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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
N. Rodgers: Hey, Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?
N. Rodgers: You know what? I'm feeling a little pressured. How are you?
J. Aughenbaugh: I feel targeted.
N. Rodgers: Maybe that's a better word. Targeted is a better word. Listeners, we're doing an in-the-news this week to replace an episode because we felt like it was a good time to bring this up and mention it. We know that you know that we work at universities. We work at a university, Virginia Commonwealth University.
J. Aughenbaugh: We have been getting a whole bunch of questions.
N. Rodgers: Yes.
J. Aughenbaugh: Nia, from colleagues, me, from various students.
N. Rodgers: My gosh, what do you think's going to happen? My gosh, what do you think is going to happen?
J. Aughenbaugh: The questions that we are getting, beyond the general, can Trump do this? Which, by the way-
N. Rodgers: That's also a question for five or six podcasts because we are going to at some point, have to address the questionable use of the legal system.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Right. I'm getting to the point now, Nia, where my response is, do you have a specific example on mind, or is this an existential question?
N. Rodgers: Exactly. Can Trump do this? Probably not is the answer to most of that. But who knows?
J. Aughenbaugh: But who knows? But listeners today, we are going to focus on questions that we are getting in regards to the Trump Administration targeting colleges and universities and also targeting specific individuals, whether they be faculty, students, alums for speech that they engaged in at colleges and universities. The way we're going to break this down, we're going to examine two phenomenon. First, the Trump's Department of Education has threatened to withhold millions, and in the case of Harvard, billions of dollars of federal funding. When we say federal funding, we're talking about research monies, financial aid, and direct, if you will, grants that are received by pretty much almost every college and university in the United States. The second part of that first phenomenon is the universities won't lose that money if they crack down on illegal protests, and we will explore the problem with what is meant by-
N. Rodgers: All the words in that phrase.
J. Aughenbaugh: Phrase.
N. Rodgers: It's not just illegal.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Protest is also a concern. But we should note, by the way, that Harvard is a private institution, and Columbia is a private institution, but this is also happening at public institutions as well. We're only going after private institutions, this is-
J. Aughenbaugh: Another distinction that should be made is that because some of these colleges and universities are private, they don't have to comply with the First Amendment. On the other hand per federal law, you do have to comply with relevant federal statutes in regards to discrimination, etc.
N. Rodgers: Side note before we get deep into this, which is a university could, in fact, say to the federal government, I don't want your stupid money. But no university is going to do that because that funding covers things like loans for students to go to school, stuff like that. They're not going to-
J. Aughenbaugh: Pell Grants for needy students. Think about at a large research university like Harvard, where they have a whole bunch of faculty who are doing research grant work. If they don't have those grants, then those faculty don't have those jobs, right?
N. Rodgers: Right. Which means that they are not around to teach the one class a semester that they teach to graduate students.
J. Aughenbaugh: Then the graduate students lose their financial aid because many- .
N. Rodgers: It all trickles downwards.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Now, the second phenomenon we're going to explore in this in-the-news episode is the targeting of specific faculty and students some of whom are in the United States on student and scholar visas or green cards, for deportation for engaging in speech and protests which the administration claims hurts US foreign policy or.
N. Rodgers: Homeland Security.
J. Aughenbaugh: Or violates federal civil rights laws. Which one do you want to handle first, Nia?
N. Rodgers: I think should do them in the order we've mentioned them. Withdrawing the millions and or billions. This is not happening at one or two institutions, this is happening at many institutions. The first thing we should do is mention to you as listeners. There are all different kinds of funding at universities that come through the federal government. For instance, if you are at an institution with a medical school, NIH, the National Institute of Health is going to be providing some grant monies.
J. Aughenbaugh: Center for Disease-
N. Rodgers: Center for Disease Control would do health if you're in an art institution, the National Endowment of the Arts. Those money funds come through a variety of different institutions at the federal level down to universities. What the Trump administration is looking at is all of it, limiting all of those funds. If they just cut off one funding, then you might be able to move money around.
