Sent this off the other day. I encourage my fellow Columbians to do likewise.
Dear President Armstrong,
I am writing to express my disappointment and anger that my alma mater has capitulated to the bullying and coercion of the Trump Administration. I understand how worrisome a threat to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in funding must be. I recognize how complex and contested issues of free speech and peaceful protest on Columbia’s and other American campuses are in these fraught times. Nonetheless, as an institution of higher learning in a free society, you have a duty to resist, even at great cost, powers that want to replace American democracy with an authoritarian and even – I no longer think the term is hyperbole – fascistic state. Next time they come demanding concessions, and you know as well as I that they will, please do the hard thing, and say no. You should be a model to other institutions of rectitude, not cowardice.
Respectfully,
Christopher Patton (SOA ’96)
Some bonus content from one of many newsletters I’ve begun following:
This week I want to talk about a small thing that gives me hope. A “green shoot,” if you will, in a time when so much seems to be withering.
It’s early, it’s scattered, and it’s more of a tendril than a surge of green.
When the leadership of institutions bows down to the autocrat — happening a lot these days — that’s often not the end of the story. In many key cases, the people who make up those institutions are refusing to go quietly. The individuals with less power, not more, are stepping up to defend our democracy.
… If this trend continues, with ordinary people showing courage where their leaders fail, that may just be the determinative factor in whether the autocratic project ultimately falls short.
—Ben Raderstorf, “When leaders fail, people… step up?”
The Art of Compost 