I last wrote about the Springsteen song about ICE in Minneapolis. My hunch is that such songs provide the first bit of political education that lots of people get. Certainly, the protest songs of earlier eras provided the first bit of my education about politics and protest.
But I don’t do such a great job of keeping up with everything. The exceptional Minnesotan sociologist, Chris Uggen, was kind enough to point me to a much longer list of songs from Minneapolis.
Here’s the link:
Long ago, I was seduced by Shelley’s Defense of Poetry, which concluded with a bold claim: “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
At some point, I became skeptical of that notion, and came to think that poets were justly unacknowledged in political affairs. I ended up in graduate school.
I overreacted. Obviously.
The right song at the right time draws attention to a grievance and to a movement. It can unite a campaign and provide some sustenance to people trying to change the world–or at least a little part of it. Listeners can learn about an event and the cause, and the song can push them to dig a little deeper. It can become a touchstone for a movement.
Bruce Springsteen dropped a new song, Streets of Minneapolis, in response to the ICE murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Right below, you can see a professionally produced music video featuring images of protest and of ICE abuse.
Springsteen also posted a live performance of the song.
As music and poetry, it sounds a lot like Springsteen, detailed poetic images, although maybe a little more on the nose than most of his stuff. (Sometimes it takes heavy hands.) Choreographing multiple rhymes with Minneapolis is a creative challenge on short notice.
As a timely response to unfolding tragedy, it evokes Neil Young’s Ohio, written just in the wake of the deaths of four students at Kent State University in May, 1970. National Guardsmen had opened fire on an antiwar protest, killing two protesters and two students cutting across campus on the way to classes. (Read more about it here.)
Young enlisted bandmates David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Neil Young to record and release the song quickly. And it sounds like Neil Young, with spare lyrics and a hard edge guitar lead supported by very high harmonies. It circulated everywhere quickly, which meant a lot of radio play. It became a touchstone for the antiwar movement.
Digging around, I found another style of protest song, Jesse Welles’s satirical take on ICE’s aggressive recruiting effort, dropped a couple of months ago.
I’ve stumbled across Streets of Minneapolis more than a few times over the past few days. Students, who feel compelled to tell me that Springsteen usually isn’t on their playlists before announcing how much they like the song. They appreciate the Boss weighing in, and want musicians of their age to follow along. The lyrics have been reprinted, and the quick release has kept a cultural and political focus on ICE in Minneapolis. Politicians, including those at the White House, have been peppered with questions about it, sometimes feeling compelled to run it, and Springsteen down, as in this White House statement. It’s a bad look.
It’s also part of a story about how movements work.
Not by themselves and not always very quickly, but by drawing attention to problems, offering prospective solutions, and assembling a large enough following to give incentives to others to sign on.
Hard work, and time-consuming, but it all matters.
For a bit of humility, listen to Tom Lehrer’s Folk Song Army. Lehrer had a brief and brilliant career at the piano as a satirist on the way to a long career teaching Math at the University of California.
Tom Lehrer, “Folk Song Army”
Repression is risky for everyone.
It works for authorities when most opponents are deterred from taking visible action. But repression can also provoke greater resistance and undermine support for the repressive agents. Repression polarizes, and how well it works depends upon how many rush to each side of the conflict.
The ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) surge in Minneapolis IS creating tremendous disruption, and has certainly intensified and mobilized opposition to the Trump Administration’s massive deportation project. It’s generated a great deal of conflict wherever ICE goes; it’s also responsible for another murder.
On Saturday morning, Alex Pretti, a nurse who worked in Intensive Care for the Veterans’ Administration, was one of many many many Minnesotans working to deter and monitor ICE activities. Armed with the camera in his phone, Pretti was recording ICE actions.
Note that documenting and projecting unlawful, unpleasant, and unpopular actions is a key social movement strategy. Long ago, documentation was through testimony and journalism. (Look up Ida B. Wells for explanation and a little inspiration.) Words and pictures spread much faster and further now. (Look up Darnella Frasier for an example and a little inspiration.) Observing and documenting law enforcement is a first amendment right, but it comes with risk. (See Nicole M. Bennet’s excellent explanation.)