J. Aughenbaugh: You might be able to withstand a surgical cut or target.
N. Rodgers: But when somebody takes a sledgehammer to all of your funding, then it becomes a lot harder for the institution to respond.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. A question that we have received is on what authority is the Trump Administration making these requests of colleges and universities. Almost all of the cuts and targeted, if you will, reductions is being rooted in Section VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on a number of characteristics. But for these cuts, the Trump Administration is focusing on discrimination that has occurred at these institutions because of religion, national origin, or ethnicity, and specifically, it's because-.
N. Rodgers: Antisemitisms.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. The Trump Administration is claiming that universities failed to protect their Jewish students and faculty during the protests and rallies during the apex of the Gaza War. Therefore, they should be penalized for their failure to comply with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. If you will, legal argument being made. Now, the first university that was targeted was the University of Pennsylvania. Now, the University of Pennsylvania is an Ivy League school, but it is public.
N. Rodgers: Public institution.
J. Aughenbaugh: It's a public institution.
N. Rodgers: It's one of the few IVs that's public.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: I think it's the only IV that's public.
J. Aughenbaugh: Is Cornell also public?
N. Rodgers: Cornell is public.
J. Aughenbaugh: Because it's a land grant. But Princeton, Harvard, Yale, etc.
N. Rodgers: Most of the Ivy's are private.
J. Aughenbaugh: Now, the University of Pennsylvania has already reached an agreement to comply with the Trump Administration.
N. Rodgers: If listeners may recall that there was a congressional committee in which the presidents of Penn, Harvard, and-
J. Aughenbaugh: I want to say Princeton. Was it Princeton? No.
N. Rodgers: Were brought in and basically asked questions about how they handled this very question, how they handled antisemitism on their campuses. Was antisemitism addressed in their code of conduct? All these questions were asked.
J. Aughenbaugh: Judicial proceedings.
N. Rodgers: Which laid the groundwork for then this-
J. Aughenbaugh: Because, listeners, part of the Trump Administration's claim here is, the Trump Administration is only now doing this simply because the previous presidential administration did not take action. Now.
N. Rodgers: According to what this administration believes should have been done.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: That's a question. But anyway.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's the legal authority that the Trump administration is claiming. Critics claim that the targeting of colleges, universities will certainly lead to universities to crack down hard on speech and protests on their campuses by faculty and students.
N. Rodgers: Which I believe I agree with.
J. Aughenbaugh: This would thwart what well known amendment of the US Constitution is.
N. Rodgers: The First Amendment. When people can't tell you what's in any other amendment, they can tell you what's in the First Amendment. I have a right to free speech. I have a right to assemble. Most people forget that part. I have the right to ask for redress of my concerns. Most people forget that part. If you say, what's the First Amendment? They're going to say I have the right to say the King is a fink.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: You can't stop me. The Trump administration is saying two institutions. You can't stop it. There are certain limits, and you should be putting them in and then you should be enforcing them.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Again, this is the classic conflict, Nia in constitutional law, because the Trump administration is saying, well, the First Amendment protects individuals to go ahead and say, in the example you just used, the king is a fink. On the other hand if that would harm other members in the community by what you say, then according to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, there are certain groups that you cannot harm in this way. Now we have a tension. We have a conflict. The government is claiming we can protect others in the community, but others are saying, but no, I have a right to say X. Now, the larger problem here is and for VCU administrators who may be listening to this podcast, which I seriously doubt they do, but even if they were.
N. Rodgers: Hey. Welcome.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, welcome.
N. Rodgers: If you are.
J. Aughenbaugh: Please forgive me for saying this. But it is well documented in research that colleges and universities are historically risk averse.
N. Rodgers: They are conservative literacy. Even institutions that are like VCU, that are not Conservative big see, because VCU would not be considered a conservative institution by any stretch of any imagination whatsoever. But they are literacy conservative in that. They really don't like bad notoriety. We used to have an administrator at the library who would say, the thing we want to do is stay out of the newspaper. We don't want to be mentioned in the newspaper for anything other than the library was the most fabulous place ever. That's the only mention we ever want. You know what I mean? They are by nature, conservative people in the sense that they are, as you say risk averse, and they have a tendency to put the institution before any individual member of the institution. The institution must survive regardless of what happens to any one individual. It is known commonly in Parlan says, I will throw you under a bus to save the institution. As people who work at VCU, we all recognize that if we become a liability to the institution, they will cut us loose.
J. Aughenbaugh: Sure. No doubt about it.
N. Rodgers: That is how that works. What is it? Was it Brett Ellis over at UVA on the Board of Visitors? They cut him loose because he became a liability to the Board of Visitors. That's just how that works, the governor brings you in and says, see, wouldn't want to be here, and that's the end of that.
J. Aughenbaugh: Again, we understand that to faculty and staff, and students, universities or bureaucratic organizations writ large acting this way is extremely disappointing. On the other hand, we know that this is the way they act.
N. Rodgers: This is just who they are.
J. Aughenbaugh: To your point, Nia. When I teach bureaucratic politics, I tell my students all the time, there are two phone calls that a head of a bureaucratic organization never wants to receive. One is from Congress saying that they have to testify in front of Congress because that usually means they're in trouble, or two, a reporter.
N. Rodgers: The New York Times or The Washington Post calling to say, I'd like to ask you about whatever.
J. Aughenbaugh: Would you like to comment on X story that's going to run tomorrow? If you are the president of Harvard.
N. Rodgers: You don't want either of those calls.
J. Aughenbaugh: When you got invited to testify.
N. Rodgers: Before at least Stefanik in the congressional hearing, you're like, oh no. This is only going to go poorly.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, and I can't remember which university president struggled with this, but at least one of those presidents who testified at the congressional hearing struggled with providing a definition of anti-Semitism.
N. Rodgers: Side note, only one of those people still has their job.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Because that's the other thing that the institution will do. The institution will fire or encourage strongly the resignation of an individual who may or may not have and that person may have literally done nothing wrong, according to the institution's guidelines, but they have to go because of the notoriety. It's like there's never a banker with purple hair.
J. Aughenbaugh: Exactly.
N. Rodgers: If you went into your bank for a bank loan from a mortgage guy and the mortgage guy had a purple Mohawk, you'd be like, is this really the bank that I want my mortgage from?
N. Rodgers: Whether you like it or not as a person who is involved with the institution, it is just a fact that the institution is going to be as conservative as it can.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Now, to wrap up the discussion of this first phenomenon.
N. Rodgers: Will it work? Will it hold?
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm not entirely sure that the administration will be able to persuade federal judges that Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, gives them the authority to target all of these federal monies. But what I do think will happen, and Nia, you and I just alluded to this, the mere threat will likely lead many university presidents, boards of visitors, and trustees, heck, for that matter, if we're talking about state universities, state governors, to make changes to their enforcement procedures, judicial proceedings.
N. Rodgers: That's already happening at institutions because institutions are saying if they will do it to Harvard, they will do it to us.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's what I've tried to say to my students, which is, guys.
N. Rodgers: Nobody's safe, relatively speaking.
J. Aughenbaugh: The Trump Administration is sending a very clear message. I said they were actually rather strategic. They went after the Ivy's. If the Trump administration is willing to take on the Ivy's with all of their wealth and all of their political clout and capital, and leadership in the private sector, then how easy would it be for the Trump Administration to go after a state university? Whether it be a UVA,
N. Rodgers: Or a community college, something with much less.
J. Aughenbaugh: [inaudible] money. Political clout and capital. If they're willing to do that, and then they can convince one or two of them to do what the University of Pennsylvania did, then they will have achieved what they wanted to.
N. Rodgers: Right. They will have set the trend in motion. That's really all they have to do, and the universities will do the rest of the work for them.
