, The Daily Beast; Republican Praises School for Turning Down Trump ‘Bribe’
"“The surest way to screw up the world’s best technical school is to let feds tell them how to run it,” Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie wrote on X. “Congrats to my alma mater for turning down a bribe to let the executive branch dictate what happens on its campus. A lot of things are wrong in [the U.S.], but MIT is not one of them.”"
Kimmy Yam, NBC News ; MIT is first school to reject Trump administration's agenda in exchange for funding benefits
"The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Friday became the first school to reject an offer of federal funds in exchange for agreeing to the Trump administration's education agenda.
MIT disagreed with a number of aspects of the administration's proposal, which was sent to nine major universities last week, arguing that it would restrict the university's freedom of expression and independence, Sally Kornbluth, president of the Cambridge-based school, wrote in a letter Friday to the Department of Education.
“In our view, America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence. In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences,” Kornbluth wrote. “Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.”"
Jan-Werner Müller , The Guardian; US universities must reject Trump’s ‘compact’. It is full of traps
"As with other aspects of Donald Trump’s emerging mafia state, there is no guarantee that those bending the knee will not be bullied again. The government can always come back to universities and accuse them of having violated the agreement (still too many courses in victimhood studies; still too much “violence” – as defined by bureaucrats – vis-a-vis someone’s cherished ideas). The government will also encourage donors to claim back their cash. Since the compact’s criteria are exceedingly vague, those who take the offer will probably overdo compliance.
At the risk of sounding like one of those dreadful self-styled victims: universities are fragile institutions. Many American ones are excellent precisely because people trust each other and cooperate successfully without over-regulation (some Europeans can tell you what it means to be subject to constant assessments – and how a Soviet-style bureaucracy constantly distracts from research and teaching). Of course there is always plenty of academic infighting, but what the Trumpists are doing is consciously trying to create divisions by setting potential Trump administration collaborators against those determined to resist it. As has become apparent with other autocrats’ assaults on universities, even if institutions escape (sometimes literally, as they have to relocate to other countries) the worst, much damage has been done. This is why the nine universities should not only reject the compact, but also publicly explain what is wrong with it (otherwise they will be immediately charged with wanting to protect their tuition-racket, helping foreigners and “importing radicalism” to undermine American greatness).
Precisely because they have been losing court cases over free speech and visas for foreign students, Trumpists now seek to entrap universities in a deal that effectively removes the protections of federal law and gives the administration arbitrary power over them. The carrots serve to lure institutions of higher learning into a dark alley where, rather than just waiting with a big stick, the government can put a gun to their heads at any time."
Anna Kaufman , USA TODAY; Two sides of book bans: PEN America and Moms for Liberty debate
"To hear PEN America and Moms For Liberty speak about the dangers of a society curtailing free speech, you may need to squint to see the differences.
Both organizations profess an unwavering commitment to liberty, but stand firmly on either side of a growing debate about book banning in America.
PEN America, a nonprofit aimed at bolstering the freedom to write and read, has emerged as an outspoken critic of removing reading materials from schools and libraries that have been deemed inappropriate, most often by advocacy groups, but also by individual parents. PEN has been tracking book bans since 2021 and filed lawsuits alongside families and publishers that challenge book restrictions in schools.
Moms For Liberty, a conservative collective, is among the leaders in the parental rights movement. Local chapters of the organization tackle issues across the educational landscape, guiding parents who want to raise concerns at their schools, and flexing their political might through endorsements, stamping President Donald Trump with their approval in 2024.
"Our mission at Moms for Liberty is to unify, educate and empower parents to defend their parental rights," Tina Descovich, one of the organization's founders, tells USA TODAY. "Parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children, whether it be education or medical care …So they also have the right to monitor what their children are watching and reading."
They don't ban books, she says, that would require the government to bar a person from writing or selling the book. "I think many Americans have chosen to use that word to advance a political agenda instead of using the word correctly," she says.
PEN begs to differ. Kasey Meehan, director of the organization's Freedom to Read program, says, "Our guiding light has always been access." If a group of a few has the power to remove a book from a public space open to all, then that amounts to a ban, she argues.
