The Atlantic: Can I Still Teach My Yale Course on Racism?

[Dennis Donovan]

The Atlantic - (archived: https://archive.ph/W6Wfp ) Can I Still Teach My Yale Course on Racism?

Recent orders from the Trump administration run a real risk of muzzling professors who wish to teach their students the truth about the country’s past.

By Phillip Atiba Solomon
April 11, 2025, 8 AM ET

Scholars of racism face a peculiar accusation: that studying racism causes racism. As facile as this criticism is—no one thinks that agriculture professors cause world hunger, or that cardiology professors cause heart attacks—racism scholars know that this sort of ignorant bullying comes with the territory.

A set of new directives from the Trump administration aims to supercharge that bullying, and meaningfully change what happens on campus. Perhaps most significant, at least for my classroom, is a “Dear Colleague” letter—an official government notice that provides guidance on policy enforcement—from the Department of Education’s civil-rights division. In the letter, the department extends the scope of the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard Supreme Court decision, declaring the department’s belief that when universities consider race in any decisions relating to “aspects of student, academic, and campus life,” they are violating the law.

The letter and the subsequent FAQ published two weeks later call for the elimination of Black graduation ceremonies, certain themed residences, and cultural activity centers. And, although the FAQ notes that the department may not exercise control over curricula, it also cautions schools against creating “a racially hostile environment.”

The letter comes amid a flurry of executive orders that, taken together, will shape not only individual programs but national memory. These orders have limited how history is taught in K–12, ending what one order calls “racial indoctrination”; banned funding for programs at the Smithsonian Institution that promote “improper ideology”; and directed the Department of Education to cease all funding for programs that “advance DEI or gender ideology” while requiring state education officials at public schools to verify that they have ended DEI programs. This collection of restrictions is not without precedent. In recent years, Florida has implemented a raft of policies that restricted educational freedom and empowered parents to ban books and curricula, and that led to hundreds of books being pulled from shelves.

Now that this formula has been unleashed on a national scale, these policies pose a real risk of muzzling professors who wish to teach their students about injustice, and will have the effect of rewriting how race and racism are taught and understood at all levels, in the classroom and beyond. That should concern all of us, not only because understanding racism matters for our moral, social, and economic future—but because these attacks will inhibit the nation’s ability to tell the truth and hold powerful people accountable.

/snip

[Henry203]

1. Trump and his cult

Have a persecution complex.

[617Blue]

2. Yes as long as it teaches about the racism faced by white Americans. *

[Solly Mack]

3. "... will shape... national memory."

...will have the effect of rewriting how race and racism are taught and understood at all levels, in the classroom and beyond.

That's the goal. Think of how the "Lost Cause" lies have shaped thinking and regardless of how warped and wrong it is, it still spreads. It continues to cause harm to America.

It's not just a case of white-washing history - it's a case of burying it and then denying it ever existed.