The University of Alaska Fairbanks campus is seen on Oct. 10, 2024. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
In February the U. S. Department of Education directed that American institutions of higher learning halt any “hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life” related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
The directive on DEI drew immediate (and successful) legal challenges nationally, but rather than wait for their outcome, the University of Alaska’s Board of Regents moved with alacrity to embrace it. Within the week, it had ordered university President Pat Pitney to comply with the federal mandates and instruct her chancellors to, among other things, assure that “the Universities’ websites and other electronic or print material representing each university, no longer refer to “affirmative action,” “DEI” nor utilize the words “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” or other associated terms.”
In adopting a policy explicitly rejecting DEI, the regents demonstrated the nature of anticipatory obedience: acting to comply in advance of any pressure to do so in order to avoid potential consequences from some higher authority.
It was clear that the regents were motivated to protect the university and its dependence on federal funding that was threatened. It is natural for us as human beings to take steps to avoid pain and maximize survival.
And it is that instinct that authoritarian regimes take immediate and full advantage of, forcing conformity through targeted actions against one or a few institutions so that others will retreat in fear.
In his maximalist assault on American institutions in his first months in office, President Trump demonstrated his mastery of coercion. His war on higher education began with attacks on Columbia University and other “elite” schools for their antisemitism. Threatened with cuts of tens of millions in federal funding, Columbia immediately capitulated. Northwestern University promptly announced steps it was taking to comply, but did not escape the loss of funding. Hundreds of America’s universities took notice.
Harvard University, while acknowledging that changes were warranted, refused to comply with the Trump directives, leading to escalating steps by Trump to crush Harvard’s resistance: curbing hundreds of millions in grants, threatening to revoke its tax exempt status and to bar foreign students from enrolling. Harvard’s defiance has found vindication in the courts and emboldened other institutions of higher learning to defend their independence from unprecedented government intrusion.
The Trump administration initiated parallel assaults on other pillars of American society, issuing executive orders, for example, barring certain law firms from interacting with federal agencies on behalf of their respective clients. In almost all cases, the identified firms had either employed lawyers or represented clients adverse to his interests. Some of the most noteworthy law firms in the country capitulated to the pressure, ultimately entering into agreements requiring them to provide pro bono services on behalf of the administration nearing $1 billion in value. Other well-known law firms refused to be coerced, viewing the administration’s actions as a distortion of American justice and the role of attorneys to provide diligent representation.
No court has upheld the claims the Trump administration has made in court to defend its actions. Nevertheless, as Scott Cummings, professor of ethics at the UCLA School of Law, has noted, Trump’s assault on law firms has had a deliberately powerful chilling effect. “Already, many firms are declining to take on cases that challenge the administration’s policies. That’s not a side effect of the crackdown. It was the purpose all along.”
All of us must resist the temptation to acquiesce into anticipatory obedience. The greater the urge to conform, the greater the power of a regime to impose it without having to lift a finger. If the Trump administration can so quickly coerce leading segments of our society to back away from principles that we have historically espoused, we should expect that further intrusions on both institutional and individual liberty will quickly follow.
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