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  • Trump Administration is Extorting Hundreds of Millions from Universities

    Trump Administration is Extorting Hundreds of Millions from Universities


    Donald Trump hates higher education. He hates education. He loves “the poorly educated.” Of course. It is the poorly educated who believe his lies. They vote against their self-interest when they vote for him. The poorly educated vote for a tax break for billionaires. The poorly educated vote to eliminate their own health insurance.

    Trump’s vendetta against elite universities punishes them and extracts huge fines, which were asserted, never proven. He is swaggering about his ability to bring down universities that would never have admitted him.

    Where is the money going? The Boston Gkobe reports:

    With Harvard University’s negotiations with the Trump administration still underway, the White House’s recent deals with other elite institutions suggest the nation’s oldest university may have to pay a large sum of money to make its problems go away.

    Columbia University and Brown University in the last month both came to arrangements with the White House that involved paying millions of dollars and making a wide swath of changes in order to restore billions in lost research funding and end ongoing investigations and lawsuits. 

    The Trump administration proposed a $1 billion settlement with UCLA, several news outlets reported Friday, after freezing more than $500 million in federal funds to the school last week.

    Both deals with the Ivy League schools came as they faced complaints they had allowed antisemitism to proliferate on campus during protests against the war in Gaza, as well as allegations they had discriminated against students via diversity-related policies and programs. 

    Neither Brown nor Columbia in their agreements admitted any wrongdoing — something Harvard has indicated in court fights with the federal government it is also unwilling to do.

    The measures the schools adopted to get the government off their backs differ wildly.

    Both Columbia and Brown are paying millions to resolve their disputes

    Columbia agreed to pay about $200 million to the US Treasury Department over the next three years, as well as another $21 million to address alleged civil rights violations of its Jewish employees. 

    Congress will then have the power to appropriate those funds — though it’s unclear what they will be used for.

    In exchange, Columbia will receive many of the research grants the government had previously canceled as early as March, and resolve violations of the law alleged by the federal government. The administration had frozen “the majority” of the school’s $1.3 billion in federal funding, Columbia’s president said.

    Brown, meanwhile, pledged to give $50 million to state workforce development organizations in Rhode Island that are “operating in compliance with anti-discrimination laws” over the next 10 years, avoiding making a direct payment to the Trump administration. 

    In exchange, the federal government would restore Brown’s funding — the government had put about $510 million on hold — and close all pending investigations over Brown’s compliance with anti-discrimination laws.

    The schools agreed to other changes

    Columbia agreed to implement an outside monitor to oversee whether it was complying with the changes it had promised the government, such as to reform disciplinary measures for student protesters and remove diversity-related policies.

    Brown said it would not perform gender-affirming surgeries on minors — which Brown’s medical school has never done — or prescribe puberty blockers. It adopted the Trump administration’s definitions of “male” and “female,” sparking outrage among current and former students who say that change harms transgender and nonbinary students who are excluded from those definitions.

    The two schools also took different approaches to addressing antisemitism: Columbia’s measures included adopting a controversial definition of antisemitism and a review of its programs related to the Middle East. Brown, meanwhile, said it would commit resources to support programs related to Jewish students, as well as conduct a campus climate survey in 2025 that would include information about the climate for Jewish students on campus.

    Both schools also said they would share admissions data about applicants’ standardized test scores and grade point averages, as well as demographic data such as their race. On Thursday, the administration made that a requirement of all schools that receive federal aid.

    Neither agreement, however, appeared to place any restrictions on what or how the school teaches, avoiding infringement on academic freedom many critics of the Trump administration had feared.

    The schools negotiated under different circumstances

    Many critics of Trump’s war on higher education viewed Brown’s agreement to invest in local education as more aligned with its mission as a university, rather than simply paying a fine for the government to use as it sees fit. Some have also voiced concerns the implementation of an outside monitor at Columbia could allow the federal government to infringe on its independence, despite the deal they had reached.

    The arrangements reflect differences in the amount of pressure the administration had applied to each school, down to the number of pages in the deal — Columbia’s deal was 22 pages long, while Brown’s was nine.

    Columbia had seen among the most high-profile protests against the war in Gaza and was the first institution to face government sanctions, beginning in March with the cancellation of more than $400 million in funding. The federal government has since found it in violation of civil rights law for allegedly acting with “deliberate indifference” to harassment of Jewish students.

    The administration’s investigation into Brown’s alleged civil rights violations, however, was ongoing at the time the deal was struck.

    What the Trump deals could mean for Harvard

    The Trump administration has quickly touted each agreement as a victory. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon called the Columbia settlement a “roadmap for elite universities” and President Trump declared on Truth Social “woke is officially DEAD at Brown” after announcing that deal.

    Still, some worry any agreement with the administration only opens the door to further coercion if the federal government finds something else it doesn’t like at any of the schools it is dealing with.

    Trump and his allies have long seen Harvard, the nation’s wealthiest university, as its best opportunity to influence higher education and have aimed to force an agreement by canceling more than $3 billion in funding, threatening international students’ statuses, and levying a number of civil rights complaints against the school. 

    In response, the school has put up the most forceful legal and public relations fight against the federal government, meaning any agreement it reaches could reverberate further than that of its peers.



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  • Columbia and Brown Agree to Give Trump Administration All Data on Race and Test Scores of New Admissions

    Columbia and Brown Agree to Give Trump Administration All Data on Race and Test Scores of New Admissions


    In recent decades, many universities have sought to increase racial and ethnic diversity in their student body and faculty. In addition to grades and test scores, they looked at many other factors, such as talents, life experiences, meeting challenges. This process meant that more students of color were admitted, while some students with higher test scores were rejected.

    The Trump administration adamantly opposes this process, known as affirmative action. Its view is that scores on the SAT and ACT and grades should be the most important, if not the only criteria for admission. Those scores, to Trump officials, are synonymous with merit. Any deviation from their view will be grounds for investigating violations of civil rights laws.

    Sharon Otterman and Anemona Hartocollis reported in The New York Times yesterday:

    As part of the settlements struck with two Ivy League universities in recent weeks, the Trump administration will gain access to the standardized test scores and grade point averages of all applicants, including information about their race, a measure that could profoundly alter competitive college admissions.

    That aspect of the agreements with Columbia and Brown, which goes well beyond the information typically provided to the government, was largely overlooked amid splashier news that the universities had promised to pay tens of millions of dollars to settle claims of violations of federal anti-discrimination laws, including accusations that they had tolerated antisemitism.

    The release of such data has been on the wish list of conservatives who are searching for evidence that universities are dodging a 2023 Supreme Court decision barring the consideration of race in college admissions, and will probably be sought in the future from many more of them.

    But college officials and experts who support using factors beyond test scores worry that the government — or private groups or individuals — will use the data to file new discrimination charges against universities and threaten their federal funding.

    The Trump administration is using every lever it can to push elite college admissions offices toward what it regards as “merit-based” processes that more heavily weigh grades and test scores, arguing that softer measures, such as asking applicants about their life challenges or considering where they live, may be illegal proxies for considering race.

    The additional scrutiny is likely to resonate in admissions offices nationwide. It could cause some universities to reconsider techniques like recruitment efforts focused on high schools whose students are predominantly people of color, or accepting students who have outstanding qualifications in some areas but subpar test scores, even if they believe such actions are legal.

    “The Trump administration’s ambition here is to send a chill through admissions offices all over the country,” said Justin Driver, a Yale Law School professor who just wrote a book about the Supreme Court and affirmative action and who said he believed that the administration’s understanding of the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decisionwas wrong. “They are trying to get universities to depress Black and brown enrollment.”



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  • Heather Cox Richardson: In the Trump Administration, Cruelty Is the Point

    Heather Cox Richardson: In the Trump Administration, Cruelty Is the Point


    Heather Cox Richardson sums up recent chaos in the Trump administration and recognizes that its business as usual. Most egregious is the deference paid to Trump by the reactionary majority on the Supreme Court and the frightened Republicans in Congress. The members of Congress are afraid that Trump will endorse their opponent in the next Republican primary. The Justices have lifetime tenure; they have no excuse for rubber-stamping unconstitutional actions.

    Richardson writes:

    Without any explanation, the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court yesterday granted a stay on a lower court’s order that the Trump administration could not gut the Department of Education while the issue is in the courts. The majority thus throws the weight of the Supreme Court behind the ability of the Trump administration to get rid of departments established by Congress—a power the Supreme Court denied when President Richard M. Nixon tried it in 1973.

    This is a major expansion of presidential power, permitting the president to disregard laws Congress has passed, despite the Constitution’s clear assignment of lawmaking power to Congress alone.

    President Donald J. Trump has vowed to eliminate the Department of Education because he claims it pushes “woke” ideology on America’s schoolchildren and that its employees “hate our children.” Running for office, he promised to “return” education to the states. In fact, the Education Department has never set curriculum; it disburses funds for high-poverty schools and educating students with disabilities. It’s also in charge of prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and sex in schools that get federal funding.

    Trump’s secretary of education, professional wrestling promoter Linda McMahon, supports Trump’s plan to dismantle the department. In March the department announced it would lay off 1,378 employees—about half the department. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia sued to stop the layoffs, and Massachusetts federal judge Myong Joun ordered the department to reinstate the fired workers. The Supreme Court has now put that order on hold, permitting the layoffs to go forward.

    Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan concurred in a dissent written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, noting that Trump has claimed power to destroy the congressionally established department “by executive fiat” and chastising the right-wing majority for enabling him. “When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,” they say.

    “The President must take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not set out to dismantle them. That basic rule undergirds our Constitution’s separation of powers. Yet today, the majority rewards clear defiance of that core principle with emergency relief.”

    Another Trump power grab is before Congress today as the Senate considers what are called “rescissions.” These are a request from the White House for Congress to approve $9.4 billion in cuts it has made in spending that Congress approved. By law, the president cannot decide not to spend money Congress has appropriated, although officials in the Trump administration did so as soon as they took office. Passing this rescission package would put Congress’s stamp of approval on those cuts, even though they change what Congress originally agreed to.

    Those cuts include ending federal support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps to fund National Public Radio (NPR), the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and local stations. The Trump administration says NPR and PBS “fuel…partisanship and left-wing propaganda.”

    Congress must approve the request by Friday, or the monies will be spent as the laws originally established. The House has already passed the package, but senators are unhappy that the White House has not actually specified what will be cut. Senators will be talking to the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought—a key architect of Project 2025—today in a closed-door session in hopes of getting more information.

    In June, Vought told CNN that this package is just “the first of many rescissions bills” and that if Congress won’t pass them, the administration will hold back funds under what’s called “impoundment,” although Congress explicitly outlawed that process in the 1974 Impoundment Control Act.

    “We still are lacking the level of detail that is needed to make the right decisions,” Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said. “It’s extremely unusual for any senator to not be able to get that kind of detailed information.”

    Andrew Goudsward of Reuters reported yesterday that nearly two thirds of the lawyers in the unit of the Department of Justice whose job was to defend Trump administration policies have quit. “Many of these people came to work at Federal Programs to defend aspects of our constitutional system,” one lawyer who left the unit told Goudsward. “How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?”

    As the Supreme Court strengthens the office of the presidency without explaining the constitutional basis for its decisions, who is actually running the government is a very real question.

    A week ago, Jason Zengerle of the New York Times suggested that the real power in the Oval Office is deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, who is driving the administration’s focus on attacking immigrants. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem defers to Miller, a Trump advisor told Zengerle. Attorney General Pam Bondi is focused on appearing on the Fox News Channel and so has essentially given Miller control over the Department of Justice. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles is “producing a reality TV show every day” and doesn’t care about policy.

    On the same day Zengerle was writing about domestic policy decisions, Tom Nichols of The Atlantic was making a similar observation about international policy. He notes that Trump has only a fleeting interest in foreign policy, abandoning issues he thinks are losing ones for others to handle. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth keeps talking about “lethality” and trans people but doesn’t seem to know policy at all. Secretary of State Marco Rubio—who is also the national security advisor—appears to have little power in the White House.

    Apparently, Nichols writes, American defense policy is in the hands of Elbridge Colby, the undersecretary of defense for policy, who made the decision to withhold weapons from Ukraine and who ordered a review of the U.S. defense pact with the United Kingdom and Australia in an attempt to put pressure on Australia to spend more on defense.

    “In this administration,” Nichols writes, “the principals are either incompetent or detached from most of the policy making, and so decisions are being made at lower levels without much guidance from above.” This is a common system in authoritarian regimes, Nichols notes, “where the top levels of government tackle the one or two big things the leader wants done and everything else tumbles down to other functionaries, who can then drive certain issues according to their own preferences (which seems to be what Colby is doing), or who will do just enough to stay under the boss’s radar and out of trouble (which seems to be what most other Trump appointees are doing). In such a system, no one is really in charge except Trump—which means that on most days, and regarding many issues, no one is in charge.”

    Either that chaos or deliberate evil is behind the Trump administration’s recent order to burn nearly 500 metric tons of emergency high-nutrition biscuits that could feed about 1.5 million children for a week. As Hana Kiros reported in The Atlantic, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spent about $800,000 on the food during the Biden administration for distribution to children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was in storage in the United Arab Emirates when the Trump administration gutted USAID. Still, Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured the House Appropriations Committee that the food would get to the children before it spoiled.

    But the order to burn the biscuits had already been sent out because, the State Department said, providing food to Afghanistan might benefit terrorists (there was no stated reason for destroying food destined for Pakistan, or suggestion that the food could go to another country). Now the food has passed its safe use date and cannot even be repurposed as animal feed. Destroying it will cost the U.S. taxpayers $130,000.

    What the administration does appear to be focused on is regaining control of the political narrative that has slipped away from it. Today, after news broke that inflation is creeping back up as Trump’s tariffs take effect, Trump posted on social media alleging that Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), who managed one of the impeachment cases against Trump, had committed mortgage fraud and must be brought to justice.

    But so far, nothing appears to be working to distract MAGA from the Epstein files. As David Gilbert of Wired noted today, MAGA supporters were angry over a number of things already. Former Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson hated the bombing of Iran; others hated Trump’s accepting a luxury plane from Qatar. Podcaster Ben Shapiro objected to Trump’s tariffs, and podcaster Joe Rogan has turned against Trump over the targeting of migrants who have not been even accused of crimes. Billionaire Elon Musk turned against Trump over the debt incurred under the new budget reconciliation law Trump called the One Big, Beautiful Bill.

    The Epstein files appear to be one bridge too many for MAGA to cross. The administration tried to stop discussion of Epstein, and for a while the effort seemed to catch: by noon yesterday, the Fox News Channel had mentioned Epstein zero times but had mentioned former president Joe Biden 46 times. Today all but one Republican House member voted against a Democratic measure to require the release of the Epstein files. But Chicago journalist Marc Jacob noticed this afternoon that while the Fox News website didn’t mention Epstein in its top 100 stories today, “[t]he top 3 stories on the New York Times website, the top 2 stories on the Washington Post site and the top story on the CNN site are about Jeffrey Epstein.”

    And then, this afternoon, Dhruv Mehrotra of Wired noted that the video from a camera near Epstein’s prison cell that the Department of Justice released as “raw” footage had approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds cut out of it.

    Journalist Garrett M. Graff, a former editor of Politico, commented: “Okay, I am not generally a conspiracist, but c’mon DOJ, you are making it really hard to believe that you’re releasing the real full evidence on Epstein….”



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  • Jan Resseger: Administration Cancels Federal Funding on Short Notice

    Jan Resseger: Administration Cancels Federal Funding on Short Notice


    Jan Resseger reports on an unprecedented stoppage in federal funding of Congressionally authorized school programs. School districts across the nation were informed on June 30 that the funding for five important programs would be withheld on July 1 pending further review. The administration really would like to terminate the programs but since they can’t do that under current law, they decided to withhold funding for undetermined reasons for an indeterminate length of time.

    She writes:

    Last week, this blog reported, “Chaos and Confusion at U.S. Department of Education May Threaten School Programming this Fall.”  This week the situation intensified.

    “The U.S. Department of Education told states in a three-sentence memo on Monday afternoon (June 30) that when federal funding for the next school year arrived July 1, as it typically does and is supposed to under federal law, funding for five key programs would not be there.”  Education Week‘s Mark Lieberman published that explanation on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, the day the federal funding failed to arrive.  Lieberman adds: “Those formula programs—worth $6.8 billion in total—are under review, the memo said, without specifying when the review would wrap up, what the review is aiming to determine, or whether the funds will go out once it’s finished.”

    The problem is that the funds aren’t merely late; the Trump administration is trying to cancel the programs altogether.  The NY Times‘ Sarah Mervosh and Michael Bender explain: “The administration has suggested that it may seek to eliminate the nearly $7 billion in frozen funding. Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week that the administration was considering ways to claw back the funding through a process known as rescission. The administration would formally ask lawmakers to claw back a set of funds it has targeted for cuts. Even if Congress fails to vote on the request, the president’s timing would trigger a law that freezes the money until it ultimately expires. ‘No decision has been made,’ Mr. Vought said.”

    In an article published on Monday afternoon, right after states received the memo declaring that funding would not arrive as scheduled, Education Week‘s Lieberman provides some background: “(I)n an unsigned email message sent after 2 p.m. Monday… the Education Department informed states that the agency won’t be sending states any money tomorrow from the following programs:

    • “Title I-C for migrant education ($375 million),
    • “Title II-A for professional development ($2.2 billion),
    • “Title III-A for English-learner services ($890 million),
    • “Title IV-A for academic enrichment ($1.3 billion),
    • “Title IV-B for before-and after-school programs ($1.4 billion.).”

