Trump Administration’s Threats to Higher Education Foretells a Dystopian World
“abortion, accessible, accessibility, activism, activists, advocacy, advocate, advocates, affirmative action, affirmative action programs, affirming care, affordable home, affordable housing, agricultural water, agrivoltaics, air pollution, all-inclusive, allyship, alternative energy, anti-racism, antiracist, asexual, assigned at birth, assigned female at birth, assigned male at birth, at risk, autism, aviation fuel…”
Several news agencies, including but not limited to The New York Times, Reuters, The Washington Post, Propublica, Science, Gizmodo, 404 Media, Popular Information, Politico’s E&E News and More Perfect Union have published lists of words and materials that the Trump administration has been deleting from government websites and documents.
Government agencies are purging these topics in their efforts to remove all mentions and references to anything even hinting as what they consider as “woke” or against the MAGA agenda: Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives, topics of race, climate science, vaccines, LGBTQ topics, women’s health, disability rights, and so many other issues.
The list above only presents some of the banned words beginning with “A.” But why “affordable housing” and “autism” for example? Who knows? But I bet Alice and her friends would know, so let’s ask them.
“If I had a world of my own,” says Alice’s friend, the Mad Hatter, “everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”
Here in Lewis Carroll’s nonsensical upside-down world of Wonderland, where right is wrong and good is bad, where characters shrink, grow, and disappear quicker than a wink of an eye, where the Mad Hatter sings “a happy unbirthday to you,” and the Cheshire Cat correctly reminds us that “We’re all mad here.”
This strange world resounds in the political discourse of the entire Trumpian era as the administration and the Republican Party lie, ghost, and gas light its followers into believing their so-called “populist” agenda. We are the mad ones they would have us believe if we do not want to live in their upside-down world on Earth 2.
Trump and the MAGA sphere have co-opted and transformed reality into a dystopian novel in the likes of The Handmaid’s Tale, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, Animal Farm, 1984, The Giver, The Hunger Games, The Plague, The Trial, The Plot Against America, The Lord of the Flies, all in one.
They have metamorphosed words and concepts of justice and equity into toxic and violent epithets in their patriarchal heteronormative Christian white supremacist project in which they have positioned Euro-heritage rich white heterosexual cisgender men as the real victims of a highly organized and concerned plot led by Left-wing socialists to turn the United States into a “nanny state” of feminine men and losers.
Trump and his MAGA sycophants are saturating the airwaves with lies that human caused climate change is a hoax; that windmills are ugly, cause cancer, and kill millions of birds; that vaccines weaken the human immune system.
That there are only two genders and transwomen are nothing more than men in skirts; that immigrants are gang members, killers, and psychopaths and that they eat cats and dogs.
That the “Big Beautiful Bill” will lower taxes and lower costs on all products and it will be great for our healthcare, while Trump’s tariffs will be paid by foreign countries and has already accumulated billions of dollars in reducing our national debt. That countries are waiting in line to make economic deals because Trump is known worldwide for his art of the deal.
That “I hardly knew Jeffrey Epstein” and “Sean Connery “stepped in to allow my new Scottish golf course to go through the approval process.”
That Jerome Powell doesn’t know anything about how to manage interest rates, that Stephen Colbert is a second-rate entertainer, and that Josh Hawley is a second-tier Senator for his vote on releasing the Epstein Files, but “I Donald Trump,” am still a very stable genius.
That “social justice” is very discriminatory and not at all socially just. And that “diversity” stands for “anti-white,” “anti-heterosexual,” “anti-cisgender,” “anti-able-bodied,” “anti-Christian,” “anti-U.S.-born,” “anti-male,” while “equity” is actually “inequity,” and “inclusion” is “exclusion” of white heterosexual cisgender able-bodied U.S. born Christian males.
However, Trump’s “Truth Social” is supposedly both truthful and social.
As the Trump administration continues its relentless assaults against all discussions of topics, which might in any way contradict or challenge its redefinitions of MAGA realities, in addition to its outright bans of books and other materials, the administration is now targeting public and private institutions that receive government funding.
In a recent press release, the U.S. “Justice” Department outlined its “Guidance for Recipients of Federal Funding Regarding Unlawful Discrimination.” This reads as if it were the lost chapter of Lewis Carol’s Wonderland in which the Mad Hatter recites the following:
“WASHINGTON – Today, the Department of Justice released Guidance to ensure that recipients of federal funding do not engage in unlawful discrimination. In particular, it clarifies that federal antidiscrimination laws apply to programs or initiatives that involve discriminatory practices, including those labeled as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) programs.”
Though the following paragraph appears reasonable on the surface as it basically restate past policies of the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice, the subtext is that these past definitions of “discrimination” were themselves discriminatory by allegedly – but not in actuality – were biased against white heterosexual able bodied cisgender Christian U.S.-born males. As you read the following paragraph of the press release, keep this in mind.
“Entities that receive federal funds, like all other entities subject to federal antidiscrimination laws, must ensure that their programs and activities comply with federal law and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, or other protected characteristics—no matter the program’s labels, objectives, or intentions.”
The last paragraph makes clear the administration’s goal of overturning all civil and human rights initiatives people have worked hard to achieve over the course of progressive activism in the United States and it threatens to deny federal funding:
“This new Guidance emphasizes the significant legal risks of initiatives that involve discrimination based on protected characteristics and offers non-binding best practices to help entities that receive federal funds avoid the risk of violations and the revocation of federal grant funding.” (emphasis added)
The Trump administration, through its “Justice” Department, warns of shuttering programs, departments, and entire institutions that sway from its line of what is appropriate to discuss on college and university campuses.
Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has conducted a series of roundups (kidnapping) of international students in its terrorist tactics of silencing dissenting voices on campuses.
I am teaching a summer course, and I posed the following questions to the students. I think now would be a great time for us to consider these questions as well:
Questions to ponder: 1) With the attacks coming from some sectors of the federal and state governments on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, curricular freedoms and hiring practices toward educational and business institutions, what strategies would you propose to resist or mitigate these attacks if they were imposed on your school or workplace? 2) In addition, what would you suggest for individuals and institutions who would like to stand in solidarity with those institutions that have been attacked? Unfortunately, these are not mere hypothetical questions as more institutions are coming under attack.
