As a non-partisan entity, the Nyack Spectrum Newspaper is often careful to take political stances.
However, when an administration imposes a threat to education, a student voice must resound.
At the end of February, the Trump administration launched a federal tip portal to report any instances of DEI in schools.
As proclaimed on the website, enddei.ed.gov, “the U.S. Department of Education is committed to ensuring all students have access to meaningful learning free of divisive ideologies and indoctrination.”
President’s Trump’s executive orders demand the eradication of a number of things in relation to education, including:
Any use of federal funding to promote “gender ideology.”
A host of previously issued guidance documents that touch on:
Transgender equality
Supporting LBGTQIA+ students
Title IX and Sexual Orientation
Any use of federal funding used for DEI training
the Department of Education’s Equity Action Plan
The concept and use of the term “environmental justice”
Despite the obvious threats to free speech, education, and liberty posed by the February 14 DCL and Executive Orders 14003 and 14004, we find the whistleblowing site most concerning.
It reeks of McCarthyism.
McCarthyism, also known as the Second Red Scare, was the political persecution of left-wing politicians, Hollywood stars, and working class citizens through the late 1940s and 1950s. It was a campaign whose aim was to spread fear of communist and Soviet influence on the US populus.
Government officials were often “tipped” about possible communists, who were interrogated, fired, and blacklisted- whether or not they admitted to associating with communism.
Before President Trump’s election, David Folkenflik for NPR recalls, “Trump pledged to toss reporters in jail and strip major television networks of their broadcast licenses as retribution for coverage he didn't like.”
These events and claims starkly mirror the attack on free speech and press in midcentury America, not to mention the loyalty tests, threats, and termination in our highest level of government.
As I watch racial and gender equity initiatives yanked from schools, with claims of “indoctrination” as a justifier, I become increasingly nervous, but remain hopeful. Speech, especially in academia, is one of our most important powers. We must not let it slip away.