in the context of NIH funding typically include expenses related to the operation and maintenance of research facilities, administrative support functions like accounting and personnel, utilities, equipment depreciation, and other overhead costs that are not directly tied to a specific research project but are necessary for conducting research, often referred to as “facilities and administration (F&A)” costs.

Usually, the indirect funding is negotiated between the funding institution and the university. Figure 4 shows a typical distribution of the ratio between indirect and direct funding.

Figure 4 (Source: Bar Harbor Story)

Below is a recent development on the research funding front:

The Office of the Director of the NIH announced Friday that the agency will reduce federal funding for “indirect costs,” in research, specifically calling out institutes of higher education (IHEs) — including Stanford — as those who will be impacted. On average, 26% of NIH spending goes towards these indirect costs. Now, the NIH will limit the funding of indirect costs to 15%.

The cap on the indirect cost of research proposals is not a single threat that is now being imposed on research activities. Below is a summary of the general mood that will most likely have a major impact in decreasing government support for academic research as shown in Figure 1:

President Donald Trump’s return to the White House is already having a big impact at the $47.4 billion U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the new administration imposing a wide range of restrictions, including the abrupt cancellation of meetings such as grant review panels. Officials have also ordered a communications pause, a freeze on hiring, and an indefinite ban on travel.

The moves have generated extensive confusion and uncertainty at the nation’s largest research agency, which has become a target for Trump’s political allies. “The impact of the collective executive orders and directives appears devastating,” one senior NIH employee says.

Public universities rely much more on public support than do private universities. Meanwhile, not all colleges and universities engage in research. The Carnegie Classification splits university engagement in research into the following categories:

Research 1: Very High Spending and Doctorate Production

On average in a single year, these institutions spend at least $50 million on research & development and award at least 70 research doctorates.

Research 2: High Spending and Doctorate Production

On average in a single year, these institutions spend at least $5 million on research & development and award at least 20 research doctorates.

Research Colleges and Universities

On average in a single year, these institutions spend at least $2.5 million on research & development. Institutions that are in the R1 or R2 categories are not included.

As I said, my wife and I recently retired from working at CUNY, the largest urban university in the country. CUNY is a federated university that was described in earlier blogs. The general structure is given below:

The City University of New York (CUNY) has 25 campuses, including 11 senior colleges, 7 community colleges, and 7 professional schools. CUNY is the largest public university system in the United States.

My wife and I were members of both one senior college (Brooklyn College) and the Graduate Center of CUNY. The Graduate Center is classified by Carnegie as an R1 Research Institution, while 9 more CUNY colleges (including Brooklyn College) were designated as leading research institutions.

An extended list of colleges and hospitals that were directly hit by the new regulations is given by the NYT.

(Source: Sigma Earth)

The ESG (environmental social governance) concept has appeared frequently throughout this blog. Two of the more recent blogs are from August 16, 2022, and March 28, 2023. Specific issues that ESG addresses are marked on the figure above, including aspects of DEI. You can find more entries through this blog’s search box. The issue that I am addressing in this blog is the new Trump administration’s attitude toward the concept and its impact on businesses. I’m especially interested in the differences between and similarities to the administration’s attitude toward DEI that was discussed in last week’s blog. In the March 28, 2023 blog, I tried to make the case that politicizing ESG means politicizing our future.

To my knowledge, President Trump hasn’t issued an executive order banning ESG in the way he ordered the abolishment of DEI in the federal workforce. However, changes were proposed before the 2024 elections:

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants to prevent ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) funds from greenwashing. The SEC published a fact sheet with amendments calling for funds to show proof of their claims and to disclose how they choose companies and vote at annual meetings.

This news comes after Tesla was recently removed from the S&P 500 ESG Index. After all, it doesn’t make sense that oil companies, which pollute way more than Tesla, are considered by the index to have a better ESG score than a company whose entire mission is focused on sustainability. What kind of upside-down world are we in?

According to the SEC fact sheet, the ESG funds will have to also report greenhouse gas emissions related to the portfolio. It said:

“The proposed changes would apply to registered investment companies, business development companies (together with registered investment companies, “funds”), registered investment advisers, and certain unregistered advisers (together with registered investment advisers, “advisers”).”