    Lieberman adds: “In a separate email sent (Monday) at 4:27 p.m., the department told congressional staffers that it’s holding back funds from all the programs listed above, as well as grants for adult basic and literacy education ($729 million nationwide). Questions about the changes, the letter says, must go to the Office of Management and Budget, not the Education Department.”

    The elimination of these programs had been proposed in the Trump administration’s formal FY 2026 budget proposal for next fiscal year—which, if passed by Congress, would fund public schools beginning in fall 2026. In proposing to cancel the programs this fall, the Trump administration is attempting to eliminate programs already promised under an FY 2025 continuing budget resolution. (To make things even more complicated, it’s important to remember that the “One Big Beautiful” bill is a tax and reconciliation bill and not, in fact, the current year’s FY 2025 federal budget—which remains unaddressed by Congress.)

    Last week Mark Lieberman clarified the schedule by which federal public school funding is supposed to be delivered: “The federal fiscal year begins Oct. 1, but for most education programs, half the upcoming year’s allocated funding flows to states each year on July 1. Congress still hasn’t agreed on a final budget for the current fiscal year, even though it’s almost over.  Instead, lawmakers in March approved a continuing resolution bill that broadly carries over funding levels from the previous fiscal year. That means states and schools have been expecting for months that funding levels for key federal programs would closely mirror last year’s numbers. Thousands of school districts and nearly 30 states have already locked in their own budgets for the upcoming fiscal year.”

    In his coverage on Monday, June 30, of the complex wrangling behind the holdup of funds for the current school year, Lieberman places responsibility not on Linda McMahon or staff at the Department of Education, but instead on Russell Vought, who was the co-author of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and who now heads the Office for Management and Budget:

    “Lawsuits are likely to follow, as they have for similar funding changes the administration implemented earlier this year. Federal law prohibits the executive branch from withholding congressionally appropriated funds unless it gives federal lawmakers an opportunity to approve or reject the move within 45 days. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power of the purse—but top administration official Russell Vought, whom Trump appointed to lead the Office of Management and Budget, has said he believes restrictions on impoundment are unconstitutional. On Capitol Hill last week, Vought said the administration hadn’t decided whether to ask Congress for permission to impound education funding.”

    Last week, the Washington Post‘s Jeff Stein, Hannah Natanson, Carolyn Johnson, and Dan Diamond predicted that Russell Vought will attempt to interfere with spending as the year continues: “Though billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service drew significant attention for its speedy cuts, Russell Vought, Trump’s budget director, is expected to be key to the coming fight over spending. Vought has spearheaded the administration’s campaign to assert sweeping executive power over spending, arguing that the Impoundment Control Act, the law at issue now, is unconstitutional. The Trump administration has justified its cost-cutting measures by pointing out that the United States is $36 trillion in debt, although the type of funding that officials have targeted represents a small fraction of the overall budget.”

    Although costs for federally funded 21st Century Learning Center after-school programs, federally funded professional development programs for teachers, federally funded classes for English language learners in public schools, federally funded programs for the education of the children of migrant workers, and federally funded academic enrichment programs make up only a minute percentage of the federal budget, the abrupt obliteration of these programs will cause enormous disruption right now as public school leaders are getting crucial programming for their schools in place for fall. Public schools are incredibly complex institutions. In addition to providing special services for disabled students, school boards and school leaders patch together local, state, and federal dollars for programming to serve the specific needs of their students, which differ by region, by the income level of a school district’s families, by the primary languages of the families in their communities, and by enormous inequity in states’ investment in public education.

    Clearly Russell Vought neither understands nor cares how the programs he is is cutting will affect students. Clearly he fails to grasp how these cuts will interfere with hiring already underway for the upcoming school year or how the absence of these funding streams will undermine the stability of public school operations come September.

    On the other hand, say I, maybe Russell Vought knew exactly what it mean to freeze funds at the last minute. Maybe his intent was to sow chaos and disruption. Maybe he wanted to send a message to Congress: we can withhold funds Congress appropriated without regard to the law. Maybe he wanted to send a message to states and school districts: If the program is important to you, pay for it yourself. Stop expecting the federal government to send you money.



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  • Why Does the Trump Administration Want to Deport or Imprison This Cancer Researcher?

    Why Does the Trump Administration Want to Deport or Imprison This Cancer Researcher?


    I have been following the case of Kseniia Petrova, a cancer researcher at Harvard, with a sense of outrage and helplessness. She attended a conference in France and returned last February with samples of frog embryos for her laboratory. She was detained by Customs for failing to declare them and has been incarcerated ever since. The other day, the charge of bringing in an undeclared item was upgraded to a felony, and this young woman faces a possible 20 years in prison.

    Is she the kind of dangerous, violent criminal that Trump promised to deport? No.

    Jay Kuo is both a lawyer and a playwright, whose blog is called The Status Kuo. He writes about the case today in hopes of rallying support for her. Petrova left Russia to protest the invasion of Ukraine. If she is deported there, she will be immediately jailed.

    He writes:

    We need to pay close attention to the case of Kseniia Petrova. She’s a Russian-born researcher who was detained by Customs and Border Protection back in February when traveling back from a conference in France.

    Like others caught up in the “immigration crackdown” by the Trump administration, Petrova has been held in ICE detention ever since. In her case, a custom agent alleged she had failed to declare frog embryo samples that she’d picked up from a colleague to bring back to the U.S.

    For this, the government canceled Petrova’s visa and threatened to deport her. But her case is about far more than frog embryos.

    For starters, her home country is Russia, where she was outspoken against the war in Ukraine and was part of the exodus of Russians opposed to Putin’s invasion. She now faces persecution or worse for her anti-war activism should she be sent home, even while the Trump administration bends over backwards for Putin and the Kremlin.

    She’s also a researcher and valued member of the Harvard medical sciences community, which has been the constant target of the Trump White House. Being deliberately cruel to Petrova means Trump gets to traumatize Harvard in yet another way.

