Out with antisemitism, in with “religious liberty”?
Linda McMahon wouldn’t know “academic rigor” if it body-slammed her. If you read the education secretary’s threat letter to Harvard University, you may have noted the several grammatical errors that drew a flood of ridicule. I particularly enjoyed her accusation that Harvard has lost “any semblance of academic rigor.”
But what The Atlantic‘s Rose Horowitch wants observers to note is that the Trump administration seems to have dropped its original pretext for its attack on Harvard:
What you will not find in the McMahon letter is any mention of the original justification for the Trump administration’s ongoing assault on elite universities: anti-Semitism. As a legal pretext for trying to financially hobble the Ivy League, anti-Semitism had some strategic merit. Many students and faculty justifiably feel that these schools failed to take harassment of Jews seriously enough during the protests that erupted after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas. By centering its critique on that issue, the administration was cannily appropriating for its own ends one of the progressive left’s highest priorities: protecting a minority from hostile acts.
Now, however, the mask is off. Aside from one oblique reference to congressional hearings about anti-Semitism (“the great work of Congresswoman Elise Stefanik”), the letter is silent on the subject. The administration is no longer pretending that it is standing up for Jewish students. The project has been revealed for what it is: an effort to punish liberal institutions for the crime of being liberal.
Antisemitism is a problem that needs addressing, but that’s simply a pretext for a crackdown on the left by Trump 2.0. In this regard, writes Horowitch, letting the mask slip is somewhat refreshing:
In a 2021 speech titled “The Universities Are the Enemy,” then–Senate candidate J. D. Vance declared that universities, as left-wing gatekeepers of truth and knowledge, “make it impossible for conservative ideas to ultimately carry the day.” The solution, Vance said, was to “honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.” We’ve been seeing the aggressive part of that formula for two months. With the McMahon letter, the administration has gotten much closer to honesty.
Trump 2.0 may have switched strategies. Where anitisemitism has lost news-cycle value, “anti-Christian bias” may take up the propaganda slack.
“On April 22, Attorney General Pam Bondi hosted the first meeting of the “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias in the Federal Government,” The New Republic‘s Katherine Stewart begins, including an assortment of department secretaries and “over a dozen high-ranking officials in the administration.” Supposedly about standing up for religious liberty, this effort is more about goosing “the Trump administration’s Christian nationalist allies and base” with “groundless claims of religious discrimination.”
Why? As a pretext for suppressing dissent (and/or liberals). But this crusade is just as sincere as the administration’s interest in protecting Jewish students:
Less than a week later, an incident at the U.S. Capitol made clear that the Trump administration has zero interest in promoting “religious liberty.” As the Reverend William Barber and other faith leaders opposed to Republican budget cuts gathered to pray at the Capitol Rotunda, they were swiftly surrounded by Capitol Police officers, one wearing a “crime scene” vest. The press was expelled from the building, and the pastors were arrested.
You would think that a Task Force concerned with anti-Christian bias would take an interest. But the administration appears to have nothing to say. The problem for the Reverend Barber and his fellow pastors is that they would seem to be the wrong kind of Christians. Right-wing pastor Sean Feucht has “filled the US Capitol Rotunda with worship time and time again for the last 4 years,” in his own words, and yet he has never been arrested or detained. He, apparently, is the right kind of Christian.
Exactly.
The irony of “anti-Christian bias,” as the Trump administration defines it, is that it is not, in fact, directed at Christians per se. After all, the Reverend Barber, like many American Christians, appears to anchor a commitment to equality, social justice, and concern for the poor in his faith. Rather, the alleged victims of bias are those Christians who endorse reactionary positions in the culture wars and support Trump’s agenda unconditionally.
So move over Real Americans™. Make way for Real Christians™.
* * * * *
Have you fought dictatorship today?
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense