U.S. anniversary coins won’t feature any Black Americans or notable women; The Washington Post, December 20, 2025

Emmanuel Felton, The Washington Post; U.S. anniversary coins won’t feature any Black Americans or notable women

"In a preview of the Trump administration’s approach to celebrating the country’s 250th birthday, Treasury Department officials announced earlier this month that the agency would ignore the committee’s recommendation and produce quarters that are far less diverse and more traditional. Instead of addressing the country’s racial history, the five coins will feature images of former presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Abraham Lincoln, as well as a Pilgrim couple.

The Biden administration was focused on diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory, U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach told Fox News, but the “Trump administration is dedicated to fostering prosperity and patriotism.”...

The administration is also considering a commemorative dollar with President Donald Trump’s face on one side and his raised fist with the words “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT” on the other, a reference to the widely circulated image of the president following an assassination attempt in 2024. Democratic senators have decried the idea as “un-American” and introduced legislation to prohibit “the likeness of a living or sitting president” from appearing on American currency."

Merry boycotting: US shoppers avoid Trump-aligned businesses amid holiday season; The Guardian, December 20, 2025

Rachel Leingang , The Guardian; Merry boycotting: US shoppers avoid Trump-aligned businesses amid holiday season

"It’s the busiest shopping season of the year – and a time when many are trying to figure out where to ethically spend their money.

Over the first year of Trump’s second term, companies and institutions have fallen in line with the administration’s anti-DEI and anti-immigration policies. As a result, people are supporting economic boycotts to show their discontent with the businesses capitulating to the president.

Over the Black Friday weekend, the groups behind the No Kings protests – the largest days of mass protest in recent memory – put their weight behind a campaign called We Ain’t Buying It, calling on people to not shop at Target, Home Depot and Amazon during the marquee week of holiday deals.

More than 220 organizations joined We Ain’t Buying It, the coalition said. The campaign reached millions of Americans, driving more than 40,000 to take a pledge to be a conscious consumer. Signs also point to people spending their money at smaller companies instead. Little Blue Cart, a directory of progressive small businesses, saw record-breaking traffic during the campaign period, the coalition said."

Senators freeze Coast Guard admiral’s promotion over swastika, noose policy; The Washington Post, December 17, 2025

Tara Copp

 and 

Marianne LeVine

 , The Washington Post; Senators freeze Coast Guard admiral’s promotion over swastika, noose policy

"At least two U.S. senators have put holds on the nomination of Adm. Kevin Lunday to lead the U.S. Coast Guard, citing concerns with a new workplace harassment policy that downgrades the definition of swastikas and nooses from hate symbols to “potentially divisive.”

The move upends Lunday’s confirmation, which the Senate was due to vote on this week, and raises new questions about the decision to implement the policy revisions after Lunday in November had forcefully denounced such symbols and declared a wholesale prohibition on them.

The holds on Lunday’s promotion were exercised by Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada). They follow a series of Washington Post reports detailing plans to include the incendiary language within the Coast Guard’s new workplace harassment manual — and the policy’s quiet implementation this week despite the admiral’s explicit directive last month. The manual is posted online and makes clear that its previous version “is cancelled.”"

Born Deaf and Blind, She’s Caught in Trump’s Anti-Diversity Crusade; The New York Times, December 15, 2025

Sonia A. Rao

Visuals by Jamie Kelter Davis

, The New York Times ; Born Deaf and Blind, She’s Caught in Trump’s Anti-Diversity Crusade

[Kip Currier: Another heartbreaking example showcasing the seemingly endless cruelty and indifference of this administration to vulnerable human beings.

What reasonable, compassionate person would cut programs like the Wisconsin Deafblind Project?

What person of faith can justify believing that federal and state governments shouldn't step up to help the "least among us" and families who are in need?

Yet millions can be allocated for building a ballroom addition to the White House and green-lighting tax breaks for billionaires to buy more mansions, super-yachts, and islands?]

[Excerpt]

"Casey and Leah Garner wanted a big family. The Wisconsin couple had dreamed of having at least six children by the time they were in their 30s. But after years of struggling with infertility, they decided to adopt.

At the hospital three years ago, meeting the newborn who would become their daughter, Mr. Garner was the first to notice the tiny flaps of skin where her ears should be. Annie, the child they were adopting, was deaf.

Over the next few months, as they got to know their daughter, the Garners would discover more challenges, including poor vision, a developmental disability and weak muscles...

He discovered the Wisconsin Deafblind Project, a state program for the families of children with combined vision and hearing loss. It made a tremendous difference as they learned to parent Annie, the Garners said.