Alex Pretti was advancing with his phone to help another protesting videographer–ICE had sprayed her with some kind of chemical agent. Video shows ICE agents pushing him back. A scrum of agents overwhelmed Pretti, pushing him to the ground. In the process, they found the other weapon he was carrying, a concealed handgun. (He had a permit.) Agents took the gun and then shot him to death. Over the next few days there is sure to be much more video and a final count of how many shots ICE fired into the man they’d just disarmed.
The Department of Homeland Security’s leader, Kristi Noem, followed the “no angels” trope, blaming Pretti for coming to the protest armed. He was, she said, a “domestic terrorist.” As evidence, she cited his presence at the demonstration. Many Republicans fell in line behind her, but not quite so many so quickly as following ICE’s murder of Renee Good. A few stayed silent, and a few others have issued statements calling for investigation. A federal judge ordered the Federal Department of Justice not to shut local authorities out–as it had for Good’s death. The court also ordered DOJ not to destroy evidence.
The fact that Pretti was armed (legally) has actually helped break and (maybe) build new coalitions. The National Rifle Association issued a statement calling for an investigation and emphasizing the 2nd amendment right to bear arms. Gun Owners of America, a somewhat smaller and more vigorous guns rights organization, condemned the shooting, and also called for an investigation. Advocates for gun rights rarely wind up on the other side of the Trump administration.
(Let’s note that Pretti’s gun didn’t protect him from jackbooted government thugs, a central argument for gun rights fundamentalists. No doubt, guns in the hands of protesters can make policing scarier for law enforcement, but ICE didn’t see the gun until they had Pretti on the ground.)
And there’s more: The US Senate is scheduled to vote on funding the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday: $64.4 billion for DHS, including $10 billion for ICE. Responding to the shooting, Democrats have promised to stall the bill until, at least, some limits on ICE action are included in the legislation. This could mean another government shut down.
The Trump Administration has made martyrs of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, stiffening resistance at home and abroad. There will be more protesters; let’s hope for no more martyrs.
Federal agents seem determined to kill anti-deportation protesters, at least enough of them to kill the resistance. It’s not working–at least not yet. Minnesotans are fighting back.
Who guessed that Minneapolis, Minnesota would become the front line of the civil war the Trump administration is working to start?
I didn’t.
Trump deployed large numbers of National Guard in larger and more conspicuously liberal cities like Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland, Oregon, all the while eyeing and threatening New York City. But efforts were widely seen as ineffective and extremely wasteful. Troops were met with local resistance and adverse court orders. Minneapolis represented a new opportunity and new strategy for repressing the growing opposition to the Trump administration and its
At the start of 2026, Trump used ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to surge 2,000 federal agents to enhance its deportation efforts, highlighting the effort with conspicuously racist commentary about Somalian migrants legally in the city.
The surge was meant to be a demonstration of power, and Minneapolis, smaller and whiter than DC, LA, Chicago, or New York, appeared as an easier target for domination. Organized repression works by setting examples. The message: resistance is futile, and you could get hurt. The Trump administration set out to make an example of the city, and of any Minnesotan who might try to announce opposition to the execution of mass deportation.
So ICE agents were aggressive in picking up people who might be immigrants or like immigrants or know immigrants. Always armed, often masked, they projected force. And provoked opposition.
On January 7, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, who was unarmed and sitting behind the wheel of a car with the motor on. Three shots to the head, and the car took off, jumping the curb and hitting another car. The Department of Homeland Security and the Trump administration immediately issued statements: Good was a paid protester; Good was a terrorist; Good was a lesbian with a troubled past; Good threatened the lives of ICE agents. The trope was familiar to anyone who’s noticed what happens when police are caught killing a Black man: Good was no angel.
Increasingly, attacking the victim isn’t a very effective strategy. First, video of the killing poured onto the Internet (some deceptively edited) which undermined the the Administration’s story. Given how much Trump’s administrators lie, it’s surprising they aren’t better at it. Analyses of the video record didn’t line up with the Administration’s story, and it was far too easy to see that by looking at the videos. Second, the Administration didn’t even try to present evidence about Good’s terrorist commitments or efforts to threaten the ICE agents.
Repression works by scaring people into submission, isolating and marginalizing the resistance. Not this time. Trump’s Department of Justice announced that it would not investigate the shooting or the agent who killed Good (and cursed at her afterward), but would commence investigating Good’s widow. A half-dozen federal prosecutors resigned in protest. ICE’s repressive efforts and the conspicuous efforts at coverup from the Administration began to fracture Republican unity.