    Petrova has been languishing in a detention facility in Louisiana, but things had begun to move her way. This week, Judge Christina Reiss, a federal judge in Vermont hearing Petrova’s habeas petition, questioned government lawyers over whether Customs and Border Protection actually had the authority to cancel Petrova’s visa. Judge Reiss had set a bail hearing for next Friday, and many viewed it as a hopeful signal that she was set to release Petrova from custody.

    Not so fast, said the government. What they did next was frankly shocking, even in this corrosive and highly politicized environment.

    The government charges Petrova criminally

    Apparently out of sheer spite, and faced with the prospect of losing another case where they had egregiously overreached and overreacted, the government charged Petrova with felony smuggling. That’s a charge that carries up to 20 years in prison. 

    Felony smuggling laws are intended to deter profiteers from deliberately carrying in endangered species, not to punish researchers who fail to declare frog embryo samples.

    Normally when you fail to declare something that should have been itemized at customs, you could face a fine. It’s considered a minor infraction. And in this case, it isn’t even clear that frog embryos count. According to Petrova’s lawyer, customs experts conveyed that that she “did not need a permit to bring in her non-living scientific samples that are not considered biological material under U.S. Customs law.”

    The criminal complaint itself is a just single page attaching an affidavit from a Homeland Security agent. In that affidavit, the agent makes much of the fact that, after checking her text messages on her phone (!!), he learned that Petrova apparently had been told by a colleague that she should declare the samples. But she had joked about not having a plan to carry them in, saying, “I won’t be able to swallow them.”

    When asked, Petrova told the agent that she was not sure she needed to declare anything. (I should add here that advice from a colleague is not the same as legal advice from a customs lawyer.) Per the Customs and Border Protection website, U.S. government agencies “regulate the importation of biological materials that can pose a threat to agriculture, public health, and natural resources” (emphasis added). But frog embryo samples don’t pose any threat. So it’s hardly clear that Petrova knew these had to be declared.

    “Yesterday’s hearing in federal district court in Vermont confirmed that Customs and Border [Protection] officials had no legal basis for cancelling Kseniia’s visa and detaining her,” wrote Petrova’s attorney. The judge in Vermont seemed prepared to agree and to rule that canceling her visa over this was excessive. 

    Filing criminal charges now? Really?!

    When someone is taken into custody by immigration officials, it is customary to charge them first with any crimes they have committed. This makes sense because criminal charges, which are far more serious, should always take priority over any immigration violations, which are normally just civil violations.

    Once the individual has been prosecuted, explained Ingrid Eagly, co-director of the Criminal Justice Program at the UCLA School of Law, to the New York Times, the authorities can begin the process of removing them from the country. In Petrova’s case, “they put her in removal proceedings, and now are saying it is a criminal case.” Dr. Eagly explained that this was a “ratcheting up of the charges,” an atypical move that “seems retaliatory, designed for a particular end.”

    Prof. Marisol Orihuela of Yale Law School told the Times that this was the first time she had seen a case where criminal charges were brought against someone who had already been in removal proceedings for so long. “The question it raises in my mind is why would it take three months” to decide to charge Petrova, remarked Prof. Orihuela. “It doesn’t really quite add up,” she added, wondering why the government would “need this amount of time if you thought this was a crime worth charging.”

    Nor does it make any sense that after three whole months, there is still no further evidence beyond what one lone agent said Petrova did and said under questioning just before she was taken in. There are no interviews of Petrova’s colleagues. There is no showing, beyond a text thread with a colleague, that Petrova knew such samples must be declared. They’ve had three months, but the case has not advanced beyond what was known at the time.

    On top of this, the timing of the charge is highly suspicious. Judge Reiss had only this week questioned whether Petrova’s visa revocation was proper, and from all accounts she would have likely ordered Petrova’s release on bail next Friday.

    Here’s what I want to know. Who in the administration ordered Petrova to be criminally charged? Was there coordination between an overzealous Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Justice? When was the charging decision made? Did anyone object to it? Why was there apparently no investigation to obtain further evidence to support the charge?

    Playing dangerous politics, holding political prisoners

    Petrova’s case has been prominent in the headlines. She has received support from all across the country and the world. A feature on her plight was published in the New York Times. Her work as a scientist studying images for cancer diagnostics has been widely lauded, while her detention has been condemned as a pointless harm, not just to her but for medical science and the world.

    It would not surprise me if orders to do everything possible to continue to punish and hold Petrova came from the very top of the Trump administration. After all, moving to criminally charge Petrova, three months after she was first detained, makes zero sense unless your point is to make an example of her and thumb your nose at customary prosecutorial practices.

    The administration has basically said, “Oh, so you think you can get her out? We’ll stop you, just to show that we can. To hell with your ‘due process’ and ‘civil rights.’ We’re in charge, and she’s not going anywhere.”

    This is of course the same position the government has taken with Kilmar Abrego García and all the other political prisoners in El Salvador’s CECOT facility. 

    I say “political prisoners” because that is precisely what they’ve now become. Petrova, Abrego García, and others are being held for purely political reasons, by or at the request of the U.S. government. It’s not because they’ve committed any actual crimes or are in any way deserving of the treatment they are receiving. Rather, it’s because the administration wants to telegraph strength and cruelty, just like any other fascist regime.

    It’s also why the White House is so desperate to cast them as “criminals” and stretch the laws and the truth, even to absurd degrees, to fit its narrative. That makes this fight not just about achieving justice for those wrongly arrested and held, but also about rejecting the raw politicization of their cases and of our immigration and criminal justice systems. 

    Indeed, fighting for justice for Petrova and others now means no less than fighting for the rule of law, democracy and the very soul of our nation, now put at serious risk by the tyranny of the Trump regime.

    Petrova is not a dangerous criminal. She has not raped or murdered anyone. She is a researcher trying to find a cure for cancer.