They met other families experiencing the same thing. A mentor taught them sign language. Annie got sensory toys and Braille books. And she even made a best friend with a similar condition.

Then in September, the Trump administration canceled the five-year, $918,000 grant for the program, which supports about 170 children in Wisconsin like Annie. It also ended a $10.5 million grant used to recruit and retain special education teachers in the state."

HHS changes transgender former official Rachel Levine’s name on portrait; The Hill, December 9, 2025

LEE ANN ANDERSON  , The Hill; HHS changes transgender former official Rachel Levine’s name on portrait

"The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) changed the name of former Adm. Rachel Levine, a transgender woman who served as the agency’s assistant secretary under former President Biden, to her birth name, or “dead name,” on her official portrait. 

HHS confirmed on X Tuesday that the department changed the name during the government shutdown, saying that they wanted to depict “biological reality.”...

Rep. Rebecca Balint (D-Vt.) was among the critics who blasted the move online...

“Consummate professional, was always thinking about the American people, that was her charge and that’s what she did, so every time they do something like this, they reveal their own pettiness, smallness, vindictiveness, but also how incredibly insecure they are about their own identity.”

Levine, who was the first Senate-confirmed transgender official, told NPR that she wouldn’t “comment on this type of petty action.”

Rubio orders State Department to change official memo font, citing DEI issue: Official; ABC News, December 10, 2025

Mariam Khan, ABC News; Rubio orders State Department to change official memo font, citing DEI issue: Official

The font was changed two years ago to assist readers with visual disabilities.

"The Calibri font is going the way of the typewriter at the State Department after Secretary of State Marco Rubio inked a memo mandating that the agency use only Times New Roman for official communications – and size 14 to boot, according to a department official.

The new directive, which was sent to all diplomats, is the latest action by the Trump administration to roll back diversity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The change is effective immediately, according to the directive.

Two years ago, Rubio’s predecessor, Antony Blinken, switched the State Department font to Calibri, on the recommendation of the State Department’s office of diversity and inclusion, in part to assist individuals with certain visual disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia."

Trump administration says sign language services ‘intrude’ on Trump’s ability to control his image; AP, December 12, 2025

MEG KINNARD , AP; Trump administration says sign language services ‘intrude’ on Trump’s ability to control his image

"The Trump administration is arguing that requiring real-time American Sign Language interpretation of events like White House press briefings “would severely intrude on the President’s prerogative to control the image he presents to the public,” part of a lawsuit seeking to require the White House to provide the services.

Department of Justice attorneys haven’t elaborated on how doing so might hamper the portrayal President Donald Trump seeks to present to the public. But overturning policies encompassing diversity, equity and inclusion have become a hallmark of his second administration, starting with his very first week back in the White House.

The National Association for the Deaf sued the Trump administration in May, arguing that the cessation of American Sign Language interpretation — which the Biden administration had used regularly — represented “denying hundreds of thousands of deaf Americans meaningful access to the White House’s real-time communications on various issues of national and international import.” The group also sued during Trump’s first administration, seeking ASL interpretation for briefings related to the COVID-19 pandemic."

Scouts ‘surprised and deeply saddened’ by Hegseth’s proposal to cut ties; The Hill, November 25, 2025

ELLEN MITCHELL , The Hill; Scouts ‘surprised and deeply saddened’ by Hegseth’s proposal to cut ties

"Scouting America responded on Tuesday to a reported memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seeking to cut ties with the organization, saying it was “surprised and disappointed” by the potential policy change, as the military has given its support to the Scouts since 1937. 

“The Scouting movement has had a strong relationship with our nation’s military going back more than a century,” according to the group. “From the tremendous support of the West Virginia National Guard at our National Jamborees to Scout troops that provide stability for the children of military families deployed around the globe, our nation’s military has walked side-by-side with Scouts for generations.”

It also noted that “an enormous percentage of those in our military academies are Scouts and Eagle Scouts.”

Hegseth is reportedly upset with the group for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. His memo, first reported by NPR, accuses Scouting America — formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America — of attacking boy-friendly spaces and for being “genderless.” The memo has yet to be sent to Congress.

“The organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt no longer supports the future of American boys,” Hegseth wrote in the memo."

How the Coast Guard Revised Its Policy on Swastikas, Nooses and Bullying; The New York Times, November 24, 2025

 John Ismay, The New York Times ; How the Coast Guard Revised Its Policy on Swastikas, Nooses and Bullying

"The revisions set off a backlash. Seth Levi of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights group, called the new policy “a national embarrassment.”

Just hours later, on Thursday night, the Coast Guard’s leadership gave assurance that the public display of hateful symbols would continue to be banned. But whether a service member could display such symbols in private remained unclear...