J. Aughenbaugh: The other thing that I have told both students and reporters who have talked to me about this, Nia, because I've been asked, well, why would Trump do this? I'm like, you got to remember, a significant percentage of Trump supporters don't have college degrees.
N. Rodgers: Didn't go to college. Aren't going to go college.
J. Aughenbaugh: They didn't go to college. When they think of college, they think that you only go to college to get a better-paying job. If these faculty and students from their perspective, are spending time engaged in protests and speech activities, instead of being in classrooms, learning skills that they need to get a good job, then perhaps our taxpayer dollars should not be used to go ahead and fund their-
N. Rodgers: Those institutions.
J. Aughenbaugh: Those institutions. Whether it be their financial aid, their grants, etc.
N. Rodgers: One could argue that in those folks' minds, it is not about whether students are out arguing a liberal agenda or a non-conservative agenda. You shouldn't be out doing any of it, you should be in class getting your MBA or getting your engineering degree so you can build a bridge in my neighborhood. I need you to be doing the actual work of being in college. That's what a lot of those people. Some of those people are also concerned that the wrong message is being inculcated into students. Whether you agree or disagree with that concept, those people do have a right to have those feelings. They do have a right to have the feelings of what the heck are we teaching if we're not teaching the basics and the principles of being whatever you need to be in the world?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. I understand the politics of this, I'm just not entirely sure that a bunch of federal judges are going to go ahead and say, this is what Congress had in mind when they passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But, nevertheless, it's allowing the Trump Administration to negotiate. Remember, listeners, Nia and I have said this numerous times before about Trump. Trump is a negotiator, he likes to make deals.
N. Rodgers: He also shoves you as hard as he can.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: To get a better negotiating position. If he pushes you back 10 feet, then he gains 10 feet, and now you have to negotiate back to the beginning. Yes, that's part of what he does too.
J. Aughenbaugh: If you only push back two or three feet, as far as he's concerned, he's still gains seven or eight feet.
N. Rodgers: Exactly. He's ahead. The other thing is, keep in mind his base. His base would love to see the snotty Ivory Tower brought down a little bit. They perceive academia in many ways as a elitist and self-aggrandizing. Unfortunately, at some institutions, that's not an illegitimate.
J. Aughenbaugh: Argument.
N. Rodgers: I don't think it's true at a lot of the state institutions. State institutions tend to be a little more of the people. But when you're talking about some of the really elite institutions, you are talking about elite people, like elitist, they come across that way. They may not mean to, but they certainly aren't the warm and fuzzy welcoming place.
J. Aughenbaugh: Again, these institutions can be tone deaf in regards to how they are perceived beyond the bubble or circle that they operate in on a daily basis. We're all guilty of this.
N. Rodgers: Which I think brings us to the second part of this, as well, which is when you exercise your right to protest, that's fabulous. Aughie and I are-
J. Aughenbaugh: We are big supporters.
N. Rodgers: Big supporters of protest, but you have to be willing to acknowledge that there may be a price to be paid for that.
J. Aughenbaugh: There may be consequences, that's right.
N. Rodgers: That if you go out to protest, a variety of things may happen: You may be arrested, you may be identified as a rabble-rouser, 100 things may happen to you, and that just has to be part of the accounting that you take into when you decide when you leave that day, whether you're going to go protest or not.
J. Aughenbaugh: When we look at the second phenomenon, which is the targeting of specific students and scholars for deportation, the Trump Administration, specifically the State Department. The previous phenomenon, the Trump Administration is working through the Department of Education. This example is the State Department, led by former Florida Senator Marco Rubio. The State Department is relying upon a 1952 law, the Immigration and Naturalization Act, and they are claiming that individuals per that law may be deported if they harm US national security or foreign policy efforts. The logic continues because the Trump administration is pro-Israeli, allowing for such speech is harming the administration's efforts to support an ally and their efforts to end the war in Gaza. That's their argument. Now, listeners, if we had a visual component to the recording, Nia-
N. Rodgers: You would have seen my eyes roll so hard to the side, but you might wonder if I'm still conscious.
J. Aughenbaugh: Nia, you just gave me the look that my 13-year-old child gives me when I ask her, would she like a second helping of vegetables for dinner?
