It's easy to count on the short term memory of U.S. citizens in order to get away with appeasing and colluding with trump's corrupt criminal regime. Especially when so much crap is being thrown at us and algorithms make it hard to have a rational debate. I don't think we're loud enough in promising the sycophants that we won't forget what they've done.
"As the Trump administration and its MAGA enablers now face frequent legal setbacks and edge closer to a potentially devastating midterm election, it is especially critical for democracy advocates to hold the line, refuse to give away precious democratic ground, and deny the Trump crowd any easy wins."
Yes.
All the small acts of bravery and principle are starting to add up.
At the same time, the twisted narrative of toxic MAGA-ism is starting to wobble when held up to honest scrutiny.
"When elites learn that capitulation will spark fierce criticism and exact lasting personal and institutional cost, they are much less likely to engage in Quisling behavior and more inclined, however reluctantly, to resist authoritarian intimidation."
Capitulation and appeasement (which only works in the short-term, if that) amount to the same thing. When concessions are made, more will be demanded. Until a situation/condition becomes untenable, little will happen. Thanks to the people at Yale Law, the limit has been reached and they are reacting in favor of freedoms.
Well said. In its most memorable historical event, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement towards Hitler (a person this current president compares himself to in terms of strength and power) did not save Europe and Great Britain from almost total destruction, and the deaths of millions and millions of people, a short time later. Appeasement, capitulation, concessions, any term you may choose to use, merely provides the aggressor(s) with additional time to come up with more and more insidious demands to the colleges and universities, organizations, law firms, movie production companies, television stations, unions ...you name it... will loose their own particular identity, independence and freedom and become nothing more that 'slaves' to that aggressor.
Some of us remember Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Communist scare that he inflicted upon the country. Many capitulated in an attempt to appease. Finally, people realized that it was a scare-inducing hoax and stopped listening to him. As a result, he lost credibility and came to a bad end.
So grateful for the Yale University community to stand up for academic freedom and the rule of law. Being in the Constitution state of Connecticut that’s what we would expect them to do. I certainly hope they stick to their principles and protect academic freedom, liberty, diversity and inclusion for all students, all faculty and staff of Yale University. The diversity in science education not just diversity with the student population both the diversity that is involved in scholastic research teaches us much more about everyone not just the diverse population.
It boggles the mind how Trump and his goons waste time butting into areas that don't need to be butted into while simultaneously ignoring urgent issues that need to be addressed. I guess it's all part of his wannabe-Hitler schtick, which grows more tiresome by the day. VOTE D IN NOVEMBER!
More power to them, and anyone with the spheres to stand up to the viciousness! Meanwhile, the ongoing insanity of the reflecting pool is a perfect metaphor for this regime. In the ancient myth Narcissus is transfixed by his image in the water; today, with all its blunders, decay and corruption, so is Rump.
I'm so glad there are still principled people in high places who will fight against what so many have caved on. I see all this that's going on and wonder how any sane and rational person can still support Trump, but unfortunately there is one in my own household! God help us all.
It seems to me that those who would capitulate to appeasement have a serious lack of education in the ways of fascist/authoritarian regimes, and how they operate.
Once you give in to demand number 1, they'll make demand number 2. Give in to that, and they'll be back with demands number 3, 4, 5, 6, ad infinitum, until the regime has all it wants. The final demand of course will be total submission to being taken over by the regime, and run the way the regime deems most suitable to its overall objectives.
These authoritarians want nothing short of total control because they're so insecure in their own beings, that control of all others is the only thing that will satisfy them.
Yale should hold firm. I don't know why Harvard is mentioned as cooperating. Not in the way Penn and Columbia did, unless Jen Rubin had some new information on that. Heavily targeted for sure.
Like grabbing voter data to ferret out "fraud", team Trump wants to grab admissions data to ferret out "DEI" in admissions. Unlike tariffing an unihabitied island, these grabs will have serious effects even when totally unfounded claims get heavily aired and then quietly dropped once the seeds of doubt have fully sprouted.
Inspiring. Courage is contagious. It feels better in the long run to stand for our ethics, our rule of law, our decency. Asking ourselves "which side are you one?" and choosing fighting the good fight. The fight itself is more important than winning or losing over corrupted power.