Why did the Coast Guard make the changes?

Neither the Coast Guard nor the Homeland Security Department offered an explanation for why the “hate incident” category was eliminated, nor why officials felt the need to create a distinction between public and private displays of symbols like nooses and swastikas.

The ban on gender identity issues, however, came straight from the White House."

Netherlands WWII cemetery removes displays honoring Black soldiers; Military Times, November 14, 2025

Claire Barrett, Military Times; Netherlands WWII cemetery removes displays honoring Black soldiers

[Kip Currier: Reading this story, I was struck by how important it is to raise our awareness of people and events whose stories and contributions often are either unknown or not as well-recognized by more people as they should be. 

That anyone would learn about the service and contributions of Black American soldiers in the Netherlands during WWII and be troubled that their stories are included in the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten is an outrage. 

How dare the Heritage Foundation -- and even more, the Trump 2.0 administration that has codified these kinds of historical purges -- strive to erase this history and these Black American military members and their service from this Dutch museum.

Thank you to all those who are sounding the alarm about another example of this kind of historical censorship.]

[Excerpt]

 "The Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, the only American military cemetery in the Netherlands, has quietly removed panels displaying the contributions of Black American soldiers during WWII, sparking outrage from Dutch and American citizens.

One of the two displays featured an overall history of Black American military personnel fighting a double V campaign — victory at home and abroad — while the other told the story of George H. Pruitt, a Black soldier in the 43rd Signal Construction Battalion who drowned a month after the war’s end while attempting to save a comrade’s life in a German river.

The two panels were added to the visitor center in September 2024 after the American Battle Monuments Commission, a U.S. government agency that oversees the cemetery, received criticism from families and historians for not including the contributions of Black service members and their experiences fighting in the Netherlands.

At the time of publishing, ABMC did not respond to requests for comment from Military Times. The commission, however, told Dutch news outlets that one panel is“off display, though not out of rotation,” although a second panel was “retired.” 

The panels were reportedly rotated out in early March, one month after President Donald Trump’s executive order terminated diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives across the federal government.

The same month the panels were removed, The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, contacted the ABMC for its supposed failure to comply with Trump’s anti-DEI initiatives...

Among such men was 1st Sgt. Jefferson Wiggins of the 960th Quartermaster Service Company, one of more than 900,000 Black men and women who served in the U.S. military during WWII.

Wiggins and the men of the 960th QSC were tasked with the grim job of burying American dead in Margraten.

What was once a fruit orchard would become the final resting place for some 8,300 U.S. soldiers, including 172 Black servicemen. In 2009, Wiggins recounted to historian Mieke Kirkels how the work was done under horrific conditions, often with only rudimentary tools like pickaxes and shovels to dig the graves. 

“There was a permanent arrival of bodies, the whole day long. Sundays included, seven days a week,” Wiggins recalled. “I find it difficult, even now, to read in the paper that soldiers ‘gave their lives.’ … All those boys in Margraten, their lives were taken away.”"

Hegseth declares war on ‘fat’ generals, troops; The Hill, September 30, 2025

ELLEN MITCHELL , The Hill; Hegseth declares war on ‘fat’ generals, troops

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the U.S. military’s senior-most officers Tuesday that he no longer wants to see “fat generals and admirals” or overweight troops."

Is Trump right about the Smithsonian? I went to find out.; The Washington Post, August 26, 2025

Matt Bai

, The Washington Post; Is Trump right about the Smithsonian? I went to find out.

"I chose this moment to visit the museum because I wanted to see if President Donald Trump’s criticism of the Smithsonian was just his latest expression of resurgent white nationalism — or whether he had a point...

The bottom floors are devoted to, as Trump put it, “how bad Slavery was” — befitting a chapter that not only defined the Black experience in America, but also figured centrally in the Civil War and the country’s social unraveling in the 20th century. No half-intelligent or half-moral person could find anything good to say about slavery, but neither could anything about the museum’s exhibits be construed as anti-White...

I didn’t leave the museum mourning for my country. I left it, as I suspect most of the tourists around me did, stunned by the brutality of American racism but also marveling at the distance the country has traveled — even if we occasionally fall back along the way.

And this is where I fundamentally disagree with Trump and his little band of cultural revolutionaries. I, too, stand by the concept of American exceptionalism, which a lot of my Democratic friends reject as jingoistic. But the Trumpists get its meaning entirely wrong.

America is exceptional not because God wills it so, or because it has the strongest military, or because capitalism is the best economic system on Earth (although it probably is). We are exceptional because we aspire to an ideal that we know can never be met...