And it extended and intensified the efforts of resistance. Minneapolis merchants announced that they didn’t want to serve ICE agents, and closed their doors. Residents with warm clothes and cameras on cell phones came into the cold to protest and to document ICE abuse and dangers. On Friday, residents staged a general strike, signaling their vigorous opposition and suggesting a tactic to allies across the United States.
But things would get worse for everyone (continued).
Commemoration is very much a salient issue at the moment. Donald Trump, president, is rewriting the history of the Capitol Hill invasion and American history more broadly. It’s no surprise that the most conspicuous efforts (e.g., the simultaneously Disneyfied and profane walk of presidents, re-renaming military bases after Confederate generals, slapping the Trump name on government properties, etc. etc. etc.) are crude and tacky.
But it’s surely worthwhile, especially at this moment, to revisit a commemoration directed to a broad movement as well as an individual.
There is still the holiday, which matters. It surely offers an occasion for politicians to misquote or misinterpret King. But even a quick dip into the real history of a brave and committed man will resurface issues that must remain on the political agenda.
N. B. King is constantly reinterpreted and appropriated for a range of causes. For a much fuller consideration, keep an eye out for Hajar Yazdiha’s award-winning book, The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement.
Here I repost a slightly edited version of an older post on the holiday.
On the eve of the Martin Luther King Day holiday not long ago, the president of the United States announced, emphatically, that you can’t find anyone less racist than he is. He’s back, and if you’re suspicious of such proclamations, perhaps it’s just that you’ve learned to distrust people who laud their own honesty, their color-blindness, their respect for women, or concern for the poor. Like the salesman who claims the nickname, “Honest,” Donald Trump never succeeded in fooling most people, just enough to sell the next condo or secure the next loan. Then some large number of elected officials and voters who knew better chose to look the other way, and Trump won the 2016 election. It’s somewhat more disturbing that Trump really won the 2024 election. https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery-item.htm?id=b0488081-61a1-446e-b300-80362bc38f5d&gid=108379A9-3701-4049-ABB5-0F178044536F
The office of the presidency, however, starts with obligations to all Americans, and it doesn’t end there. Trump is hardly the first US president to harbor racist thoughts or sentiments, but he’s displayed less worry about revealing them to large audiences, often through words, and consistently through deeds.
It’s worth considering the resources and possibilities Martin Luther King’s memory gives us in combating those who would restore what he fought against.
One of the hard-won achievements of the civil rights movement was the establishment of King holiday, which came decades after King was killed. The long campaign to commemorate the man and the movement generated useful memories, good debate, activism, and at least one popular song (by Stevie Wonder, below). The battle for a holiday reinjected the life and its meaning into American politics.
The national holiday allows Americans to expect any president to pay respects to the man, and even more, to the movement. Tradition really is powerful, and activists are wise to attend to establishing new ones.
If Donald Trump displays less appreciation or enthusiasm for the King holiday than, say, pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys, that’s no mystery or surprise.
Each holiday event is a moment, unlikely to capture much attention in the White House during the rest of the year.
For the rest of us, however, the King Day reminder is an alert. Martin Luther King, Jr., and many many others, put work behind their words on social justice, often facing great risks and paying serious penalties. Their heirs continue today.
Martin Luther King died young enough and dramatically enough to be turned into an American hero, but it was neither his youth nor his death that made him heroic.
In his rather brief public life, beginning in Montgomery at 26 (1955), and ending with his assassination at 39 (1968), King consistently displayed rhetorical brilliance (on the podium and the page), strategic acumen, and exceptional moral and physical courage.
The effort to honor Martin Luther King with a holiday commemorating his birthday started at the King Center, in Atlanta, in the year after his assassination. States began to follow suit, and by 1983, more than half celebrated King’s life with a day. That year, Ronald Reagan signed a bill making Martin Luther King day a national holiday, while expressing ambivalence, acknowledging that it was costly, and that King may have been a Communist.
