Why? Because, believing strongly in the academy’s freedoms and the absolute necessity, as Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter said in Sweezy v. New Hampshire (1957), an institution must be able to “determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study,” I cannot think of any circumstances under which I would “cave” to the demands of the Trump Administration’s Department of Education.
Many college and university presidents feel differently. As the son of immigrants from Nazi Germany and the grandson of an early political leader against Hitler, though, I learned at an early age about the Hitler/Goebbels playbook.
I believe we are engaged in a “deja vu” moment, with the playbook once again on full display. (At the same time, it is clear the President is also modeling his behavior by a second playbook, which his longtime lawyer, Roy Cohn, “wrote” and which consisted of the following “principles”—deny, delay, and attack.)
Let me briefly count the ways.
When Hitler took power on January 30, 1933, he wasted no time in going after the corporate, education, legal, and media worlds.
Despite the support of business leaders in his political rise, Hitler paid no attention to them once in power. A century later, neither does Trump.
Both men also viewed educational institutions the same way. Hitler was quick to attack universities, beginning with the most liberal, the University of Frankfurt. He felt if Frankfurt bowed to him, others would quickly fall in line, which they did.
In Trump’s attacks on America’s premier institutions, one sees a similar strategy: Go after the most respected first and resistance will evaporate. If institutions fold, his power is enhanced; and if they resist, Trump’s stance nevertheless resonates with his base.
At first, most institutions simply remained silent. Harvard finally decided to fight, with its president joining a handful of other presidents willing to speak out.
Buoyed by Harvard’s leadership, others joined the fray. Hundreds of presidents have now voiced their opposition to Trump’s assault on higher education.
While the stakes are high, Harvard, with an endowment exceeding $50 billion, has far more flexibility than other institutions and far greater ability to defend itself. Of course, one might rightly ask what is an endowment for if not to defend academic freedom and independence?
Endowments are “rainy-day” funds, which are meant to see institutions through unusual events, rather than simply grow. If the assault by the Trump Administration on academia does not fall into that category, what does?
Of course, Harvard’s endowment puts the university in a unique position. Other institutions must calculate if drawing down their endowment for the remainder of the Trump presidency is financially “doable” and whether this Administration’s policies will be repeated by the next one because, if they are, most colleges’ endowments will evaporate.
Lawyers in Germany and the United States were also targets of both men. After Hitler became chancellor, he immediately sought revenge on Hans Litten, a young lawyer who had cross-examined him in a 1931 trial. Litten was arrested and sent to a series of concentration camps, where he died in 1938.
When Trump targeted law firms for defending his opponents, many firms simply, although surprisingly, capitulated. In fact, some firms even reached out to the Administration before Trump attacked them.
By signing pro-bono agreements to defend Trump causes, firms hoped to “buy” peace. However, they soon found that strategy was futile.
Then, there is the media. Hitler referred to the media as the “Lugenpresse” (the lying press); Trump labelled the press as “fake news.” Faced with frivolous actions by the President, some major organizations settled bogus lawsuits, engaged in self-censorship, or even replaced personnel with leaders more in tune with the President.
Why are corporate leaders, educators, lawyers, and media moguls today bending the knee? The obvious answer is money (federal or private) and clients, and the fear of losing both. However, there is, unfortunately, another powerful reason-- the lack of leadership.
Trying to protect oneself and the institution for which one is responsible is clearly understandable. However, not taking a risk doesn’t mean avoiding risk; and engaging in “duck-and-cover leadership” is not leadership.
History, specifically events involving Hitler, has shown the foolishness of negotiating with those seeking absolute power. Appeasement, in any form, simply does not work.
Just as Hitler took advantage of Neville Chamberlain at Munich in 1938, so Trump will continue to exploit the heads of organizations who bow to his will. Chamberlain engineered an international agreement giving Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Germany to avoid war, which nevertheless came one year later.
In Trump’s case, the shortcomings of a policy of appeasement were evident far more quickly. No sooner had businesses, colleges, law firms, and the media agreed to Trump’s terms than the President increased his demands.
Had leaders in each category joined forces among themselves, things could be very different today. Strength in numbers might well have stiffened the spines of all.
By not joining forces, the heads of these organizations failed in their leadership roles. Without their leadership, with a catatonic Democratic minority and a cowardly Republican majority, average Americans began filling the void as the dangers became more obvious.
While many of these Americans were not initially focused on democracy issues, current, and possibly future, events may well foretell change. With the peaceful demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis, we may be witnessing the beginning of that change. Again, the parallels to Nazi Germany are clear, with the surprising exception that even Hitler’s SA (“Sturmabteillung” or Storm Division), his initial paramilitary organization, never covered their faces with masks, as ICE agents have.
What if the President sends ICE agents to voting sites in key Democratic-leaning states to keep the vote down; the Administration seizes voting machines, as Trump wanted to do in 2020 and as he is laying the groundwork to do with his recent actions in Georgia; demonstrations across the country give the President an excuse for invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 and declaring martial law; or the Supreme Court decides, following the precedent it established in Shelby v. Holder (2013), to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in Louisiana v. Callais and overturn minority districts in “red” states, which would, in all likelihood, give Republicans firm control of Congress? Important questions, which, before Trump, were contemplated by no one.
Impossible? My grandfather certainly thought so, until, warned by a colleague, he managed to escape Germany on April 1, 1933 hours before the Gestapo came to arrest him.
That, of course, brings us full circle to colleges and universities. Leadership demands presidents stand firm in defending the academic freedoms that Justice Frankfurter laid out in Sweezy. And yet, with trustees from the corporate, legal, and media worlds sitting on their boards who may well have “caved” to the Trump Administration themselves, presidential leadership today requires a willingness to draw a line in the sand—and, if unable to defend the institution’s academic freedoms, leaving one’s position.
I recognize it is easy, as a former president, to sit on the sidelines and pontificate from the “cheap seats.” For me, though, particularly because of my background, the decision would have been easy.
If faced with inappropriate demands from the Trump Education Department, I would have either have quit a job I truly loved or been fired by my board if told to submit to those demands, which I would not have done.