I am surprised by the superficiality of this article. It starts with: It is all too common, as Anne Applebaum wrote of Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for a Republican politician to “abandon his previous ideals, to bury the patriotism that was once so important to him, and to become, instead, a loud, opportunistic collaborator.” Graham had ideals? A man who has been preaching the extermination of Iranians and Palestinians, a starch supporter of Gaza genocide, a defender of Hiroshima and Nagasaki crime against humanity of biblical proportions - this man had ideals? Desire to destroy far lands was patriotism? It would appear that his far greater sin was supporting Trump than his almost nazi-like political stand in support of colonial projects and extermination of indigenous people.
With this logic one could accept Holocaust as an ideal, albeit evil one - I for one cannot. As I refuse to call any insane violent destruction of people and/or their land as an ideal. You can argue of course that it is just a question of semantics, but I would happily debate this. Ideal has the same root as ideally - and I am sure that you would never use the word ideally for the program of the extermination of class of people.
Maybe the DOJ (and SCOTUS) would benefit from being reminded of one of the most important and powerful voices in all American history on the subjects of Union, diversity, inclusion and equity (justice). The thoughts and words of James Madison are some of the most powerful and most important ever written about our Constitution, and some of the most relevant to the issues of today.
The crucial truth is that multiculturalism and diversity were inherent in the foundation of this nation. Those very principles were built into our Constitution, and they were seen as being (and proclaimed to be) essential to the strength (and even the survival) of our Constitution and our nation.
In Federalist 10 (https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-1-10#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493273), Madison emphasized that our Constitution was designed to provide "a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government." Such diseases include "faction," which can easily result in a "tyranny of the majority," as Tocqueville emphasized in his book "Democracy In America."
Madison highlighted the dangerous tendency of many people to focus on "the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions" precisely "to kindle [the most] unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts." Anything "interesting to the human passions" can be "inflamed" to make people "much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good." So our Constitution was designed "[t]o secure the public good and private rights against the danger of [any] faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government." Those were the obvious, vital and overarching purposes of our Constitution.
To convince people to ratify the Constitution, Madison in Federalist 10 in November 1787 emphasized the vital importance of preserving the "diversity in the faculties of" various people. "The diversity in the faculties [ ] from which the rights of property originate, is" an "insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. [Even so, t]he protection of these faculties is the first object of government." The protection of the diversity of faculties of the people is highly relevant here.
In Federalist No. 51 (https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-51-60#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493427), Madison directly and expressly emphasized that our diversity is one of the vital strengths of our union, and diversity helps ensure equity and justice. Madison emphasized (repeatedly) that "Justice is the end [i.e., the ultimate goal] of government." So Madison expressly highlighted that diversity was essential to the security of both "civil rights" and "religious rights" and the security was provided by ensuring diversity and inclusion, e.g., "the multiplicity of interests" and "the multiplicity of [religious] sects."
"It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable."
The act of "creating a will in the community independent of the majority" is what the People did by writing and ratifying our written Constitution. The 1st Amendment and the prohibition on religious tests in Article VI and the 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments and the many ways that our Constitution included states and preserved the power of the people of individual states were expressly directed at using our Constitution to secure and promote diversity and inclusion (and thereby promote equity/justice).
The second method, above ("comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable") is diversity and inclusion. That was the primary principle underlying the 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments Each such amendment clarified or changed the meaning of the expression "We the People" at the beginning of our Constitution.
In Federalist No. 51 Madison directly highlighted the importance of diversity to the strength of our Union and our Constitution: "Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government."
Diversity and inclusion are (and were understood to be by those who wrote and ratified our Constitution) essential to the checks and balances in our Constitution. The principles of diversity and inclusion permeate our Constitution. Madison and in Federalist 47 emphasized the reason: "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many" is "the very definition of tyranny." Diversity and inclusion help prevent tyranny and promote justice. Absolutely everything in our Constitution was written for the particular purpose of opposing the VERY COMMON practices of people with power: abusing powers that they were given and usurping or trying to usurp powers that they were not given.
Diversity, equity and inclusion was the point of one of the best-known structural aspects of our Constitution, i.e., "federalism" (allocating limited power to the national government while (as the 10th Amendment expressly emphasizes) other "powers" are "reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"). Protecting diversity, equity and inclusion also is the point of the entire First Amendment.