There is no question that the structure of ESG will change during this administration, but unlike DEI, the concept will not be attacked head-on. Rather, it will face push-back in particular areas of interest such as climate change:

The impact of the recent US Presidential election on environmental, social & governance (ESG) matters is expected to be wide-ranging, with a broad pullback expected in federal rulemaking, alongside the reversal of several policies. However, legislation by certain US states, such as California, will remain in force, as will international rules requiring compliance from large US-based companies.

Just before the election, new tools were proposed to enable businesses to incorporate the environmental part of the acronym in order to qualify for the ESG Index:

ISS ESG Launches Tool to Help Banks Estimate Portfolio Emissions to Meet Sustainability Reporting Requirements;  Susan Lahey July 31, 2024

ISS ESG, the sustainable investment arm of ISS STOXX, announced today the introduction of a new Industry Average Emission Intensity Data Set as part of the evolution of its suite of Climate Solutions, aimed at helping banks and insurance companies to comply with new mandatory climate reporting requirements, such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and European Banking Authority (EBA) Pillar 3 ESG Disclosures.

The new, sector-based data set enables users to estimate emissions for non-listed companies, small and medium enterprises, and other alternative investments. In particular, it enables banks to estimate emissions for large portfolios of companies where data is scarce in support of EBA Pillar 3 reporting. The data set provides industry emission intensity averages which follow PCAF recommendations on a global and regional basis and comprises NACE and GICS industry classifications.

The ESG Index is described below (https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/esg-indexes/):

An ESG index consists of companies that meet certain criteria for environmental, social, and governance performance. An ESG index can be used as a benchmark for companies in that industry, region, or sector, just as a large-cap equity index like the S&P 500 can be used as a benchmark for the performance of large-cap U.S. stocks.

The challenge in most aspects of ESG or sustainable investing, including the construction of different indexes, is that most ESG standards are voluntary and can be inconsistent in the criteria and metrics they use to evaluate companies’ progress toward ESG goals, or mitigate ESG risks.

Nonetheless, recent research suggests that ESG investing strategies perform similar to conventional strategies. By knowing some of the top ESG indexes, then, it’s possible to invest in funds that track the performance of that index, and put your money toward companies whose aim is to focus on positive environmental, social, and corporate governance outcomes.

Key Points

• • • An ESG index consists of companies that meet criteria for environmental, social, and governance standards.
    • An ESG index may also exclude certain companies or sectors (e.g. fossil fuels, gambling, adult entertainment) or those with low ESG scores.
    • An ESG index can be used as a benchmark for securities in an industry, region, or sector.
    • There are some 50,000 sustainability-oriented indexes, according to Morningstar.
    • Owing to inconsistency around ESG criteria and metrics, it can be difficult to evaluate companies’ progress toward ESG goals, or compare one company to another.

The government is not yet attacking American businesses for participating in the ESG Index. Instead, the new administration is starting to attack foreign countries whose companies are participating in these activities:

The US may use “trade tools” to retaliate against European ESG regulations that affect American companies, said Howard Lutnick, US President Donald Trump’s pick to become commerce secretary. Lutnick was referring specifically to the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. He told Republican senators last month that he’s concerned by the extent to which environmental, social and governance regulations formulated in Brussels are impacting US businesses.

I will follow these developments and return to this issue once the administration’s attitude and the feedback from business become more transparent.

A magazine cover from the McCarthy era (Source: Sarah Lawrence archives)

Since the takeover of the new administration in the US, on January 20^th, many institutions, including businesses, government offices, and universities have removed DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and ESG (environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and corporate governance), from their websites, mission statements, and declared objectives. This blog is focused on DEI in universities; next week’s blog will be focused on ESG in businesses. Both will have a major impact on our collective future.

Last week’s blog argued that using growth as the only indicator of success and failure is problematic on many levels. The government should be focused on trying to create a better future for all it governs. The emphasis in last week’s blog was on growth and DEI in the current global environment where the demographic makeup in many countries is shifting. It was proposed that growth/capita might be a better indicator than GDP.

DEI, which is now the target of hostility and division, is more complex—whether in a business, government, or university setting. Many pursue it and fight for it because it is the right thing to do. Others say that such a pursuit is detrimental to the basic mission of any institution: curbing future growth for businesses, limiting students’ preparation for a successful postgraduate future, and hampering individual and collective safety.