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  • Breaking News: Trump Administration Cancels Scores of Research Grants at Harvard

    Breaking News: Trump Administration Cancels Scores of Research Grants at Harvard


    The Trump administration is determined to punish Harvard University for defiance of its efforts to take control of Harvard’s curriculum, admissions, and faculty hiring policies. Having already suspended $2.2 billion in research grants, the Trump administration expanded its attack on Harvard.

    This level of petty vengefulness is unprecedented. Trump is turning his wrath upon Harvard and weaponizing the entire federal government to force the nation’s most prestigious institution of higher education to surrender.

    The headline of the story: “A Bloodbath.”

    Chris Serres at the Boston Globe reported this story:

    In yet another escalation of its fight against higher education, the Trump administration has moved to terminate scores of research grants at Harvard University and its medical school, imperiling scores of research projects and potentially upending the futures of dozens of young scientists.

    Harvard researchers who rely on federal grants to study cancer, infectious diseases and a range of other topics began receiving termination notices en masse on Thursday from a number of federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the US Department of Defense and the US Department of Energy, according to emails shared with the Globe.

    The termination notices threaten tens of millions of dollars in research funding for Harvard and affect a broad swath of the university’s scientific community, including graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who are dependent on federal funding for income.

    While not unexpected, the wave of termination letters has roiled the Harvard campus in Cambridge and has left many young scientists anxious about their futures, while others are scrambling to find ways to replace the anticipated loss of federal funding.



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  • Breaking News: Trump Administration Encouraging Other Nations to Sign Up For Musk’s Starlink Internet Service to Cut Tariffs

    Breaking News: Trump Administration Encouraging Other Nations to Sign Up For Musk’s Starlink Internet Service to Cut Tariffs


    The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is promoting Elon Musk’s Starlink Internet service while negotiating trade deals.

    Less than two weeks after President Donald Trump announced 50 percent tariffs on goods from the tiny African nation of Lesotho, the country’s communications regulator held a meeting with representatives of Starlink.

    The satellite business, owned by billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, had been seeking access to customers in Lesotho. But it was not until Trump unveiled the tariffs and called for negotiations over trade deals that leaders of the country of roughly 2 million people awarded Musk’s firm the nation’s first-ever satellite internet service license, slated to last for 10 years.

    The decision drew a mention in an internal State Department memo obtained by The Washington Post, which states: “As the government of Lesotho negotiates a trade deal with the United States, it hopes that licensing Starlink demonstrates goodwill and intent to welcome U.S. businesses.

    A series of internal government messages obtained by The Post reveal how U.S. embassies and the State Department have pushed nations to clear hurdles for U.S. satellite companies, often mentioning Starlink by name. The documents do not show that the Trump team has explicitly demanded favors for Starlink in exchange for lower tariffs. But they do indicate that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has increasingly instructed officials to push for regulatory approvals for Musk’s satellite firm at a moment when the White House is calling for wide-ranging talks on trade.

    In India, government officials have sped through approvals of Starlink with the understanding that doing so could help them cement trade deals with the administration, according to two people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect private deliberations.

    Other nations seeking relief from Trump’s killer tariffs have discovered that adopting Starlink is part of the deal. I think this is called cronyism.



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  • California leaders reject Trump administration order to allow immigration enforcement in schools

    California leaders reject Trump administration order to allow immigration enforcement in schools


    Protesters in Bakersfield rally against an extensive Border Patrol operation held on Jan. 14,.

    Credit: Emma Gallegos / EdSource

    This article has been updated with information from the California Department of Education, Long Beach Unified and San Diego Unified.

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    California state officials and leaders of county offices of education and school districts quickly rebuked the Trump administration’s new guidance allowing immigration enforcement near or in schools.

    “Schools must be safe spaces, not sites of fear,” said Alex Traverso, director of communications of the State Board of Education. “Every child deserves to learn without intimidation, and California will do all we can to protect our students.”

    The directive issued Tuesday by Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman reverses guidance that dates back to 2011, restricting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies from detaining immigrants near locations like schools, child care centers, playgrounds, hospitals and churches.

    “This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens — including murderers and rapists — who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Tuesday.

    Under California law, school officials are not required to allow immigration agents to enter schools without a judicial warrant, according to recent guidance issued by California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

    “It is disappointing, but unfortunately unsurprising that President Trump, in his first days in office, is focusing his time and energy on making his inhumane and irresponsible mass deportation agenda a reality. My team is actively reviewing his executive orders, and we stand ready to defend the rights of Californians if we find that the President has in any way violated the law — starting with our lawsuit, filed today, challenging the President’s unconstitutional executive order on birthright citizenship,” Bonta said.

    The Association of California School Administrators issued a statement saying they are “troubled and deeply disappointed” in the Trump administration’s order allowing immigration enforcement near schools.

    “This is an abuse of power and goes against the constitutional right of every child to have a public education,” the statement reads. “Schools are meant to be safe spaces where children can learn and grow without fear. … We know from past experience that this decision will result in some students not attending school, families disengaging, academics being disrupted, and severe impacts on social-emotional well-being.”

    In response to requests for support from school districts and county offices of education, the California Department of Education sent a letter Tuesday to all county and school district superintendents and charter school administrators with resources for immigrant students and families and reminders about their rights.

    “Our schools must be a safe place for children to learn and educators to teach. In line with federal and state law, California’s schools can take actions to ensure that all students have access to school campuses and educational opportunities without fear of deportation,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said.

    “In light of the new administration’s action today to overturn the sensitive locations policy, I want to reassure our education community that the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) remains steadfastly committed to ensuring that every student, regardless of their immigration status, has access to a safe, secure and nurturing learning environment,” said Debra Duardo, superintendent of schools for Los Angeles County, in a statement.

    “The change to the policy does not overrule the student’s constitutional right to an education. It also does not overrule state constitutional protections,” Duardo continued. “It is important to reinforce that all students possess the right to a public education, independent of their immigration status. Our schools are mandated to ensure that no student is denied enrollment or faced with barriers to their educational opportunities based on their or their family’s immigration status.”