Diversity obviously is the point of the so-called "separation of powers" (dividing government horizontally into 3 distinct branches and allocating powers among them). Diversity obviously is the point of the so-called "federalism" (dividing government vertically between state and federal levels and apportioning powers between them and securing the powers and independence of the people of each state). Diversity and inclusion obviously are reasons for precluding criminal prosecutions unless a grand jury indicts and precluding criminal punishment unless a trial jury finds a person guilty (in a "public trial" by "an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed).
Madison or Hamilton repeatedly emphasized the importance, specifically, of diversity to our Constitution and our nation. See, e.g., Federalist 53 ("the general affairs of the State, which lie within a small compass, are not very diversified" but "the public affairs of the Union are spread throughout a very extensive region, and are extremely diversified"). See also Federalist 56 ("the great extent of the United States, the number of their inhabitants, and the diversity of their interests" and "Taking each State by itself, its laws are the same, and its interests but little diversified." The point of the union of states was to create "a nation whose affairs are in the highest degree diversified and complicated"). See also Federalist 59 ("This diversity of sentiment between a majority of the people, and the individuals who have the greatest credit in their councils, is exemplified in some of the States at the present moment, on the present question."). See also Federalist 60 ("There is sufficient diversity in the state of property, in the genius, manners, and habits of the people of the different parts of the Union, to occasion a material diversity of disposition in their representatives towards the different ranks and conditions in society.").
Universities promoting diversity and inclusion are supporting our Constitution and our Union and striving to make them stronger. Trump and his minions are violating our Constitution and their oaths of office. They are attacking and undermining our Constitution and our constitution as a nation. They are trying to prevent a "more perfect union" of "the people of the United States," which is the first express purpose of our entire Constitution.
As a former American History teacher, I am embarrassed to say that I had forgotten about the Federalist Papers and in particular the many of the ones Madison wrote himself. Thank you for reminding us all of our perfect defense against the wannabe dictator and aggressor currently sitting in the Oval Office.
It's easy to count on the short term memory of U.S. citizens in order to get away with appeasing and colluding with trump's corrupt criminal regime. Especially when so much crap is being thrown at us and algorithms make it hard to have a rational debate. I don't think we're loud enough in promising the sycophants that we won't forget what they've done.
"As the Trump administration and its MAGA enablers now face frequent legal setbacks and edge closer to a potentially devastating midterm election, it is especially critical for democracy advocates to hold the line, refuse to give away precious democratic ground, and deny the Trump crowd any easy wins."
Yes.
All the small acts of bravery and principle are starting to add up.
At the same time, the twisted narrative of toxic MAGA-ism is starting to wobble when held up to honest scrutiny.
"When elites learn that capitulation will spark fierce criticism and exact lasting personal and institutional cost, they are much less likely to engage in Quisling behavior and more inclined, however reluctantly, to resist authoritarian intimidation."
Capitulation and appeasement (which only works in the short-term, if that) amount to the same thing. When concessions are made, more will be demanded. Until a situation/condition becomes untenable, little will happen. Thanks to the people at Yale Law, the limit has been reached and they are reacting in favor of freedoms.
Well said. In its most memorable historical event, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement towards Hitler (a person this current president compares himself to in terms of strength and power) did not save Europe and Great Britain from almost total destruction, and the deaths of millions and millions of people, a short time later. Appeasement, capitulation, concessions, any term you may choose to use, merely provides the aggressor(s) with additional time to come up with more and more insidious demands to the colleges and universities, organizations, law firms, movie production companies, television stations, unions ...you name it... will loose their own particular identity, independence and freedom and become nothing more that 'slaves' to that aggressor.
Some of us remember Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Communist scare that he inflicted upon the country. Many capitulated in an attempt to appease. Finally, people realized that it was a scare-inducing hoax and stopped listening to him. As a result, he lost credibility and came to a bad end.
yale has an even stronger obligation after spawning jd
So grateful for the Yale University community to stand up for academic freedom and the rule of law. Being in the Constitution state of Connecticut that’s what we would expect them to do. I certainly hope they stick to their principles and protect academic freedom, liberty, diversity and inclusion for all students, all faculty and staff of Yale University. The diversity in science education not just diversity with the student population both the diversity that is involved in scholastic research teaches us much more about everyone not just the diverse population.
