This week saw Portland State University announce that it would be paying out 12 JEDI-R scholar grants. According to the PSU Twitter account, it would be giving out $130,000 to help fund 12 research proposals. This would mean roughly just over $10,000 would be paid to the average student. Obviously, this isn’t a bad gig if you can get funding for it!

Under their announcement, they also showed previous beneficiaries of their grants, including those who had published material on subjects such as BLM, and Gen Z issues.

This led to criticism from several Twitter accounts, who clearly weren’t happy with how the funding was used. It goes without saying that if money is paid to certain politically-stanced papers, then this was always likely to be the case.

The most popular tweet was liked by almost 60 people – this was by a user named Lisa Johnson who wrote, “Do these people steal property and assault people too? Is that a prerequisite for a grant? You seem to condone that behaviour.”

Another person commented, “The centre of intellectual and social conversation and exchange. The last bastion of clarity of thought and fruitfulness of purpose. You’re focus on revenue has caused you to lose you focus on creating, clear minded kids.” Similarly, another called out PSU for engaging in affirmative action.

So, what do you think about this? On the one hand, it’s good to see PSU paying out grants and helping students financially. However, it clearly rubbed students up the wrong way and has caused tensions with locals.