N. Rodgers: No, I don't want more of your stupid broccoli, I already choked down the one piece I had to have.
J. Aughenbaugh: Instead, why are you not asking me about the dessert option?
N. Rodgers: Exactly. I'd like ice cream, please.
J. Aughenbaugh: Now, on the opposing side of this, there is a long list of Supreme Court precedents from the 1940s, 50s and as recently, Nia, as the 1970s that held that non-citizens in the country legally-
N. Rodgers: People with visas. Which admittedly issued by the federal government.
J. Aughenbaugh: Have a full array of constitutional rights, including speech, protest and due process.
N. Rodgers: They can't vote, but they can do a lot of other constitutional stuff.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. However, these people are not being targeted for criminal prosecution or even civil liability, they're not being prosecuted, or a lawsuit-
N. Rodgers: They're not going to court.
J. Aughenbaugh: They're not going to court. Rather, they're being targeted for deportation. Here is the exception to what I just said. Historically, the Supreme Court has given broad discretion to the executive branch to decide who can and cannot be in the country based on that 1952 law. Yeah.
N. Rodgers: I have feelings about Scots with this. But I also have feelings about previous presidents because this is not the first instance in American history where individuals have been targeted because they were perceived to be enemies of the state. I'm going to use that phrase with, you can't see my air quotes, folks, but I'm using air quotes around that. As Aughie pointed out, in the Cold War era, if you seemed pinko enough, then you could be deported. Someplace or denied access to enter, both deported and prevented. Then post 911, you get the whole Muslim, you should go now thing that happened.
J. Aughenbaugh: As Nia is pointing out here, the United States doesn't have an exemplary record in regards to protecting the speech rights of non-US citizens who are in the country legally. In the last 100 years, we had the Red Scare of the 1920s. Post World War I, the Justice Department, led by Attorney General Palmer, the infamous Palmer raids, targeted socialists and communists of people who were here legally, but they weren't US citizens. Then, Nia, you just mentioned the Cold War, particularly the 1950s, the infamous McCarthy scare, Red Scare. Let's list a whole bunch of people who not only worked in the government, but who are also here legally, who are running around talking about communism. But then the most recent example is post-911. Where the federal government armed with the Patriot Act, again, mind you, I want to point out here, it's not just presidents or the executive branch. Congress has passed laws that has given broad discretion to whomever is president to target these people simply because of their speech. We saw this post-911 with the Patriot Act. The Bush Administration got the authority from Congress to go ahead and survey and, in some extreme cases, deport people whose only, if you will, offense is that they were Muslim and they may have known people in terrorist organizations, even if they weren't terrorists themselves.
N. Rodgers: Well, and then also, if I recall correctly, there were folks who were seeking to build a mosque somewhere near the site of 911. It wasn't on that site, but it was near. There was this huge protest of you can't build a mosque. It's like, dude, wait a minute. Building a mosque is not a sign of support of the people who did the terrorist attack. Mosques get built.
J. Aughenbaugh: In and of itself, building a place of worship does not necessarily mean,.
N. Rodgers: You support the foregoing action.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: There were huge protests about that.
J. Aughenbaugh: Now, my public law take on this, listeners, is that this one's going to be a close call in the federal courts, simply because, as I previously stated, we have two different lines of Supreme Court precedent that conflict. But again, if you ask why Trump is doing this, even if Trump loses in federal court, he wins with his base, because once again, his base of supporters don't think that faculty and students should be wasting their time with this speech because you're supposed to be at college. If you're a faculty member, teaching students skills so that they can have a better job, a better life, etc. If you're a student, you shouldn't be there wasting either your parents' money or the government's money. Protesting. Your butt should be where Nia.