Banned Books Week "is not about acknowledging bygone censorship, it's really about bringing awareness of censorship that’s happening today," she says. "We have seen pretty well coordinated campaigns that are put on school districts or that are driven by state legislatures or state governors to see certain types of books removed."
To put both sides of the debate in clear view, USA TODAY sent the same questions to both organizations. Here are their responses, unedited and in full."
Alex Woodward, Independent; Pastor shot in the head by ICE agents sues Trump administration over First Amendment threats in Chicago
A Presbyterian minister in Chicago is suing Donald Trump’s administration after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were captured in viral video firing pepper balls at his head during protests against the president’s anti-immigration agenda.
The Rev. David Black joined a lawsuit with Chicago reporters and protesters accusing the administration of unconstitutional threats to their First Amendment rights and religious freedoms with “a pattern of extreme brutality” designed to “silence the press and civilians.”
Last month, Black — dressed in black and wearing a clerical collar while standing with demonstrators — was hit with chemical agents while praying in front of an ICE facility in Broadview, a Chicago suburb that has emerged as a flashpoint for protests against the administration as the president deploys National Guard troops to Illinois."
"The Trump administration this week offered a select group of universities the opportunity to score priority access for federal funding, prompting an enthusiastic and swift response from a university leader in Texas, who called it “an honor.”
But the other schools that received the 10-page proposal Wednesday night were largely silent Thursday, as they considered the wide-ranging conservative terms that some experts warned would trample on free-speech rights and threaten finances and academic freedom at top universities.
The Washington Post first reported this week that the White House intended to launch a campaign to bring colleges into compliance with Trump’s ideological priorities by offering a competitive advantage to those that sign on...
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) threatened Thursday to yank billions of dollars’ worth of funding from any school in the state that signed onto the agreement, writing on social media that the state would not “BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS, PROFESSORS, RESEARCHERS, AND SURRENDER ACADEMIC FREEDOM.”...
White House officials signaled last week that they intended to launch a campaign to bring colleges into compliance with Trump’s ideological priorities."
Lois Beckett, The Guardian ; California vows to ‘instantly’ cut funding to universities that cave to Trump ‘compact’
"Any California universities that sign the Trump administration’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” will “instantly” lose their state funding, California governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement.
The Trump administration on Wednesday offered nine prominent universities, including the University of Southern California, the chance to sign a “compact” that asks the universities to close academic departments that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas”, limit the proportion of international undergraduate students to 15% , accept the administration’s definition of gender and ban the consideration of race or sex in hiring and admissions, in exchange for “substantial and meaningful federal grants”.
Newsom’s office described the offer as “nothing short of a hostile takeover of America’s universities”.
“It would impose strict government-mandated definitions of academic terms, erase diversity, and rip control away from campus leaders to install government-mandated conservative ideology in its place,” the governor’s office said in a statement. “It even dictates how schools must spend their own endowments. Any institution that resists could be hit with crushing fines or stripped of federal research funding.”
“If any California University signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding – including Cal Grants – instantly. California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom,” Newsom said in the statement. Cal Grants is the state’s $2.8bn student financial aid program."
Michael C. Bender , The New York Times; Trump Administration Asks Colleges to Sign ‘Compact’ to Get Funding Preference
[Kip Currier: Be clear-eyed that this "compact" is an unprecedented assault on the independence and academic freedom of American colleges and universities. It is transparent transactionalism, instantiating a mob-style "protection money" framework in order for universities to secure and retain federal research monies.
It is also another step in the authoritarian playbook.
The notion that higher education institutions -- whose missions are to advance knowledge, the arts, science, and the common good -- would be incentivized to pledge contractual support to a political administration is antithetical to the bedrock principles of our Founding Fathers and the 1st Amendment of our U.S. Constitution.]
[Excerpt]
"The White House on Wednesday sent letters to nine of the nation’s top public and private universities, urging campus leaders to pledge support for President Trump’s political agenda to help ensure access to federal research funds.
The letters came attached to a 10-page “compact” that serves as a sort of priority statement for the administration’s educational goals — the most comprehensive accounting to date of what Mr. Trump aims to achieve from an unparalleled, monthslong pressure campaign on academia.
The compact would require colleges to freeze tuition for five years, cap the enrollment of international students and commit to strict definitions of gender. Among other steps, universities would also be required to change their governance structures to prohibit anything that would “punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”"
LARRY NEUMEISTER, AP; West Point is violating the First Amendment with a crackdown on professors, lawsuit says
"The U.S. Military Academy at West Point is banning opinions by professors in the classroom and some books and courses in a crackdown that violates the First Amendment, a law professor at the military school said in a lawsuit Monday seeking class action status.
Tim Bakken filed the lawsuit in Manhattan federal court and named the school and its leaders as defendants. He said he wants to protect free speech and the right to academic freedom at an institution where he has flourished despite his public criticisms of the academy and the U.S. military.
Bakken also noted in the lawsuit that he has a contract with a publisher for a book that is critical of some aspects of West Point and doesn’t want to seek approval from the school’s leadership prior to its publication because “it is very likely such approval will be withheld.”"
Luke Broadwater, The New York Times; Trump Says Critical Coverage of Him Is ‘Really Illegal’
[Kip Currier: The most objective (and nicest) way to respond to Trump's assertion that critical reporting on him is "really illegal" is that it is legally incorrect and factually untrue. Whether Trump is regrettably misinformed in stating this falsehood or intentionally uttering this inaccuracy is less material than the fact that he is objectively wrong.
There are countries where it is illegal to say critical things about heads of nations: Russia. China. North Korea. Iran. Saudi Arabia. Turkey. Thailand. Others. Indeed, criticizing the head of state will likely get one defenestrated (as tragically happens all too often in Russia), killed in other ways, tortured, jailed, or disappeared.
Fortunately, it is not (yet) illegal to say negative things about U.S. Presidents at present. And it never has been, since the founding of the country in 1776 when the monarchical dictates of England's King George III were soundly declined by the American colonists. The t-shirt below proudly (and wholly truthfully) proclaims that historical truth that occurred in America 249 years ago:
[Excerpt]
"President Trump said Friday that news reporters who cover his administration negatively have broken the law, a significant broadening of his attacks on journalists and their First Amendment right to critique the government.
A day after asserting that broadcasters should potentially lose their licenses over negative news coverage of him, Mr. Trump escalated his condemnations of the press, suggesting reporters were lawbreakers.
“They’ll take a great story and they’ll make it bad,” he said, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office. “See, I think that’s really illegal.”
Mr. Trump did not cite a specific law he said he believed had been violated. It remained unclear Friday why Mr. Trump believed negative news coverage, which every president has faced and is protected by the Constitution, would be “really illegal.” The White House did not respond to a request for comment Friday evening."
, The Daily Beast; Trump Snaps at Ted Cruz’s Shock Warning About Free Speech
[Kip Currier: The President of the United States takes the oath of office to defend the Constitution of the United States.
Does the individual quoted below -- in his own verbatim words -- sound like someone who understands the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution?]
[Excerpt]
"But speaking in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon, Trump described Carr as “an incredible American patriot” who had shown courage for taking on broadcast networks that criticized him.
“I disagree with Ted Cruz,” he told reporters.
“I think Brendan Carr doesn’t like to see the airwaves be used illegally and incorrectly, and purposely horribly.
“He doesn’t like to see a person that won the election in a landslide get 97% bad publicity before the election.
“(The networks) have to show honesty and integrity... When they take a great success, like you often do, and you make it into like it’s a loser, or you put a negative spin on it, I don’t think that’s right. So I think Brendan Carr is a great American.”
Jonathan Yerushalmy , The Guardian; Americans are ‘deer in the headlights’ in face of Trump assault on free speech, Maria Ressa tells Jon Stewart
[Kip Currier: How smart for Jon Stewart to talk with 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Maria Ressa at this break-the-glass and Call-911 moment, when American free speech and independent non-state-run media are under attack by the Trump 2.0 administration. Ressa was awarded the 2021 Peace Prize with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov for free speech advocacy in their respective Philippines and Russia.
