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Nicholas B. Dirks
The Atlantic
Excerpt: The first time Donald Trump threatened to use the power of the presidency to punish a university, I was the target. At UC Berkeley, where I was chancellor, campus police had at the last moment canceled an appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos, the alt-right political pundit who was then a star at Breitbart News, because of a violent attack on the venue by a group of outside left-wing activists who objected to Yiannopoulos’s presence.
I didn’t worry much about Trump’s threat at the time. I now realize that was a mistake. American universities did not cause the onslaught that the second Trump administration is unleashing upon them. But they would be in a much stronger position today if they had made a proactive case to the public for their own importance—and taken steps to address their very real shortcomings.
FIRE
Excerpt: It’s been three days since the government arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil for deportation. This afternoon, the administration finally stated the basis for its actions. Its explanation threatens the free speech of millions of people.
Yesterday, an administration official told The Free Press, “The allegation here is not that [Khalil] was breaking the law.” This was confirmed today by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who announced Khalil is being targeted under a law that she characterized as allowing the secretary of state to personally deem individuals “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America.”
Jerry A. Coyne
Why Evolution is True
Excerpt: One of the most odious forms of censorship in modern science. or in any discipline that produces empirical results, is to simply ignore the results of or even refuse to publish a study simply because it gives results you—or a journal or a newspaper—don’t like because they go against current ideology.
Now we have another case, with two media organizations—this time including the NYT—ignoring a study on the inimical (yes, inimical) effects of DEI training on intergroup harmony. Both articles are from late last year.
Rose Horowitch
The Atlantic
Excerpt: If the Trump administration’s goal was to sow chaos among America’s colleges, it has definitely succeeded. Last month, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights sent a letter to universities explaining the agency’s view that, because of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down affirmative action, any consideration of race—not just in admissions, but in hiring, scholarships, support, “and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life”—is now illegal.
The reaction from universities could best be described as “panicked bewilderment,” Peter Lake, a law professor at Stetson University, in Florida, told me.
Don Moynihan
Can We Still Govern?, Substack
Excerpt: Normally I record the classes I teach. It gives students who miss class a chance to catch up. I also make space in my classes to talk about what is happening in government right now. A couple of weeks ago, students asked we keep the discussions, but stop recording the class. They worried about any record of their words that might be viewed as criticism of the current administration, and somehow weaponized against them.
It’s a small example of how fear is creeping into American life.
David French
New York Times
Excerpt: On Monday, Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sent the dean of Georgetown University Law Center, a Catholic law school, a letter that said, “It has come to my attention reliably that Georgetown Law School continues to teach and promote D.E.I. This is unacceptable.”
Martin said that he’d begun an “inquiry” into the school and demanded to know whether it had eliminated all D.E.I. — which he does not define, but in right-wing circles tends to refer to any action at all designed to increase diversity or honor historically marginalized people — from the school and its curriculum. He also asked, “If D.E.I. is found in your courses or teaching in any way, will you move swiftly to remove it?”