N. Rodgers: In the seat in the classroom learning stuff.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: The other thing is, so I'm just going to side note something here that I suspect is true of many MAGA supporters. If you go into a Southern home and they welcome you in, the first thing they're going to do is offer you a drink, and it's probably going to be sweet tea. If you get your glass of sweet tea and you say, ooh, this tea's not very good, that is going to have an instant alienating effect on the rest of your visit. There's a certain approach on the MAGA side of you are a guest here. You don't get to tell us how crappy we are at being American because you are a guest here. You may be a legitimate guest. You have a green card, you have a card to study in school. But you need to pipe down on having an opinion about how bad America is, because otherwise, why'd you come here to study? If it helps folks to understand where some of those folks are coming from, that's where they're coming from. Don't come in my house and tell me that my stuff sucks. If you don't like my stuff, go away and do it from wherever it is. But you came here because you wanted the freedom to be able to protest and to be able to say these things. You need to be careful with those freedoms. That's where a lot of MAGA is coming from on this topic.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's a really good example. I mean, because in my Northeastern large ethnic family, if you got invited to my grandmother's house or my mom's house, and you turned away a second helping or a third helping, they would get offended.
N. Rodgers: Why did you come here? Why are you looking down on my hospitality? That's what some of the people who are on the MAGA side are thinking about these students. Why are you here? If you hate it so much, go to where you came from.
N. Rodgers: The counter to that, of course, is because they don't have the right to protest in a lot of other countries. They don't have the right to take to the streets and say things against the government because in a lot of countries, that will get you killed. One of the things that they admire most about America is that you can say The King is a fink. By the way, that comes from the King of Id. It's a comic strip. On a regular basis, the characters would say, The King is a fink. The king didn't do anything about it because he just had to let it go. But a lot of those supporters don't seem to understand that that's actually not a bug. It's a feature, the reason they want to come and study in the United States is because of the ability to question and to hold authority to account and to say, why is this acceptable because in their countries, it would get you shot in prison or re-educated, which is the worst of all, is to be sent to a reeducation camp.
J. Aughenbaugh: In your last statement, Nia, informs something that I think is perhaps lost on individuals who may not have ever gone to college or one of the values of going to college, which is the idea of freedom of speech is not that you can just go ahead and say crazy stuff or great disturbances or unrest, etc. It's this idea that you go to college or university and partly to learn skills so you can get a good job, but to actually grow and develop as a person.
N. Rodgers: Let's challenge your own thinking and other people's thinking.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. But those who are here legally but are not US citizens, to go back to a previous point that you made, when you engage in speech, particularly protests, you run a fine line between engaging in protest to where you are speaking truth to power and then upsetting or annoying the power who has the authority to make your life more difficult. Again, there's a fine line there. The fine line is frequently drawn by the courts.
N. Rodgers: It's okay to yell fire until you go inside a crowded theater and then the line gets crossed. Now you're endangering other people.
J. Aughenbaugh: It's right to go ahead and engage in protests. But if you then, as you are protesting, damage somebody's private property
N. Rodgers: Or terrify the people around you.
J. Aughenbaugh: Then at that point, the government.
N. Rodgers: Has to step in.
J. Aughenbaugh: Has the authority to go ahead and protect the collective. That's a tension that's writ large in almost every Western democracy around the world.
N. Rodgers: Can I just opine here for just a second? Part of the problem here is not that this tension has not existed, I don't know, since Socrates, since they were college students, because part of why we move forward as a society is often college students. It's often young people who are you get the freedom riders in the '50s who are out trying to get people to vote and to change things. In fact, turning the dogs on those people was what alarmed the rest of the country and said, wait, what's happening here in the South? What's going on with this Jim Crow thing? You do get progress when you have these young people who do these things. That tension has existed forever. The problem for me currently is that in previous administrations, the response has tended to be, as you were saying earlier, a scalpel. This administration does not own a scalpel. I don't think they own any instrument less than a giant chainsaw.
