Jefferson Weeps

(photo credit for Jefferson Statue at UVA)

Thomas Jefferson is surely weeping at the tawdry spectacle of tyrannical vengeance his beloved university has become.  Aided and abetted by a political Board of Trustees for the university that has failed in its fundamental duty of loyalty to the institution, the Trump Administration has gleefully claimed yet another presidential victim in its senseless, destructive war on higher education.  Decapitating university leadership has become a blood sport for the authoritarian regime that has proudly forced out presidents and presidential aspirants at Harvard, Penn, Columbia, Florida and, now, the University of Virginia.

In an interview I gave to Liz Willen, editor of The Hechinger Report, I said that, “The forced resignation of UVA President James Ryan lays bare once more the intent of the Trump Administration to silence the leadership of American higher education and to debilitate its leading institutions so that the regime can continue its campaign to deconstruct our Democracy without opposition.”  The title of Willen’s column aptly states the new realities for higher education: “Why higher education should be mourning the loss of its independence on July 4th.”

But the threat is much larger and deeper than the debilitation of elite universities.  By crippling one great university after another through grossly improper interference with internal university policies including the tenure of presidents, Trump is trying to intimidate the entire higher education sector into abject compliance with his authoritarian directives, particularly those that demand abandoning principles and programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

This is not a mere academic exercise to achieve some kind of rebalancing of the curriculum.  Trump’s real war is on this country’s 70 years of progress on civil rights and equal opportunity for Black Americans in particular.  Since the Supreme Court ended the shame of “separate but equal” laws and policies in 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education), leading to the subsequent enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other court rulings and legislative actions intended to level the playing field for persons suffering historic discrimination, right-wing politicians and interest groups have been working in overdrive to stop this nation’s progress toward true racial justice and equity for all persons.

In the most cynical and abusive twist to this sad story, the right has now co-opted much of civil rights law and policy to defeat its very purpose in promoting equal opportunity for those who suffered historic discrimination, notably Black and Brown Americans, women, ethnic minorities and LGBTQ persons.  The Trump Administration’s Department of Justice and Civil Rights Office at the U.S. Department of Education have made the usurpation of civil rights laws into an art form, most recently accusing Harvard University of “violent violation” of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act for failing to protect Jewish students from discrimination on that campus (Harvard vigorously denies the charge) — and threatening Harvard with a total economic obliteration by ending all federal funding for the nation’s oldest university.

To date, while using the scrim of antisemitism as a political cudgel to wage its war on universities, the Trump Administration has said absolutely nothing about discrimination and abuse suffered by African American and Hispanic students — and instead, the same administration that lectures Harvard about “viewpoint diversity” has ordered a complete end to any and all programs that promote DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — wrongly deeming such programs to be illegal, which they are not.

We leaders of higher education must redouble our resolve to confront the racism, ethnic hatred, sexism and homophobia that drive the political attack on DEI.  Such confrontation may come at a cost, yes, but the larger cost is the loss of the soul of the university.  Let’s be clear: taking diversity, equity and inclusion values into account is NOT illegal, as the Trump administration claims, and in fact, those principles reflect a moral viewpoint on justice that undergirds the work of many, if not most, colleges and universities. Catholic colleges and universities, in particular, have a large commitment to the religious tenets of social justice that start with recognizing the dignity and worth of every human being, a teaching that demands that we stand for racial justice and an end to white supremacy and ethnic hatred.

It’s our responsibility to shape the future citizen leaders of this nation, the most diverse polity in human history, and to teach our students how to respect and support each other and serve communities regardless of personal characteristics.  No federal official has the right to force out an institutional leader who stands up for the values, policies and practices of the university.  The willingness of the UVA Board to cooperate with the Trump Administration’s pressure campaign — facilitated by the obvious bias of several Board members — is also a complete abandonment of the Board’s responsibility to act in defense of the university against improper external interference.

249 years ago, Thomas Jefferson was the lead writer for the manifesto of freedom that became known as the Declaration of Independence, a moment in history that we celebrate this week and every year on July 4.  In this moment of grave peril not only for higher education but for our nation’s commitment to true democratic principles, let’s remember the point and purpose of the Declaration of Independence and these opening paragraphs:

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

To read the entire Declaration of Independence visit https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript