Resist Trump’s Ideological Oppression and Censorship

The Trump administration has launched a series of politically motivated “reviews” of federal agencies and other institutions to ensure their work sufficiently aligns with Trump’s beliefs, specifically targeting work that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) or addresses racial or gender discrimination. While conducting these reviews, the administration has also frozen, terminated, or threatened funding for such programs and installed monitors for continuous inspection, creating a widespread fear of political oppression and censorship.

• Trump issued an executive order that asserts political control over all federal grant funding, and puts “all new funding” on hold until grants are reviewed for alignment with the administration’s priorities.

• The DOJ issued a memo demanding that all recipients of federal funds ban DEI practices, such as programs that support “underserved geographic areas.”

• The White House has demanded a review of exhibits at Smithsonian Institution museums to eliminate content that doesn’t align with Trump’s view of history or depicts “how bad slavery was”.

• Trump ordered colleges to submit additional admissions data to the government, beyond what is mandated by law, to be reviewed for DEI practices.

These mandated ideological reviews, and the subsequent punishment of institutions that don’t adhere to the administration’s political requirements, are an assault on our constitutional freedoms. Our elected representatives must condemn this authoritarian control and defend our government institutions from ideological oppression and censorship.