What Trump is doing now — trying to sanitize that story, perhaps because he is incapable of admitting fault himself — is the antithesis of what makes America exceptional. To put a happier, less discomfiting spin on the exhibits in this museum would make us more like Russia or China or North Korea, or any other country where history becomes a strongman’s self-serving fairy tale that no one outside the country believes.

We laugh at those strongmen and their mythologies. A generation from now, if I’m right about the pace of our history and the enduring strengths of our country, we’ll laugh at Trump, too."

Trump is targeting several Smithsonian artworks. Here they are.; The Washington Post, August 26, 2025

Kelsey Ables

, 

Samantha Chery

 and 

Sophia Nguyen,

 The Washington Post; Trump is targeting several Smithsonian artworks. Here they are.

[Kip Currier: Donald Trump and his administration's efforts to remove, revise, and erase artistic and historical content are the opposite of free speech and intellectual freedom. Art should challenge us to think and feel in new ways. We as individuals are certainly free to like a piece of art, hate it, or everything in between on the spectrum of how we feel about it. But the federal (or state) government should not be controlling access to art and suppressing or falsely presenting history in a free democracy. That's what authoritarians and dictators do in non-democratic nations like Russia, China, and North Korea.

If you don't like a particular painting, book, or movie, you can simply walk away from that painting, not read that book, or not watch that movie. But it isn't your right to stop everyone from seeing art, reading books, and watching films. To paraphrase the late Robert Croneberger, Director of the venerable Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and a prolific proponent of intellectual freedom, a library isn't doing its job if it doesn't have at least one item that offends each person.

Similarly, museums, like libraries in healthy democracies, are not meant to reflect a compulsory unitary state viewpoint. We're not the Star Trek Borg Collective where everyone must think alike and individuality is verboten. The mantra of the Borg is that Resistance is Futile. Fortunately, we know that resistance is not futile: we can continue to resist efforts to sanitize art, literature, culture, and history. Exercise your right to consume what you want and disregard what you don't want. But don't tell everyone what they can and can't choose to view and read. That's undemocratic and un-American.]

[Excerpt]

"When the White House posted an article condemning a long list of Smithsonian content last week, it pointed to several specific artworks, a sampling that underlined the kind of material that could be targeted by a president who is increasingly interested in influencing what Americans see in public museums.

The list also criticized Smithsonian exhibition texts, learning materials, past performances and the institution for previously flying the intersex-inclusive Pride flag. This month, President Donald Trump said White House officials were conducting a review of the Smithsonian Institution — months after he signed an executive order seeking to root out “anti-American ideology” in the museum and research complex, an effort that experts say would amount to censorship.

The pieces are an eclectic bunch, united mainly by the Trump administration’s public criticism of them. Not all the artworks are currently on view at the museums. Taken together, they tell a story of a White House that is sensitive to imagery that appears to contradict its messaging, whether it shows a transgender woman cast as the Statue of Liberty or a boy peering over the Southern border...

Here is a look at the artworks named by the White House as evidence that Trump is “right” about the Smithsonian — and how several of the artists have responded."

We shouldn’t focus on ‘how bad slavery was’ says Trump. What’s next?; The Guardian, August 22, 2025

Francine Prose , The Guardian; We shouldn’t focus on ‘how bad slavery was’ says Trump. What’s next?

"The attack on museums, like the assault on education, is meant to convince us that the truth doesn’t matter, that there is no truth, that the wisest course is to blindly accept and repeat whatever lies an authoritarian government chooses to tell.

There’s some disagreement about who first said: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Some claim it was Winston Churchill, others attribute it to George Santayana. But does anyone doubt its veracity?

Perhaps the most nightmarish explanation is that our current administration actually wants us to repeat the most loathsome events of our common past – and to be assured that every act of brutality will disappear from our collective consciousness. There’s a terrifying kind of freedom in knowing that our most odious deeds will be erased from our historical memory, that what we do now will have no consequences – indeed, no reality – in the years to come.

According to the “historically accurate” museum exhibits and history books of the future, there will have been no slavery, there was no discrimination, there were no massacres of our Indigenous population. There was never a time when hard-working, law-abiding immigrant families were separated, when yet more children were stolen from their parents, when, according to the current estimate, 80,000 people – most of them entirely innocent – were imprisoned, when thousands more were kidnapped off the streets and deported from a country they had labored so hard to benefit. And none of this will be mentioned, none of this can be said or written on a wall text, lest we allow the unpatriotic ideologues to make America look bad."

Trump Wants Universities to Show Him the Money, or No Deal; The New York Times, August 19, 2025

Michael C. Bender, Alan Blinder and Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times; Trump Wants Universities to Show Him the Money, or No Deal

 "Critics have likened Mr. Trump’s methods to extortion."

