Bayh-Dole Act (1980)
The Bayh-Dole Act, enacted in 1980, fundamentally reshaped the landscape of federally funded research in the United States. It enabled universities, small businesses, and non-profit organizations to retain ownership of inventions developed under government contracts, thereby encouraging the commercialization of innovations. By encouraging greater collaboration between academia and industry, the Act shifted the focus towards applied research with commercial potential, altering the traditional model of basic research.
That changed with the Bayh-Dole Amendment in 1980, because that said that instead of universities being the only thing that can pursue that which cannot be funded by the market, it said, and if you do do research that can be rewarded by the market, you can put in for the university to reap that reward. So suddenly, the universities abandoned their Blue Sky and started doing things that were translation oriented.
- Eric Weinstein on Renewing our Belief in the Future of Humanity with Eric Weinstein (YouTube Content)
On X
2010
The 1980 Bayh-Dole act looked at the "public good" of basic research & said "Inexhaustible & Inexcludible is a head hurter."
2020
@matt_gallegos Eilberg act in 1976 was first. Then Bayh-Dole undermined the Vannavar Bush endless frontier arrangment.
2021
@TuckerMax @danielsheehan45 The Degradations of the 2008 crisis followed by the Dear Colleague letter of R. Ali in 2011, IMMACT90, Bayh-Dole in 1980, were specific worsenings of our corrupt picture of reality.
The Jenga tower was never the solid structure it was claimed to be. But it stood. It wonât now.
I get it. But can we *actually* build something that does post-relativistic physics? Asking for some friends.
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@ellleighclarke No idea. But as brilliant & rich as he is, we canât afford to get sucked in.
Iâm actually up for the dick jokes. What Iâm not up for is the tease. He had the right idea (get off planet), the right resources, and the right background (physics). But it became just one more farce.
@newroyalent Because he could snap out of it. And if there is even a slim chance, itâs worth the cringe.
@Burchoff @ellleighclarke The part of physics that might accomplish his stated dream is dying every month. Go to any physics department & attend a high energy physics or particle theory talk. Maybe 1/10 is still about physics. He is burning time like crazy when he could just endow the field. Donât ask me.
@ellleighclarke @Burchoff Maxwell, Eilenberg, Bayh-Dole, Mansfield, Immact90, SSC cancellation, etc. We are down to embers. Itâs not Witten and Greene. It was the lack of freedom to deviate from Witten and Company. To tell your failing elders that you wonât be signing on to their failed programs.
@ellleighclarke @Burchoff You know we all want to be loved. And we all want money. And we all want status.
But nothing compares to physics. And Iâll believe the best of him until we talk because that is a path of hope. And he may have a genius plan. I just donât happen to know it & itâs taking too long.
2023
Weâve been trying to destroy US scientistsâ freedom & their research universities for ~60 years.
Peer Review 1965
Mansfield Amendment 1969
Eilberg Amendment 1976
Bayh-Dole Act 1980
IMMACT90 1990
SSC Cancelation 1993
ADEA Faculty Uncapping 1993
Dear Colleague Letter 2011
DEI 2017
You are looking at domesticated Scientists that were bread over almost 60 years from Wild Type scientists.
Itâs not that there is no connection. But the difference between a wolf & a poodle can be significant. One is fiercely independent. One needs obedience to be fed regularly.
And inside every domesticated animal lies an unkillable dream of being wild and free again. Thatâs why occasionally my dog brings me a squirrel or still pees on territory while on a leash.
Your real scientists want to hunt again. They need to be reintroduced into the wild. Now.
Here is the simple point:
You can have scientists you trust.
You can have scientists you control.
And you can pick only one of the above options.
Youâre getting angry at wolves you bred into obedience to non-scientific masters who have no idea what they are doing. Thatâs why.
*bred. đ
2025
How about reaffirming the unsayable:
A) Research Universities are supposed to be dedicated to scholarship and discovery above all else. Not teaching. Not politics. Not incubating business spinoffs.
B) They are suppose to be exclusive. Not inclusive.
C) The professors are supposed to lead the university. Not the staff. Not the administrators.
D) Academics are not to be made precarious.
E) Even private elite universities are not really private. They are government funded to do the work that the market cannot.
F) The USG is in breach of the historical commitment to support blue sky science in US Universities.
G) Graduate students are workers disguised as students. Foreign students are a foreign workforce.
H) Peer review is astonishingly recent and doesnât work.
I) There is a quasi military function to research universities. They are part of National Security. Patriotism matters.
J) Some fields do not deserve to be together on a level field. Biology and gender studies for example.
K) Some fields *may* now be too dangerous to be studied openly. Parts of physics, number theory and Machine learning leap to mind. This must be studied.
