Brain Drain

Prof. Galloway: “The Manhattan Project, the top-secret U.S. government initiative to build an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany did, relied on hundreds of brilliant scientists from leading universities. Many of them had fled fascist regimes in Europe and found refuge on American campuses, including Berkeley, Columbia, MIT, Princeton, Purdue, and the University of Minnesota. In the end, Adolf Hitler didn’t come close to developing a bomb. But if the rivers of talent had flowed in the opposite direction, the world would look dramatically different today.  In the eight decades since World War II, collaboration among the federal government, academia, and industry has unleashed unprecedented prosperity and economic growth for America. No other country has been as successful. Consider the list of the 10 most valuable companies in the world. Eight are based in the U.S. Research funded by the federal government has paved the way for a long list of breakthroughs, from the internet to GPS to mRNA vaccines to Apple’s Siri.

Yet rather than building on this foundation, the White House is determined to destroy it. The administration is attacking science and slashing research funding at universities under the false flag of fighting antisemitism. The demands are more thought control than civil rights. An assault on progressive ideology vs. bigotry. The results could be devastating: The river of knowledge may flow in reverse. Loath to get in the way of an adversary making a mistake, global competitors are eagerly shopping at the greatest yard sale of human capital since German scientists bolted for America in World War II.