Trump, 79, Tells Smithsonian to Stop Saying ‘How Bad Slavery Was’; The Daily Beast, August 19, 2025

Josh Fiallo  , The Daily Beast; Trump, 79, Tells Smithsonian to Stop Saying ‘How Bad Slavery Was’

"POTUS posted a bizarre screed on Tuesday about museums in Washington, claiming the Smithsonian Institution is “OUT OF CONTROL” and is fixated on the shortcomings of yesteryear, like documenting the horrors of slavery.

“The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE,’” he wrote on Truth Social. “Everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been—Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”...

The president’s complaints did not go unnoticed by lawmakers. California congresswoman and Congressional Black Caucus Whip Sydney Kamlager-Dove retweeted Trump’s message with her own, which stated: “Slavery WAS bad, Donald. It’s absurd that this even needs to be said.”

“We don’t whitewash history,” she continued, “we learn from it.” Before adding: “You keep trying to rewrite the past—@TheBlackCaucus won’t let you get away with it.""

Thousands Ask Harvard Not to ‘Give in’ and Pay Fine to Trump; The New York Times, August 14, 2025

Vimal Patel, The New York Times; Thousands Ask Harvard Not to ‘Give in’ and Pay Fine to Trump

"A coalition of groups at Harvard urged the university to reject striking a deal with the Trump administration that would relinquish “the university’s autonomy in unconstitutional or unlawful ways.”

The letter, signed by more than 14,000 Harvard alumni, students, faculty and members of the public, comes as the school is at the negotiating table with the Trump administration. The university is trying to restore the billions of dollars in research funds that the Trump administration has frozen and put an end to attacks on several other fronts.

“A settlement with the Trump administration will have a chilling effect on the Harvard community and on all of higher education,” stated the letter, sent by Crimson Courage, a new alumni group that formed to defend academic freedom. It was addressed to Alan M. Garber, the university’s president, and the board that governs the university.

The government has targeted top universities, claiming that they have failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism and allowed diversity programming to flourish. It has cut off or frozen research money, forcing universities to negotiate to turn the funding tap back on."

Judge blocks two Trump efforts to eliminate DEI in schools and colleges; Associated Press via The Guardian, August 14, 2025

 Associated Press via The Guardian; Judge blocks two Trump efforts to eliminate DEI in schools and colleges

"A federal judge on Thursday struck down two Trump administration actions aimed at eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the nation’s schools and universities.

In her ruling, US district judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland found that the education department violated the law when it threatened to cut federal funding from educational institutions that continued with DEI initiatives.

The guidance has been on hold since April when three federal judges blocked various portions of the education department’s anti-DEI measures."

Justice Department Declares DEI Unlawful; Inside Higher Ed, July 30, 2025

  Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed; Justice Department Declares DEI Unlawful

"More than three months after a federal court struck down an Education Department directive that barred any practices that consider race at colleges across the country, the Department of Justice declared Wednesday that diversity, equity and inclusion practices are unlawful and “discriminatory.” 

But the agency’s memo goes even further than ED’s guidance, suggesting that programs that rely on what they describe as stand-ins for race, like recruitment efforts that focus on majority-minority geographic areas, could violate federal civil rights laws. The directive applies to any organization that receives federal funds, and DOJ officials warned that engaging in potentially unlawful practices could lead to a loss in grant funding.

Other examples of “potentially unlawful proxies” include requirements that job applicants “demonstrate ‘cultural competence,’ ‘lived experience,’ or ‘cross-cultural skills’” or narratives about how the applicant has overcome obstacles, Attorney General Pamela Bondi wrote."

Judge Declines to Order Trump Administration to Restore Research Cuts; The New York Times, August 1, 2025

Benjamin WeiserKatrina Miller and Zach Montague, The New York Times ; Judge Declines to Order Trump Administration to Restore Research Cuts

"A federal judge in New York declined in a ruling on Friday to order the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in terminated funding that had been awarded to research institutions by the National Science Foundation.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in May in which a coalition of 16 states argued that the grants were critical to maintaining the United States as a leader in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, subjects, and that the cuts were “in complete derogation of the policies and priorities set by Congress.”...

The judge, John P. Cronan of Federal District Court in Manhattan, found that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the suit because it sought monetary damages from the federal government. Such cases, he wrote, must be brought before the Court of Federal Claims in Washington...

“This evidence powerfully undermines plaintiffs’ argument that the priority directive renders this class of projects categorically ineligible for funding,” wrote Judge Cronan, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Trump in 2019 and confirmed the following year."