J. Aughenbaugh: I was going to use the sledgehammer.
N. Rodgers: Or an anvil. They come like, hey, does anybody have a hammer I need to hammer in this nail? No, but I have this anvil. Here, you can just drop it on the nail. Then it just obliterates the wall, the nail, your foot, everything that the anvil hits because that tends to be how Donald Trump exists in the world. He does not exist in the world as an inch. He exists in the world as a mile. Everything for him is big.
J. Aughenbaugh: He's surrounded himself with other individuals who are going to carry out these policies.
N. Rodgers: Who have similar personalities.
J. Aughenbaugh: Marco Rubio actually referred to some of the people that the State Department has been attempting to deport as idiots. I know I'm just like I'm not entirely sure the Secretary of State should be referring to nationals from other countries who are here legally as idiots.
N. Rodgers: We probably should stop referring to them as terrorists, which is something Donald Trump occasionally does. No. These words have meanings. They're not what applies here. These young people are not terrorists.
J. Aughenbaugh: He's referred to them as Jihadis.
N. Rodgers: You're like, that word has a meaning and it doesn't apply here.
J. Aughenbaugh: It doesn't apply here. One could go ahead and speak out against the Israeli state and how they conducted themselves in the Gaza War.
N. Rodgers: Without being a Hamas supporter.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Just because you don't like Israel doesn't mean you love Hamas.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Those things can be mutually exclusive.
J. Aughenbaugh: Words have meaning.
N. Rodgers: But in this case, I think you're right that there will be a chilling effect on words. I think that people will stop protesting because they'll be worried. Can I just say also, I personally find the videos of people being taken off the street by masked ICE officials to be terrifying.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's scary stuff.
N. Rodgers: That is terrifying. That extra rendition style of grabbing people off the street.
N. Rodgers: I'm not entirely certain why we're doing that, but as a country, I think that that goes against our grain as Americans. If I'm going to come and arrest you, you should be able to see my face. You should be able to know me and know who I am. I find that terrifying.
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm enough of an institutionalist that, not only should you be arrested in public in a transparent way, but you should also be given a process.
N. Rodgers: You shouldn't suddenly find yourself in Louisiana. Going, How did I get here?
J. Aughenbaugh: Again, we are not besmirching Louisiana.
N. Rodgers: Oh, no. Lovely things happen in Louisiana, but also some weird stuff happens in Louisiana, apparently.
J. Aughenbaugh: But if you are being taken off the street in New York City, sent overnight to Louisiana, and you're not given an opportunity to challenge your detention in front of an administrative law judge. I got a problem with that because that's the stuff that goes on in non-democratic nation states.
N. Rodgers: That's Banana Republic stuff. That's not what we pride ourselves on in the United States, which is that we will give you due process. Also, and I'm going to say this, and this is not Aughie's opinion, this is just my opinion, and I want to put it on the record. We should not send people to El Salvadoran prisons who have not committed a crime. You should not wake up one day and find yourself in an El Salvadoran prison. That is not how this should work. There does need to be due process for the exact reason Aughie just stated, because if not, we are a Banana Republic. We are not a democracy.
J. Aughenbaugh: We're not a democracy.
N. Rodgers: We need to be able to trust if the system will work. Because if it doesn't work for the least among us, it will not work for anyone.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: It has to work for everybody.
J. Aughenbaugh: Again, if your overall world view is, everything looks like a nail, so I'm going to go ahead and hammer it. Well, then, due process and courts of law don't make much sense. I'm sorry, I can't go there. I'm too much of an institutionalist. I believe in certain processes, even for those who even if at my core, I may suspect bad people, I'm sorry.
N. Rodgers: You still deserves due process.
J. Aughenbaugh: You deserve due process. You should be able to go ahead and say idiotic things, even if I think, those are idiotic.
N. Rodgers: We are not saying that the president does not have the right to protect the country. That is, in fact, part of the job of the president is to protect the country. We want there to be mechanisms for the president to be able to protect the country. It would have been really nice if President Clinton had been able to stop the 19 people who had decided to do 9/11. We want there to be a certain power for you to be able to investigate people and figure out if they really are bad guys and stuff. That's very different than people protesting.