Meanwhile, President Trump wants to dismantle the federal Department of Education:

The Trump administration has begun drafting an executive order that would kick off the process of eliminating the Department of Education, the latest move by President Donald Trump to swiftly carry out his campaign promises, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN.

The move would come in two parts, the sources said. The order would direct the secretary of Education to create a plan to diminish the department through executive action.

Trump would also push for Congress to pass legislation to end the department, as those working on the order acknowledge that shuttering the department would require Congress’ involvement.

This would be a milestone in abolishing the federal nature of the US. However, on this issue, the Constitution will probably not act as a savior:

Defining a Federal Right to Education

Much ink and many hours of court cases have been dedicated to defining, clarifying, and debating the particulars of current Constitutional guarantees, such as the rights to speak freely, bear arms, receiving due process, etc. However, even among legal experts, there’s no singular definition for the idea of a “federal right to education.” To summarize some of the past court cases and movements advocating for it, we might define a federal right to education as:

The right of all American children to a high-quality, equal education regardless of race, income, location, etc., guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution

As of 2021, the U.S. Constitution and its amendments do not specifically mention education, which is why (per the Tenth Amendment) the states are in charge of providing and regulating schooling. A federal right to education could be added to the Constitution via ratifying a new amendment. However, most attempts at enshrining this right have come through the court system.

The most notable court case regarding a federal right to education came about in 1973, when a suit out of Texas made its way to the Supreme Court. In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriquez(Open Link in new tab), parents from the low-income, predominately Hispanic Edgewood district argued that it was discriminatory for their schools to receive only $37 per pupil while the wealthier Alamo Heights neighborhood received $413 per student. A three-judge panel in Texas agreed with the parents and went a step further by calling education a fundamental right, citing the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. However, when the State of Texas appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices delivered a 5–4 decision overturning the Texas judges’ words. The majority opinion asserted that Texas had not violated its constitution and that education is not a fundamental right.

The anti-DEI push and idea of abolishing the federal role in education trigger many (post-WWII generations) memories of the McCarthy era:

Is repression on campuses today worse than during McCarthyism? It’s a claim that’s increasingly made, on both the right and the left. Samuel Abrams, a Sarah Lawrence professor and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, recently concluded that “intellectual life today on campus is worse than the McCarthy era,” an assessment that was promptly echoed by a New York Sun headline.

Liberals have likewise argued that there is a “new campus McCarthyism” caused by conservative forces. Historian Ellen Schrecker, the foremost expert on academic freedom during McCarthyism and author of No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (1986), invoked the McCarthy analogy in response to recent right-wing attacks on academe: “It’s worse than McCarthyism. The red scare of the 1950s marginalized dissent and chilled the nation’s campuses, but it did not interfere with such matters as curriculum or classroom teaching.”

However, some research is being done that suggests DEI (in hiring faculty and staff, for instance) is compatible with the basic mission of universities to educate students. Research shows that students learn better from people who look like them:

Studies show that students do, indeed, benefit from teachers who look like them. Black students who have even one black teacher by third grade are 13 percent more likely to enroll in college, according to research from Johns Hopkins University and American University. These same researchers also found that the positive “role model effect” of having a teacher who looks like you was especially beneficial for low-income young Black men, who are 39 percent less likely to dropout of high school if they had at least one black teacher in elementary school. Other research has found that students also benefit from attending schools led by principals of color.

Students are universities’ clients. The inclusion of DEI in managing learning institutions is compatible with the basic mission of universities. Next week’s blog will expand this same argument to businesses keeping ESG.

(Source: quotefancy)

The three targets mentioned in the title have great deal in common. One of the common attributes is that all three are targets of our new administration. This blog will address growth and DEI; next week’s blog will address the future and the roles that these elements play in academic environments.

Growth

As the caption in the photo above suggests, sunflowers must either grow or die. We are better and therefore have more options!

John Cochrane’s thesis from the 2016 election, that growth is the solution for all our ills, has some issues:

Just in the past few months, we’ve looked at problems like retirement, energy prices, political chaos, zero interest rates, negative interest rates, China’s economy, terrorism, unemployment, inflation, pensions, healthcare, refugees, and the Federal Reserve.

Whew—so many problems. There’s, however, a single solution to all of them, and it’s called growth.