L) The AAU, NSF, NAS etc. have all conspired against the welfare of American scientists and their families. Scientists need to be in the rooms where their fates are determined.
M) The difference between a research university and a college takes place almost exclusively within three groups of people: Professors, Graduate Students, and PostDocs/Researchers/Visitors. It often takes place in the afternoons. In seminars. In Labs. Etc. If you arenât part of that world you arenât part of the University. You are working or studying in BigEd but not involved with the university itself.
N) The great man/woman theory is basically correct in academics. Individual academicians change the world.
O) The Mansfield amendment, Dole-Bayh, Eilberg, IMMACT90 etc laws need to be undone. The damage has been incalculable.
Full page ad in todayâs WSJ taken out by leaders at @VanderbiltU and @WashU:
Higher Education is at a Crossroads
To university leadership, Board members and alumni:
American higher education is at a crossroads. Ideological forces in and outside of campuses have pulled too many universities away from the core purpose, principles and values that made them America's great engines of learning, innovation and discovery, and the envy of the world.
It is imperative that universities reaffirm and protect these core principles, strengthen their compact with the American people, and build on their unmatched capacity for teaching and innovation. They must do so not only because universities provide education that is transformative and research that improves everyday lifeâbut also because their work is vital to American prosperity, competitiveness and national security.
To this end, the leadership of Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis recently took action at the board level to affirm our commitment to three indispensable principles that have long guided us:
-Excellence in all aspects of our institutions' work, free of political litmus tests, grounded in a commitment to institutional neutrality in words and deeds;
-Academic freedom and freedom of expression, to ensure unfettered inquiry, perspectives drawn from a wide range of human experience, and dialogue and debate that are free from censorship and disruption; and
-An environment that fosters growth and development, including a commitment to minimizing financial and other barriers that impede students' access to our institutions or that hinder their academic success.
Learn about the Vanderbilt-WashU Statement of Principles and efforts to restore confidence in America's great universities at HigherEdStatementofPrinciples dot com
Bruce Evans
Chairman, Board of Trust
Vanderbilt University
Andrew Bursky
Chair, Board of Trustees Washington University in St. Louis
Daniel Diermeier
Chancellor
Vanderbilt University
Andrew D. Martin
Chancellor
Washington University in St. Louis
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I find myself in agreement with @realchrisrufo on this point.
I'll fill a bit in as well that doesn't seem to be well known.
Our private research universities are not actually purely private. They are designed to be both a cryptic soft extension of the state (e.g. national security, priming the prosperity pipeline with blue sky research, truth adjudication, etc.), which is also oppositely intended as an independent check on the state and state power in times of abuse as well. This tacit and quiet knowledge, which used to be held at the AAU and the relevant professors, has been mostly lost.
So 'overhead' or 'indirect costs' is not actually overhead at all. It is supposed to be cryptic state support based on research merit to avoid political pressure to fund 3rd tier universities at the same level as Princeton. So the whole system was designed back in the Vannevar Bush era but without leaving the esoteric knowledge with modern academicians.
It's a disaster. It was a quiet game which worked brilliantly to serve the nation and its population until lunatics started to get a foothold in the research universities.
This is why when you audit this stuff, you see waste. It wasn't ever intended to be what it appears to be: this was the USG paying to have a totally ELITE and EXCLUSIVE quasi-private, quasi-public resource. Think Manhattan project. Think The Jasons. Think winning.
And, despite my deep dislike of how @realchrisrufo has acted towards me, his point is spot on. If the elite U.S. universities are so confused as to think that they are truly 100% private and that they should be allowed to destroy their role of ELITE service to the nation which built them up with federal dollars, that is a moment to remind them of the "Endless Frontier" agreement.
First the USG welched on the agreement with the Mansfield Ammendment and Dole Bayh and then IMMACT90. Then the universities welched with DEI.
BOTH parties need to get back to the quiet agreement, or the whole thing will just fall apart. And the US research achipeligo is a *MAJOR* part of american greatness which we seem to be about to destroy because we can't figure out how to do this.
[And for those of you who seem to believe that quiet and tacit agreements are always bad, so that the Manhattan Project should have been academic and totally open because 'Sunlight is always the best disinfectant!!', I highly encourage you to use the comment section to complain again about elitism, gatekeeping, Fauci, experts, science, government and credentials. I get it. You can't stop to listen...or think. I totally get you. Looking forward to your vitriol. Just make sure to remind me repeatedly that markets are always right, all tax is theft, DEI is poison, and that Trump and Elon know exactly what they are doing at all times.]
The Ivy League universities are in a bind: they want to collect billions in federal funds, while openly violating federal civil rights law. The president should drop the hammerâno DEI, or no federal dollars.