The King holiday was about Martin Luther King, to be sure, but it was meant to represent far more than the man. King stands in for the civil rights movement and for African-American history more generally. I often wonder if the eloquence of the 1963 “I have a dream” speech winds up obscuring not only a man with broader goals, but a much more contested–and ambitious–movement.
The man and the movement are ossified into an iconic image, like a statue, which locks King and the movement into the politics of 1963-1965. We accept King’s dream, that little children will play together, and that people will be judged by “the content of their character” (a favorite phrase on the right).
The image, like a statue, is available for appropriation to advocates of all political stripes, and the establishment of the holiday itself represents an achievement of the civil rights movement, winning the holiday if not broader economic and social equality.
Before the transformation of the man into an icon, King transformed himself from a pastor into an activist, a peripatetic crusader for justice.
But the pastor didn’t disappear; rather this role grew into something larger, as King himself transformed himself from a minister into a an Old Testament prophet, one whose primary concern was always the people on the margins, the widows and orphans, the poor and hungry. In standing with those on the margins, King courageously used–and risked–the advantages of his privilege, pedigree, and education. He also knew that he risked his safety and his life.
In his writing, King used his education and his vocation to support his political goals. In the critically important “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” the activist and minister cited both the Constitution and the Bible in support of Federal intervention in local politics to support desegregation and human rights. (We know that other activists now use the same sources to justify pushing the Federal government out of local politics.)
King explained that he was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama, because he had nonviolently defied local authorities in the service of higher laws, the Constitution and the Gospel. This was not like making a provocative statement on one’s own [profitable] radio or television show. There were real costs and severe risks.
King was never less than controversial during his life, under FBI surveillance during his political career, and vigorously criticized by opponents (for demanding too much and too strongly) and allies (for not demanding more, more vigorously).
When he was assassinated outside a Memphis motel in 1968, he was standing with sanitation workers on strike, straying from a simpler civil rights agenda. He had also alienated some civil rights supporters by coming out, strongly, against the war in Vietnam. And Black Power activists saw their own efforts as overtaking King’s politics and rhetoric. By the time he was killed, Martin Luther King’s popular support had been waning for some time.
Posterity has rescued an image of Martin Luther King, at the expense of the man’s own broader political vision.
Ironically, in elevating an insurgent to a position in America’s pantheon of historic heroes, we risk editing out the insurgency.
Donald Trump announced that the United States would start testing its nuclear arsenal again–after foregoing nuclear weapons testing since 1992, when the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union fell apart. In doing so, he effectively announced a political challenge to peace activists around the world.
There are many reasons to be concerned about the increased costs and dangers of a new era in nuclear weapons politics, but it’s always hard to get people to pay attention. Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, activists have campaigned on the existential horrors nuclear weapons represent, demanding restraint–or even disarmament. But most of us are very distant from the development and deployment of nuclear weaponry. We’ve seen nuclear weapons and war in books, but not in real life. Think of the contrast with all the other things that animate social protest movements. And antinuclear campaigners have a hard time convincing audiences of less scary alternatives in a scary world.
There is a pattern of protest and policy that’s played out since 1945: someone notices an identifiable threat from the arms race and points to it to lodge larger criticisms. Over the years, these visible threats have included: the dangers of nuclear testing, including radioactive fallout; development of a new and expensive weapons system (the B-1 Bomber or the MX missile); cavalier rhetoric about nuclear war suggesting incompetence in the White House; or conspicuously ineffective civil defense drills to protect populations.
Sometimes these campaigns are boosted by books, movies, or tv shows illustrating the danger. Think of Dr. Strangelove, Failsafe, or The Day After. Some of the movies don’t stand up so well as movies, but recent films have been much better: Oppenheimer and A House of Dynamite are suitably horrifying and worth seeing as movies.
Activists campaign for a simple demand that seems to offer a solution to the near threat and the larger problem (e.g., “Ban the bomb”; “Stop nuclear testing,” “nuclear freeze”). Politicians and experts use public concern to institute some dimension of restraint, often negotiated arms control agreements, which manage public concerns. Testing of nuclear weapons has been a recurrent target for antinuclear campaigners, who have staged demonstrations in the streets of big cities and trespass at testing sites.
[Two time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling picketed the White House in 1963, the night before attending a dinner inside for Nobel prize winners (above).]
In this way, movements against nuclear weapons work, exercising influence even though activists don’t get anywhere near what they demand.