John Cochrane, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, wrote a paper on economic growth last year [2015] as part of a project to design presidential debate questions. Sadly, the candidates chose to talk about other issues such as finger length and personal energy levels, but Cochrane’s paper is still useful.

John Cochrane is not alone. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of Chase Manhattan, in an interview with CNBC, could be heard repeating “growth is the only solution” for every question thrown at him. For a world with a constantly growing population and matching growth in resources (including land), they might be right. For our planet, they are not. We have finite resources (including land). We must be smarter than the sunflowers at the top of this blog. Let’s focus on Jamie Dimon’s territory, Chase Manhattan, a branch of the largest bank in the US. I am a Chase client. In addition to having a simple checking account and a savings account, they are also investing some of my money in markets for growth. When they invest my money, they create a risk profile for me to figure out the risk/reward that I will be comfortable with. If growth is the only criterion for success, however, I am not aware of a similar document that is instituted on a company level.

Below is an AI (through Google) description of Chase’s compensation profile and that of Jamie Dimon:

JPMorgan Chase’s compensation policy for executives includes a base salary, incentives, and long-term incentive awards. The Compensation & Management Development Committee evaluates executives and determines their compensation. The Board of Directors then ratifies the compensation.

Compensation components

• • • • Base salary: The annual salary paid to an executive
      • Incentives: Performance-based compensation, such as bonuses and stock options
      • Long-term incentive awards: Stock options, grants, and other awards that are intended to align the interests of executives with shareholders

Compensation process

1. The Compensation & Management Development Committee approves compensation goals and objectives
2. The committee evaluates executives based on those goals and objectives
3. The committee determines compensation for executives
4. The Board of Directors ratifies the compensation

Compensation examples

• • • • In 2024, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s compensation was $39 million, which included a $1.5 million base salary and $37.5 million in incentives.
      • Other senior executives at JPMorgan Chase saw their compensation increase by 4–21% in 2024.

It is basically assumed that the part of the compensation aligned with shareholders is the growth of the stock.

Chase is in the category of a “too big to fail” bank. Here is how AI defines that:

The “too big to fail” (TBTF) policy is a theory that some financial institutions are so large and interconnected that their failure would be disastrous for the economy. The policy suggests that the government should support these institutions if they face potential failure.

The government regulates the finances of such banks to try to prevent such catastrophic failures. Our government is now declaring that our society is over-regulated. It remains to be seen what will happen to TBTF institutions.

Economic growth is today’s yardstick for the success or failure of governments. In democratic countries, voters are translating their countries’ economic growth into their personal well-being. It will be interesting to see how this translation works as the global population shrinks. The population pyramids are shifting to show a larger percentage of older people, who need an increasing amount of support. Most of the developed world is now in this situation. Changing the criteria for economic success to growth per capita (GDP/capita) rather than overall GDP will not completely solve the problem of measuring accurately but it will be a step in the right direction.

DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion)

DEI is now directly under attack by the new US government. The stated reasoning for the attack, which resonates with many, is that policies should not be racialized. The thought is that economic gains, in terms of employment and salaries, are zero-sum activities (normalized to growth) and advantages to some translate into disadvantages to others. The argument is that such distributions of advantage should not be based on race. However, DEI is not limited to the economic sphere; a significant element has to do with education. Five days after President Trump’s inauguration, the following story was published:

Trump’s anti-DEI order yanks Air Force video on first Black pilots

WASHINGTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s order halting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives has led the Air Force to suspend course instruction on a documentary about the first Black airmen in the U.S. military, known as the Tuskegee Airmen, a U.S. official said on Saturday.

The famed Black aviators included 450 pilots who fought overseas in segregated units during World War Two. Their success in combat helped pave the way for President Harry Truman’s decision to desegregate the armed forces in 1948.

About a day later, the following piece was published in the NYT by David French: 

How a German Thinker Explains MAGA Morality

There’s a difference, however, between yielding to temptation and developing an alternative morality. And what we’ve been witnessing in the last decade is millions of Americans constructing a different moral superstructure. And while it is certainly notable and powerful in Trumpism, it is not exclusive to Trumpism.

A good way to understand this terrible political morality is to read Carl Schmitt, a German political theorist who joined the Nazi Party after Hitler became chancellor. I want to be careful here — I am not arguing that millions of Americans are suddenly Schmittians, acolytes of one of the fascist regime’s favorite political theorists. The vast majority of Americans have no idea who he is. Nor would they accept all of his ideas.

Not many Americans know who Carl Schmitt was, but many Americans have heard about the reception that Jesse Owens got in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Three years after 1936, the Germans invaded Poland, the Holocaust started, most of my family was murdered, and I was moved to Bergen-Belsen with some of my remaining family. The total global number of casualties exceeded 50 million.

A day after David French published his piece on Carl Schmitt, another piece was published in the NYT on the activities of Elon Musk in Germany:

Musk Says Germany Has ‘Too Much of a Focus on Past Guilt’

Elon Musk told a gathering of the hard-right Alternative for Germany party this weekend that the country has “too much of a focus on past guilt,” an apparent effort to wipe away the long shadow of the Nazis that has influenced generations of Germans to quarantine extreme political parties from public life.

“It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything” Mr. Musk said in a short video that was broadcast to thousands of party members in the eastern city of Halle.

Halle is about 110 miles (179km) from Bergen-Belsen. In two months, I will be traveling to this “neighborhood” to celebrate the liberation of the camp by the British army and my liberation by the American army.

A few days later, another piece published by the NYT announced more recent anti-DEI activity:

On Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump signed two executive orders. One was a 2,400-word behemoth focused mainly on race, gender and American history. It seeks to prevent schools from recognizing transgender identities or teaching about concepts such as structural racism, “white privilege” and “unconscious bias,” by threatening their federal funding.

The order also promotes “patriotic” education that depicts the American founding as “unifying, inspiring and ennobling” while explaining how the United States “has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history.”

Below are the states in the US that require Holocaust Studies (again, AI):

Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Wisconsin.

I talked about my family experiences in the Holocaust in four of these states (and more that are not listed). For me, a policy that allows talks about the Holocaust but not talks about “structural racism,” “white [or Aryan] privilege,” or “unconscious bias” is more than problematic.

In the next blog, I will try to tie the concepts of growth, DEI, and the future to the function of higher ed and preparing students for future functionalities. We will see that university campuses are a much more functional environment to integrate these themes than Chase bank, which I have explored here. The proper way to explore businesses in this context is to include ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) in the discussion.

Stay tuned!

(Source: 11trees)

A week or so ago (Sunday, January 19^th), a day before President Trump’s inauguration, I woke up, ate my breakfast, opened my daily paper, and was immediately exposed to major changes in ongoing global events:

• the inauguration
• the start of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, with the release of three young hostages who were captured on October 7, 2023
• the shutting down of TikTok, followed by its almost immediate return
• the prediction of a large snow storm (around 5”) where I live (NYC), which resulted in a much lower level (1 – 2”)
• the approach of International Holocaust Remembrance Day (yesterday, Monday, January 2^7th)

Save for the fluctuations in the snow and TikTok, which I do not use, I have a direct or indirect stake in all of these events, and I care very much about the reality that they represent. Every aspect of the realities that I mentioned is complex and is being addressed by many. But one can take a bird’s eye view and address the connections in terms of “good for us” or “bad for us.” Two articles in the opinion section of the NYT are good examples of this approach.

Cherry picking was addressed before on this blog (see September 17, 2019, and January 19, 2022); however, these blogs were much narrower in scope. This time, a week after the inauguration, the concept is much more consequential. Cherry picking can often be beneficial, especially when it is followed by actions that amplify the “good” parts and try to decrease the “bad” parts. One example of “good” would be negative energy pricing models. They are good for energy consumers but not so good for energy producers, so they cannot last. They amplify the need to improve the grid in a way that will facilitate the transportation of excess energy to places where the high energy demand makes it too expensive. An example of the “bad” part would be President Trump’s call to “drill baby, drill” on the same day that he was traveling to California to see the impacts of the deadly fires in LA and a day after he traveled to North Carolina to inspect the recent flood there. Both trips took place with the full knowledge that climate change strongly amplified the impacts of the two events. There is also no scientific debate that the fossil fuels he wants to drill for are responsible for human-caused climate change.