It boggles the mind how Trump and his goons waste time butting into areas that don't need to be butted into while simultaneously ignoring urgent issues that need to be addressed. I guess it's all part of his wannabe-Hitler schtick, which grows more tiresome by the day. VOTE D IN NOVEMBER!
More power to them, and anyone with the spheres to stand up to the viciousness! Meanwhile, the ongoing insanity of the reflecting pool is a perfect metaphor for this regime. In the ancient myth Narcissus is transfixed by his image in the water; today, with all its blunders, decay and corruption, so is Rump.
I'm so glad there are still principled people in high places who will fight against what so many have caved on. I see all this that's going on and wonder how any sane and rational person can still support Trump, but unfortunately there is one in my own household! God help us all.
Yale will still be around when Trump and Vance are nothing but unpleasant memories. All the more reason to stand up to the current regime.
I’m starting my day reading excellent writing. Command of the English language seems to becoming a lost skill. Thank you Jennifer.
It seems to me that those who would capitulate to appeasement have a serious lack of education in the ways of fascist/authoritarian regimes, and how they operate.
Once you give in to demand number 1, they'll make demand number 2. Give in to that, and they'll be back with demands number 3, 4, 5, 6, ad infinitum, until the regime has all it wants. The final demand of course will be total submission to being taken over by the regime, and run the way the regime deems most suitable to its overall objectives.
These authoritarians want nothing short of total control because they're so insecure in their own beings, that control of all others is the only thing that will satisfy them.
Ummm, Harvard has not signed an agreement with the Trump administration.
Yale should hold firm. I don't know why Harvard is mentioned as cooperating. Not in the way Penn and Columbia did, unless Jen Rubin had some new information on that. Heavily targeted for sure.
Like grabbing voter data to ferret out "fraud", team Trump wants to grab admissions data to ferret out "DEI" in admissions. Unlike tariffing an unihabitied island, these grabs will have serious effects even when totally unfounded claims get heavily aired and then quietly dropped once the seeds of doubt have fully sprouted.
Inspiring. Courage is contagious. It feels better in the long run to stand for our ethics, our rule of law, our decency. Asking ourselves "which side are you one?" and choosing fighting the good fight. The fight itself is more important than winning or losing over corrupted power.
Brilliant. Thanks, Jen.
I am surprised by the superficiality of this article. It starts with: It is all too common, as Anne Applebaum wrote of Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for a Republican politician to “abandon his previous ideals, to bury the patriotism that was once so important to him, and to become, instead, a loud, opportunistic collaborator.” Graham had ideals? A man who has been preaching the extermination of Iranians and Palestinians, a starch supporter of Gaza genocide, a defender of Hiroshima and Nagasaki crime against humanity of biblical proportions - this man had ideals? Desire to destroy far lands was patriotism? It would appear that his far greater sin was supporting Trump than his almost nazi-like political stand in support of colonial projects and extermination of indigenous people.
Graham had ideals. Not good ones, though.
With this logic one could accept Holocaust as an ideal, albeit evil one - I for one cannot. As I refuse to call any insane violent destruction of people and/or their land as an ideal. You can argue of course that it is just a question of semantics, but I would happily debate this. Ideal has the same root as ideally - and I am sure that you would never use the word ideally for the program of the extermination of class of people.
Perhaps it would be better to say that Graham had bad ideas, not ideals.
Maybe the DOJ (and SCOTUS) would benefit from being reminded of one of the most important and powerful voices in all American history on the subjects of Union, diversity, inclusion and equity (justice). The thoughts and words of James Madison are some of the most powerful and most important ever written about our Constitution, and some of the most relevant to the issues of today.
The crucial truth is that multiculturalism and diversity were inherent in the foundation of this nation. Those very principles were built into our Constitution, and they were seen as being (and proclaimed to be) essential to the strength (and even the survival) of our Constitution and our nation.
In Federalist 10 (https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-1-10#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493273), Madison emphasized that our Constitution was designed to provide "a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government." Such diseases include "faction," which can easily result in a "tyranny of the majority," as Tocqueville emphasized in his book "Democracy In America."
Madison highlighted the dangerous tendency of many people to focus on "the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions" precisely "to kindle [the most] unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts." Anything "interesting to the human passions" can be "inflamed" to make people "much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good." So our Constitution was designed "[t]o secure the public good and private rights against the danger of [any] faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government." Those were the obvious, vital and overarching purposes of our Constitution.