When the Cold War ended, the nuclear danger receded somewhat, and the number of nuclear weapons deployed by the big powers declined substantially. But restraint has been eroding and new nuclear threats have emerged. Arms control agreements have disappeared in a whole variety of ways:
We all know that the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s conduct of the Gaza War, both awful enough, could be much worse. Russia and Israel have their own nuclear weapons. America’s stalwart support of Israel and erratic alliance with Ukraine have encouraged other nations to try to develop their own nuclear weapons. Ulp.
Long before Trump first took the oath of office, the United States began developing ambitious and expensive plans to modernize its nuclear arsenal. And activists have been trying–with very little success–to reinvigorate public concern. It’s quite likely that a President Bush or Obama or Biden would have ordered some new nuclear testing. It’s extremely unlikely that any of them would have announced it in a fit of pique about China’s expansion of its nuclear forces.
So, Trump has done peace campaigners the favor of drawing public attention to nuclear weapons and signaling that he is not the president most of us would trust to make good decisions about the fate of the earth. The question now is whether people will pay attention and try to do something about it.
Every media outlet is going to post estimated numbers on the No Kings rallies, and they’re sure to be impressive. Larger than the extremely large June 14 demonstrations will be seen as a sign of the movement growing. Opponents will question the numbers, and then the character of the people who show up. But they’ll be counting and talking too. Numbers matter, but not by themselves.
Organizers have been touting a magic number–or rather percentage: 3.5%. Reaching this magic number, they’ll say, will ensure a victory. It’s encouraging–protest can matter; it’s directive: get out and demonstrate and bring your friends. It’s also wrong.
The availability of numbers for political events a valuable resource, but it can also lead to a distorted scientism that can easily jump conclusions. A critical example of this risk is work that compares the outcomes of contentious large demonstrations across very different contexts. In their important study of non-violent action, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan (2011) considered more than 300 cases of campaigns spread across the world over more than 100 years. Supplementing their large N analysis with detailed case studies, they offer a theory of how non-violent campaigns sometimes succeed. Their insightful book, however, is dependent upon trusting the accounts of very different movements at different times recorded in different languages in different sorts of media.
Looking at their data, Chenoweth and Stephan noted that the “maximalist” campaigns that sought to replace regimes ultimately triumphed when they turned out more than 3.5 percent of the population in non-violent sustained action. Chenoweth promoted the idea in a TED talk. And many activists and pundits found the “3.5 percent rule” encouraging, partly because it provided such a clear focus—get 11 million people to attend protests (for example, see Caroline Gleich; David Robson ).
But think about all the larger questions such a “rule” elides: under what circumstances would such a large faction of the population be able to protest non-violently? Would activists be dependent upon tolerant or incompetent policing—or authorities unwilling or unable to repress? Would they necessarily enjoy very broad public support and available infrastructure from major social institutions? The point is that the application of 3.5+ percent protest is not strictly an independent element that can be deployed without many other elements also in effect—and those factors are also likely to matter, independently. Moreover, how translatable are insights drawn from campaigns against authoritarian governments to reformers seeking policy change in a relatively stable democracy?
Erica Chenoweth has more recently been cautious about 3.5 percent as a rule, acknowledging that it was observed, rather than theorized or tested, and that in newer cases it hasn’t held up. Numbers are attractive because of the generalizations and precision they seem to offer. But the fixation on a constant percentage is a chimera that can lead us to neglect other important factors, like non-public defections from leadership or international pressures.
Turnout at demonstrations is important: it’s a statement about citizens’ positions on issues and the strength of their commitments. But electoral campaigns and kitchen table discussions and public testimony and lawsuits matter too–along with much else. There is no magic number that will change the world through a single event. The demonstrations are important, almost exclamation points in a larger social movement story. The success of No Kings–or any other social movement, will be affected by the numbers that turn out for a demonstration, but even more important will be what those people do the day after and the day after that.
Last week the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) rejected the “Compact” offered by the Trump Administration, crossing a line into resistance and (implicitly) inviting other universities to follow. In a powerful letter, MIT President Sally Kornbluth, the cell biologist, explained that MIT was committed to science, policy based on data, and merit, and therefore could not sign onto a deal that emphasized political allegiance instead.