J. Aughenbaugh: But there has to be limits because then, otherwise, this goes back to the fact that the king is a fink.
N. Rodgers: Then it chills everyone's speech. Then you can't say anything because you're afraid of being considered disloyal. That's what happened in the '50s when people were running scared trying to avoid being attacked by McCarthy.
J. Aughenbaugh: You had people in the 1950s who were basically renouncing their past simply because they didn't want to be deported or targeted by the United States federal government.
N. Rodgers: Currently, what we have is people self deporting, which is also scary. That's a scary situation, too, if people don't feel safe or if they don't feel like they're going to receive due process, so they're taking themselves away. Some people would say, "Hey, he wins." Does he? If he chills speech and he chills thought, we lose. We Americans lose because one of the great things about America is being able to say the King is a fink. That's a win for us.
J. Aughenbaugh: Once people decide to leave, you're going to have other people who decide not to come. Now, we're in a dangerous downward cycle. Because a lot of these people that are being targeted are talented individuals who, I don't know about you, Nia, I would actually hope that after they do get their degrees or they teach at our universities, they decide to stay here because they're like, I like this country.
N. Rodgers: They are smart and they are able to contribute to the overall fabulousness of the United States.
J. Aughenbaugh: I like this country. I want to go ahead and have a family here, and we're going relocate here, because that's what my ancestors did.
N. Rodgers: Demographically, we need that.
J. Aughenbaugh: Brass tacks, even if, all that warm and fuzzy American dream stuff doesn't appeal.
N. Rodgers: We need their babies. We need them to come here and have babies. We need smart people to have babies because that's always a good thing. Babies are a good thing and smart people having them are a good thing. Anyway, we hope that this in the news that you get in a little more insight into the people who are concerned about what's going on on college campuses are not anti student. They're not anti college, they're not anti intelligence. They're just they are concerned. The purpose of college is being subverted.
J. Aughenbaugh: They have a different conception of what is the purpose of college.
N. Rodgers: Exactly.
J. Aughenbaugh: Then those of us who by all accounts, we get into our bubbles, we all do this.
N. Rodgers: We self reinforce. The people you hang out with agree with you and tell you you're right because why would you hang out with people who didn't?
J. Aughenbaugh: But those who support Trump are not necessarily bad people. They have a different conception. But it's also good in these instances to be reminded of what makes the United States or any Western democracy different than an authoritarian regime that doesn't allow people to speak, who doesn't allow people to go ahead and have different ideas, to express themselves publicly as in a protest.
N. Rodgers: The marketplace of ideas. That's the whole point of the United States is that the best well, not necessarily the best ideas because if you've seen a Tesla truck, not a great idea. Those things are ugly, but I wouldn't set fire to one. Because someone somewhere loves that thing and thinks it's fabulous and loves the squareness of it. That's the joy of America. Is that all these ideas can come together and be utilized and be talked out reasonably with reasonable adults, instead of saying we are just going to suppress certain kinds of speech. Then what do we get? We get a subjective idea of whose speech should be suppressed and who shouldn't.
N. Rodgers: That's right.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's a little worrisome.
J. Aughenbaugh: If you're a Trump supporter, do you understand this? Let's say the federal courts do approve of the targeting of universities or the targeting of faculty and students. Now, we have a precedent that a future president.
N. Rodgers: Could look at churches.
J. Aughenbaugh: Could look at churches or look at civic organization, or pro capitalist activities. Again, there's a downside here, guys.
N. Rodgers: Your side won't always be in charge.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. Things don't operate in a vacuum. Political history, legal history tells us that once we create precedents, then others are going to go ahead and say, well, if those people could do this, then why can't I?
N. Rodgers: That is exactly the reason why you want to limit this behavior.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. Thanks, Nia.
N. Rodgers: Thank you, Aughie. Folks, we'll see you next week.