    Many school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, Long Beach Unified, San Diego Unified and San Francisco Unified have reaffirmed “sanctuary resolutions” or sent letters to families in recent weeks, explaining their rights and sharing legal resources. Seventeen Santa Clara County superintendents and school board members signed a letter earlier this month, saying schools will continue to support immigrant students and families and reminding the public of a 1982 Supreme Court decision, Plyler v. Doe, which found that all children present in the United States have a right to a public education, regardless of their immigration status or their parents’ immigration status.

    A spokesperson for Los Angeles Unified School District said the district has begun training all staff in how to respond if federal immigration officers show up at schools and will be distributing cards to students explaining their rights if approached by immigration agents.

    “Los Angeles Unified School District is compelled by legal, professional, and moral obligations to protect rights of its students and employees, including privacy rights under FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), and state and federal constitutional rights, which include rights of all students to a free and public education,” a district spokesperson wrote in an email. “School officials do not collect or share information about the immigration status of students and their families. Since 2017, LAUSD has had a policy to not voluntarily cooperate with immigration enforcement actions by federal agencies.”

    Fresno Unified School District is holding a series of workshops for families about immigrant rights. District spokesperson Diana Diaz wrote, “We want to urge our families who are concerned about possible detainment or deportation to please make a family preparedness plan NOW. This includes updating your child’s emergency card with their school so they can be released to another trusted adult if parents are unable.”

    Teachers’ unions also rejected the Trump administration’s change.

    “As educators and union members, we are committed to protecting our students — every single student, regardless of their immigration status,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, which represents 310,000 teachers, nurses, counselors, psychologists, librarians and other education staff across the state. “We have a professional and moral responsibility to keep our students safe if ICE comes to our communities. We will always come together in our union to ensure every public school is a safe space and to uphold the constitutionally protected right of all students to access a public education.”

    Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers, the state’s second-largest teachers union, said in a statement, “Trump’s first day in office showed us that he is exactly who he told us he would be. His first actions as president direct hate and aim to stoke fear in the hearts of immigrant families and our LGBTQIA+ community.  We can’t expect students to learn when they fear being separated from their parents, being bullied for being LGBTQIA+, or being treated differently based on the language they speak or the color of their skin.

    “While we still hope to see Congress and our courts block these blatantly unconstitutional actions,” Freitas continued, “we won’t wait for them to act. Educators and school staff stand ready to fight back against every single action that stands to harm our members, our students, and our communities.”

    EdSource reporter Diana Lambert contributed to this article.





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  • California college leaders anxious, uncertain as Trump administration orders end to diversity programs

    California college leaders anxious, uncertain as Trump administration orders end to diversity programs


    San Diego City College’s Chicano-Latina graduation ceremony in 2024 is the kind of event the Trump administration is targeting in its efforts to stamp out diversity, equity and inclusion policies on campuses.

    Credit: San Diego City College

    California college leaders are responding with a mix of uncertainty, resistance and worry over a U.S. Department of Education order to eliminate any race-based programs by the end of the month.

    The “dear colleague” letter, published Friday by the department’s Office for Civil Rights, goes far beyond telling colleges they can’t consider race as a factor in admissions. It says colleges that factor race into “admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life” are in violation of federal law. 

    The letter gives colleges until the end of the month to get rid of such programs or risk losing federal funds, though it doesn’t specify which funding would be held back. 

    Some officials at California’s colleges and universities said Tuesday that they have no plans to abolish those types of programs in dorms, graduation ceremonies, resource centers and other areas. However, others were still determining their next steps amid great uncertainty. Many are concerned about how possible funding losses might hurt campuses and how students might be harmed if there are cuts to programs.

    Greg Smith, chancellor of the San Diego Community College District, said he has “no concern about our compliance in anything that we’re currently doing.” He noted that the district already complies with Proposition 209, the 1996 ballot measure that banned public universities in California from considering race in admissions and giving other race-based preferential treatment.

    He added, however, that it would be demoralizing for students if colleges were forced to get rid of programs designed to “create inclusivity and belonging based on culture and identity.”

    “I think it creates a sense of fear that the progress that’s been made in the civil rights going back to the mid-’60s is starting to be undermined,” he added. 

    The district, one of the largest in the state, is home to San Diego City, San Diego Mesa and San Diego Miramar colleges. Each year, the colleges hold a Rite of Passage Ceremony, a celebration meant to honor the achievements of Black students graduating or transferring. 

    San Diego Mesa also holds a Raza Grad Ceremony to honor Latino, Hispanic and Indigenous students, while San Diego City holds a similar event and also has a UMOJA Community offering counseling and tutoring to Black students hoping to transfer to a four-year university.

    Those programs and other cultural initiatives will continue, Smith said, though he acknowledged that he is concerned about possibly losing federal funding. 

    The college is currently planning how it would “backfill those funds” if it loses any federal dollars, such as by using reserves in the short term. “We’re really committed to ensuring those programs continue,” Smith said.

    The University of California similarly suggested in a statement that the order would not immediately impact its 10 campuses, which have a number of racially themed programs. The letter serves as “guidance on the Department’s interpretation of existing anti-discrimination laws and does not name any specific institution,” UC said in its statement. 

    “It indicates how OCR intends to enforce these legal requirements. Given the UC’s compliance with Prop. 209, we do not use race-based preferences in our practices,” UC added. 

    UC could be especially vulnerable because it receives nearly $6 billion annually in federal funds for research and other program support and at least $1.7 billion in student financial aid, including Pell grants and work study programs. That does not include federal funds for medical care across UC’s hospitals. 

    UC Riverside, which has prided itself on being one of the nation’s most diverse universities, says on its website that it was the first campus to have a professionally staffed Black student resource center and the first UC campus to have an office serving Native American students. 

    Many campuses across UC and the 23-campus California State University (CSU) also have racially themed dormitory floors, such as the African Black Diaspora Living Learning Community at UC San Diego. The mission of the community is to “establish an environment of personal and academic excellence through the affirmation and celebration of Blackness in its various expressions,” according to the campus website.