(By the way, you’ll want to remember that President Kornbluth testified before Congress about antisemitism on campus with the then-presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. Unlike her colleagues, the trustees of Kornbluth’s school supported their president who still has her job.)
But the Compact: Of course, every school is looking out for its own best interest and making independent decisions, but in short order Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California and the University of Virginia crossed the same line. Then students and faculty at other schools urged their administrations to reject the deal–even though Trump hadn’t yet offered it. Now, any college president who considers taking the Compact bait will risk damaging their reputation and that of their school.
So what’s the deal with this compact? Initially presented to nine national universities, the Compact offered enhanced access to substantial federal grants to universities that committed to the Trump administration’s dictates. You can read the whole thing here.
The Compact demands that universities implement fundamental changes in core university functions, for example:
You may leaf through the 10 pages and find ideas you like and others you hate. You will certainly notice some apparent contradictions and double-standards. More significantly, you’ll note that standards for things like political balance or merit aren’t clearly stated. This means that universities would cede judgments about critical issues to some undefined political authority. That’s got to be a NO. And the promised generous federal grants are also undefined. There are just too many good reasons not to trust the Trump Administration.
MIT made it even harder for other schools to sign on.
Just like a college applicant getting the first rejection letters, the Trump administration expanded its definition of dream institutions, offering the Compact to all universities. Surely, some schools, financially pressed and tempted by a payoff will sign on. Other administrators will decide they agree with most of the demands and can work with the Administration on others. Still others, particularly state schools in conservative states, will respond to their political pressures. But every compliant nod will be suspect.
And also:
I’m quoted in a couple of articles on tomorrow’s No Kings demonstrations. Here’s the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune. (I regret that I can’t get you past the paywalls.)
And here’s a quote I like from the Tribune article:
“Protest works but it doesn’t work by itself. It works in concert with a bunch of other political actions…“It’s hard to have this sense of perspective. In order to change the world, in order to bend the moral arc of history … the arc of justice in the right direction, you have to pull really hard.”
https://www.inquirer.com/education/upenn-union-rally-dei-funding-trump-administration-20250320.html
Virtually everyone starts with a gripe about higher education: costs, grades, debt, jobs, parking, artificial intelligence, natural intelligence, and so and so on. The Trump administration has floated on all the grievances to launch a series of attacks that almost look strategic. And while students and scientists and teachers and administrators and parents are all threatened by these attacks, a coordinated defense has yet to emerge.
Yet American universities share a common vulnerability: dependence on government money. Non-profit status and special rules and rates on endowments are the start. Researchers depend on government grants, atudents depend on means-tested government grants and subsidized loans, and universities depend upon students who, with the help of grants and loans, can pay tuition. Every state subsidizes at least some public universities, providing education to students and jobs to teachers, janitors, accountants, and football coaches. And all of this helps promote science, commerce, and professional sports.
Because universities depend upon public monies, the government can withhold funds if a school is up to activities that violate the law. Mostly, universities have been careful not to do so. The Trump administration claimed violations: schools were antisemitic; schools discriminated on the basis of race–by considering race in admissions; schools were too liberal and indoctrinated youth (Shout out to Socrates….); schools discriminated by allowing transwomen to participate in sports. And so on.
Exploiting the pro-Palestine protests that animated politics on 160 or so college campuses, the Trump administration went hard at higher education, focusing first on Columbia University, and charging antisemitism. (There were certainly antisemitic expressions that came out of and around many of the encampments.)
Now here is where we need to think about interests: Academic administrators make decisions that affect higher education in general, but are ultimately accountable to the Boards of Trustees and funders or their own institutions. Top professional administrators, like college presidents, move from school to school, and promote themselves for the next job by trumpeting their achievements at a particular school, often raising money and moving up in institutional rankings. The Trump administration didn’t have to develop a strong case of legal violations in order to make a powerful threat to the institution, freezing funding for all kinds of campus activities, most notably, medical research. Call it hostage-taking….or extortion.
It worked, at least at the start. Columbia paid $200 million settlement to the US Treasury, and announced a slew of new policies. The awful true story is that it was a good deal for Columbia–at least financially. Columbia paid a ransom to have access to more than $4 billion of research funds, ending negotiation and uncertainty–administrators (led by a new president) hoped. (I’m indebted to Michael Dorf’s analysis on this matter–and he has much more worthwhile to say.) Of course, the government could always come back with new demands.