To convince people to ratify the Constitution, Madison in Federalist 10 in November 1787 emphasized the vital importance of preserving the "diversity in the faculties of" various people. "The diversity in the faculties [ ] from which the rights of property originate, is" an "insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. [Even so, t]he protection of these faculties is the first object of government." The protection of the diversity of faculties of the people is highly relevant here.
In Federalist No. 51 (https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-51-60#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493427), Madison directly and expressly emphasized that our diversity is one of the vital strengths of our union, and diversity helps ensure equity and justice. Madison emphasized (repeatedly) that "Justice is the end [i.e., the ultimate goal] of government." So Madison expressly highlighted that diversity was essential to the security of both "civil rights" and "religious rights" and the security was provided by ensuring diversity and inclusion, e.g., "the multiplicity of interests" and "the multiplicity of [religious] sects."
"It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable."
The act of "creating a will in the community independent of the majority" is what the People did by writing and ratifying our written Constitution. The 1st Amendment and the prohibition on religious tests in Article VI and the 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments and the many ways that our Constitution included states and preserved the power of the people of individual states were expressly directed at using our Constitution to secure and promote diversity and inclusion (and thereby promote equity/justice).
The second method, above ("comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable") is diversity and inclusion. That was the primary principle underlying the 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments Each such amendment clarified or changed the meaning of the expression "We the People" at the beginning of our Constitution.
In Federalist No. 51 Madison directly highlighted the importance of diversity to the strength of our Union and our Constitution: "Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government."
Diversity and inclusion are (and were understood to be by those who wrote and ratified our Constitution) essential to the checks and balances in our Constitution. The principles of diversity and inclusion permeate our Constitution. Madison and in Federalist 47 emphasized the reason: "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many" is "the very definition of tyranny." Diversity and inclusion help prevent tyranny and promote justice. Absolutely everything in our Constitution was written for the particular purpose of opposing the VERY COMMON practices of people with power: abusing powers that they were given and usurping or trying to usurp powers that they were not given.
Diversity, equity and inclusion was the point of one of the best-known structural aspects of our Constitution, i.e., "federalism" (allocating limited power to the national government while (as the 10th Amendment expressly emphasizes) other "powers" are "reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"). Protecting diversity, equity and inclusion also is the point of the entire First Amendment.
Diversity obviously is the point of the so-called "separation of powers" (dividing government horizontally into 3 distinct branches and allocating powers among them). Diversity obviously is the point of the so-called "federalism" (dividing government vertically between state and federal levels and apportioning powers between them and securing the powers and independence of the people of each state). Diversity and inclusion obviously are reasons for precluding criminal prosecutions unless a grand jury indicts and precluding criminal punishment unless a trial jury finds a person guilty (in a "public trial" by "an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed).
Madison or Hamilton repeatedly emphasized the importance, specifically, of diversity to our Constitution and our nation. See, e.g., Federalist 53 ("the general affairs of the State, which lie within a small compass, are not very diversified" but "the public affairs of the Union are spread throughout a very extensive region, and are extremely diversified"). See also Federalist 56 ("the great extent of the United States, the number of their inhabitants, and the diversity of their interests" and "Taking each State by itself, its laws are the same, and its interests but little diversified." The point of the union of states was to create "a nation whose affairs are in the highest degree diversified and complicated"). See also Federalist 59 ("This diversity of sentiment between a majority of the people, and the individuals who have the greatest credit in their councils, is exemplified in some of the States at the present moment, on the present question."). See also Federalist 60 ("There is sufficient diversity in the state of property, in the genius, manners, and habits of the people of the different parts of the Union, to occasion a material diversity of disposition in their representatives towards the different ranks and conditions in society.").
Universities promoting diversity and inclusion are supporting our Constitution and our Union and striving to make them stronger. Trump and his minions are violating our Constitution and their oaths of office. They are attacking and undermining our Constitution and our constitution as a nation. They are trying to prevent a "more perfect union" of "the people of the United States," which is the first express purpose of our entire Constitution.
As a former American History teacher, I am embarrassed to say that I had forgotten about the Federalist Papers and in particular the many of the ones Madison wrote himself. Thank you for reminding us all of our perfect defense against the wannabe dictator and aggressor currently sitting in the Oval Office.