    CSU was still uncertain of potential impacts as of Tuesday. The system faces its own vulnerabilities if federal funding were to be cut: It estimates that more than $511 million in research expenditures were funded by federal agencies during the 2022-23 academic year.

    “As this type of action is unprecedented, we are consulting with the California Attorney General and higher education partners across the country to better understand the statewide impact of this letter,” said Amy Bentley-Smith, a CSU spokesperson.

    A spokesperson for the chancellor’s office overseeing California’s 116 community colleges said the office is “in conversations with state and federal partners and providing colleges as much clarity, guidance and support as we can.” Colleges are encouraged to “continue their critical work in alignment with state and federal laws,” the spokesperson added.

    Some campuses and college districts declined to comment altogether as they were still assessing the potential impacts of the order. That includes Sacramento State University, which has been a vocal leader in programming aimed at helping Black students, and the Los Angeles Community College District, the state’s largest district. 





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  • A Brilliant Decision by a Conservative Judge Rebukes Trump Administration

    A Brilliant Decision by a Conservative Judge Rebukes Trump Administration


    Every once in a while, a judicial decision is so beautifully written and so well crafted that it should be read in full, not summarized.

    Such a decision was rendered yesterday by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson of the Fourth District Court of Appeals in the case of Kilmer Abrega Garcia. Judge Wilkinson was appointed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals by President Reagan in 1984. He is an old-school Republican who believes in the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law. Remember them? People like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who are reviled by MAGA. To MAGA, whatever Trump wants overrides both the Constitution and the rule of law.

    Abrego Garcia is one of the 238 men picked up by ICE and whisked away to a terrorism prison in El Salvador. None of those men had a hearing or due process. A district court judge (appointed by President George W. Bush) ordered the government to turn the flights around and bring the men in three planes back to U.S. soil. The administration ignored his ruling. Another federal district judge ordered the Justice Department to bring him back. However, the Trump Justice Department insists that the U.S. has no jurisdiction in El Salvador.

    His case and plight have sparked nationwide demonstrations against the government for failing to provide him due process and refusing to bring him back despite the orders of two federal district judges and the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 9-0 that the government must “facilitate” his return while showing due deference to the President’s control of foreign affairs.

    Here is the full decision. It is not long (seven pages) and it is great reading.

    If you want to read its crucial reasoning (without the legal precedents referenced), here is the core of the decision:

    “Upon review of the government’s motion, the court denies the motion for an emergency stay pending appeal and for a writ of mandamus. The relief the government is requesting is both extraordinary and premature.

    While we fully respect the executive’s robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision. It is difficult, in some cases, to get to the very heart of the matter—but in this case, it is not hard at all.

    The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims, in essence, that because it has rid itself of custody, that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.

    The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process. If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that that position will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of removal order. In other words, if it thinks it’s got such good factual proof of that, what is it so worried about? It can present it, and it should prevail in getting him removed from this country.

    Moreover, the government has conceded that Abrego Garcia was wrongfully or mistakenly deported. Why then should it not make what was wrong right?

    Let me just repeat that. Why then should it not make what was wrong right?

    The Supreme Court’s decision remains, as always, our guidepost. That decision rightly requires the lower federal courts to give due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch.

    The Supreme Court’s decision does not, however, allow the government to do essentially nothing. It requires the government ‘to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.’

    Facilitate is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken—as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear. The plain and active meaning of the word cannot be diluted by its constriction, as the government would have it, to a narrow term of art.

    We are not bound in this context by a definition crafted by administrative agency and contained in mere policy directive.

    Thus, the government’s argument that all it must do is remove any domestic barriers to his return—that is, the government said, ‘You know what? If he can make his way to our shores, then we have to take him in’—is not well taken in light of the Supreme Court’s command that the government facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.

    “Facilitation” does not permit the admittedly erroneous deportation of an individual to the one country’s prison that the withholding order forbids, and further to do so in disregard of a court order that the government, not so subtly, spurns. Facilitation does not sanction the abrogation of habeas corpus through the transfer of custody to foreign detention centers in the manner attempted here. Allowing all this would facilitate foreign detention more than it would domestic return. It would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood….”

    The executive possesses enormous powers to prosecute and to deport. But with powers come restraints. If today the executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? That threat—even if not the actuality—would always be present.

    And the executive’s obligation to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed’—that’s a quote from the Constitution, Article II—would lose its meaning.

    Today, both the United States and the El Salvadoran government disclaim any authority and/or responsibility to return Abrego Garcia. We are told that neither government has the power to act. That result will be to leave matters generally—and Abrego Garcia specifically—in an interminable limbo without recourse to law of any sort.

    The basic differences between the branches mandate a serious effort and mutual respect. The respect that courts must accord the executive must be reciprocated by the executive’s respect for the courts.

    Too often today, this has not been the case—as calls for impeachment of judges for decisions the executive disfavors and exhortations to disregard court orders sadly illustrate.”

    It is in this atmosphere that we are reminded of President Eisenhower’s sage example. Putting his “personal opinions” aside, President Eisenhower honored his “inescapable” duty to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education II to desegregate schools “with all deliberate speed.”

    This great man expressed his unflagging belief that “[t]he very basis of our individual rights and freedoms is the certainty that the President and the Executive Branch of Government will support and [e]nsure the carrying out of thedecisions of the Federal Courts.” Indeed, in our late Executive’s own words,“ [u]nless the President did so, anarchy would result.”

    Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both. This is a losing proposition all around. The Judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its illegitimacy, to which by dent of custom and detachment we can only sparingly reply. The Executive will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions. The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragicgap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph.

    It is, as we have noted, all too possible to see in this case an incipient crisis, but it may present an opportunity as well. We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.

    The most ominous words in this decision are the last five. “…While there is still time.”

    This respected conservative jurist recognizes that the goal of the Trump administration is to diminish and undermine the federal courts and to make himself an emperor.



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