The University of Pennsylvania, which also dismissed a president, didn’t pay a settlement, but made policy concessions on sports and the interpretation of Title IX than far exceeded any damage done by one transgender swimmer. Then Brown University negotiated payments of some $50 million to local workforce development, and agreed to adopt the Trump Administration’s approach to admissions and to defining Title IX.
These settlements are all awful for higher education in general, but offered apparent safety plays for each individual school.
Then negotiations with Harvard University went on and on and on, with periodic reports about movement toward a settlement–yet to be announced. I suspect the stalled negotiations at least partly reflected increased ambitions from the Trump Administration and Harvard’s new president Allan Garber’s efforts to balance commitments to his institution with his responsibilities to higher education more broadly. Although Harvard is a big and attractive target for the Administration, it’s also extremely well-resourced–loaded with money, skilled and connected attorneys, and visibility.
As the negotiations dragged on, the Trump Administration moved to a new strategy that afforded the chance to go after more than one school at a time; it starts with the Compact.
Rutgers University historian Mark Bray has fled the country, relocating with his family to Spain this week. Bray hasn’t been arrested, indicted, or placed on one of Donald Trump’s enemies list; his health and welfare–and that of his family–have been threatened with enough menace and credibility for him to leave a good job, disappointing students who thought they benefitted from his classes. What happened?
Bray wrote a book on Antifa, a marginal and diffuse network that Trump has designated a “domestic terrorism threat.” It’s a pretty good book, which provides a good overview of how activists think of themselves and their goals. In a televised interview after the United the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Bray also said that sometimes violence is justified. It’s very clear that the Trump Administration, which has been blowing up small boats and sending National Guardsmen to big cities, agrees. It’s also very clear that no one around Trump has actually read Bray’s book, because they won’t find the leaders administrators promised to arrest and the headquarters they’ve promised to raid. Antifa is a very loose grouping of committed individuals who pop up occasionally. If the Trump Administration follows the time-honored strategy of following the money, they’ll never pick up a scent.
But don’t we want professors writing books about all kinds of movements and campaigns? I’ve read books on the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis and abortion-rights and anti-abortion crusaders and all sorts of other movements without joining. I’ve written (and read) about some movements I like and others they don’t, and I keep trying to learn new things and get smarter. I tell students that learning about things you don’t know is a big part of what should happen in college, and that you don’t have to agree with everything you read. I still think getting smarter is good.
Although the Trump Administration has been trying to change what happens on college campuses, there’s no indication that Bray ever appeared on its radar. Rather, Bray was targeted by Turning Point USA, which published a petition calling for him to be fired. Yes, that’s the organization Charlie Kirk founded. But several organizations have posted professor watchlists, identifying dangerous radicals; disclosure: I’ve been told I’m on one of them. Someone found Bray’s home address and contact information, and published them; this is called doxxing. Death threats followed.
Were these threats “credible”? I’m sure most threats don’t lead to anything aside from terror. Imagine looking at your children and trying to figure out whether you should really be scared about an anonymous promise to attack your family?
The threats are a form of repression, not necessarily executed by a government, but by thugs who get caught up in the passions of the moment. Sometimes, government officials rile up those passions; sometimes they pay the thugs.*
When people with unpopular views fear for their lives, democracy is under attack. Violent threats from uncivil society shuts down debate. A decade ago, an abortion rights campaign urged women to “shout your abortion,” intending to show how common the procedure is. Some women who shouted were threatened, limiting the campaign–which nonetheless continues.
It’s our job to keep the public sphere open to all kinds of ideas, including bad ones–and ones we don’t like. We used to say that popular ideas don’t need protection, but in the current environment, it feels like every political stance provokes responses. Pressing advocates to defend their positions is democratic debate; forcing them to defend their personal safety is not.
*Lynette Ong wrote an exceptionally good book on how China outsources repression to non-governmental thugs who enforce a kind of discipline on people with grievances.
I'm a professor of sociology and political science at the University of California, Irvine. I've been thinking, and writing about, protest politics for almost ever. This site offers comments on contemporary events, informed (I hope) by knowing something about history and about the academic study of social movements.
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