Ressa's phone number should be on speed dial for any American reporter, politician, and civil watchdog group committed to championing freedom of the press and free speech by learning from her first-hand experiences with authoritarianism and dictators, like the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte. Her 2022 book How To Stand Up To A Dictator serves as a battle-seasoned anti-totalitarianism fighter's counter-playbook to the now-predictable authoritarian playbooks of autocrats like Hungary's Viktor Orban and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
The notes feature on my phone is full of practical insights from Ressa, too, on the dangers of unchecked social media and disinformation, which are more recent tools for opponents of democracy and informed citizenries:
"By design social media divides and radicalizes." Fresh Air, 12/1/22
"Disinformation is like cocaine."
"Silence is consent."
"Cynicism and hopelessness are the tools of a tyrant."
"Inspiration spreads as fast as anger". Ressa gave the example of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy choosing not to flee when Russia invaded Ukraine on 2/24/22.
"What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth?"]
[Excerpt]
"The Nobel prize winner Maria Ressa has said Americans are like “deer in the headlights” amid the collapse of US institutions and free speech under the Trump administration, particularly after Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension.
Speaking to Jon Stewart on the satirical news programme The Daily Show, the journalist and author of How to Stand Up to a Dictator said the speed at which Donald Trump had “collapsed” US institutions happened much faster than she anticipated.
She drew comparisons between the Trump administration and the government of the former president Rodrigo Duterte in her home country of the Philippines, saying: “If you don’t move and protect the rights you have, you lose them. And it’s so much harder to reclaim them.”...
Ressa, who won the 2021 Nobel peace prize for her fight for freedom of expression in the Philippines, told Stewart people the world over were electing “illiberal leaders democratically because of insidious manipulation … [which] starts with the manipulation and corruption of our public information ecosystem”.
She said “there is a ‘dictator’s playbook’”, comparing the Trump administration’s attacks on alleged Venezuelan drug boats to former president Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal crackdown on drug-dealing in the Philippines.
When asked by Stewart what happens next, Ressa pointed to her own work as a journalist in the Philippines, saying: “We just kept doing our jobs, we kept putting one foot in front of the other.”"
, The Daily Beast; Jon Stewart Goes Full State TV to Nail Trump on Kimmel
"Jon Stewart showed the world what it would be like if Donald Trump got his wish to remake all media in his image Thursday night with a 23-minute satirical rebranding of The Daily Show as full-on state TV.
In a last-minute return to the desk outside of his usual Monday night gig, Stewart introduced the “new government-approved Daily Show.” It was his unique way of commenting on ABC’s decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel from the air following direct threats from Trump’s FCC Chair Brendan Carr.
“We have another fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show,” Stewart said, surrounded by Trumpian gold flourishes. Throughout a monologue dominated by MAGA talking points, the host repeatedly shushed the laughing crowd, telling them, “You’re gonna blow this for us!”...
Despite the over-the-top MAGA-friendly act, Stewart still managed to use clips to catch Trump and his cohort in all sorts of blatant hypocrisy when it comes to the type of free speech they used to defend when it was targeted at the other side...
The Daily Show closed out its marathon opening segment with all seven co-hosts and correspondents reciting a pro-free speech message in terrified unison."
Amanda Meade , The Guardian; ABC barred from Trump’s UK press conference after his clash with Australian journalist John Lyons
"The ABC has been barred from attending Donald Trump’s press conference near London this week after a clash between the broadcaster’s Americas editor, John Lyons, and the president in Washington DC over his business dealings.
The Australian broadcaster said its London bureau was informed by Downing Street that its accreditation to attend the press conference had been withdrawn for “logistical reasons”...
Lyons, who is reporting for Four Corners, drew the ire of the president on Tuesday when he asked Trump how much wealthier he had become since returning to the Oval Office for his second term in January.
Trump accused the reporter of “hurting Australia” with the line of questioning.
“In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now,” Trump said. “And they want to get along with me.
“You know, your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I’m going to tell him about you. You set a very bad tone. You can set a nicer tone.”
Trump subsequently told Lyons: “Quiet.”"