Below are my takes on the NYT opinion pieces representative of the “good” and “bad” that I was exposed to that Sunday:

The “bad” for us – Ezra Klein:

Now Is the Time of Monsters

Donald Trump is returning, artificial intelligence is maturing, the planet is warming, and the global fertility rate is collapsing.

To look at any of these stories in isolation is to miss what they collectively represent: the unsteady, unpredictable emergence of a different world. Much that we took for granted over the last 50 years — from the climate to birthrates to political institutions — is breaking down; movements and technologies that seek to upend the next 50 years are breaking through.

If somebody is referring to reality in terms of “monsters,” there shouldn’t be any doubt about his opinion about the reality that he is describing.

I wrote about elements of three of his “monsters” last summer (August 20, 2024) in my post “The Olympics in Terms of Global Trends”:

The 5 trends include computer access, electricity access, fertility, carbon emissions, and estimated number of nuclear warheads. All five trends are anthropogenic (generated by us humans). All five have a major impact on our lives and all of them started in my lifetime. Each trend has a set of complex impacts, with both destructive and positive potential. The impact they have on our lives is projected to increase.

As we can see, there are some differences between Klein’s “monsters” and my trends. Klein also misses the biggest monster on my list: the threat of nuclear war. This threat has recently been voiced by Russia more often than ever. Maps of US vulnerabilities to such attacks have also been shown regularly. Another trend on my list that is missing from Klein’s list is that of accelerated global electrification, without which the AI “monster” mentioned by Klein could not have come about. In my list of the trends that are mentioned by Klein, AI is just an important consequence of global digitization, whose benefits and harms are much more nuanced and balanced than just AI.

The “good” for us opinion in the NYT came with an apology that the author, Nicholas Kristof, cannot currently see much good in his surrounding reality. This is quoted below:

Even This Year Is the Best Time Ever to Be Alive

Around the beginning of each year, I customarily write a column about how we’ve just had the “best year ever” in the long history of humanity.

This annual eruption of exuberance outrages some readers who see it as disrespectful of all the tragedies around us. Others welcome it as a reminder that even in our messed-up world, many trends are still going right.

So this year I heard from readers asking: Where’s your “best year ever” column?

To be honest, I didn’t have the heart to write it. I was dispirited by the suffering of children in Gaza, by the atrocities and famine in Sudan, by the wildfires in Los Angeles and what they portend and by a December trip to Madagascar, where I saw toddlers starving because of a drought probably exacerbated by climate change. And then a felon I consider unstable and a threat to democracy is about to move into the White House.

Yet, just as some readers wanted reassurance, so did I. Precisely because I felt blue, I wanted to read a column putting grim news in perspective. It has become apparent that the only way I am going to read such a column is if I write it first — so here goes.

However, Kristof does manage to find some positives from last year. He lists a few things, of which I am quoting 4:

• • • • And 2024 appears to have been the year in which the smallest percentage of children died since the dawn of humanity.
      • Likewise, consider extreme poverty, defined as having less than $2.15 per day, adjusted for inflation. Historically, most human beings lived in extreme poverty, but the share has been plummeting— and in 2024 reached a new low of about 8.5 percent of the world’s people.
      • Now we’re approaching 90 percent literacy worldwide, and the number of literate people is rising by more than 12 million each year. Every three seconds, another person becomes literate.
      • Scientists have newly developed the first antipsychotic medication for schizophrenia in decades, and a vaccine against a form of breast cancer may enter Phase 2 trials this year. And with semaglutide medications, Americans are now becoming thinner, on average, each year rather than fatter, with far-reaching health consequences.

The title of Kristof’s piece needs to be directly compared with the aspiration of our newly re-elected president, who attracted many of us with the promise to “Make America Great Again”  (MAGA). There is no exact reference for the time we would be returning to “again.”

Trump has used President William McKinley’s administration (1897-1901) as a marker  in some examples and even suggested that the tallest mountain in the US (Alaska), whose name reverted to its local Denali in 1975, should again bear McKinley’s name.

As it happens, Netflix is now showing “American Primeval”:

Western television miniseries created and written by Mark L. Smith and directed by Peter Berg. Starring Taylor Kitsch and Betty Gilpin, the series is set in 1857 during the Utah War.

The show has become very popular. However, I don’t think that many Americans would be delighted to go back to the way of life of the mid-19^th century shown in the series.