So I hope I'm misconstruing this, but it's terrifying and possibly the end of a bunch of classes at school, the CSJ or at least the funding, and all federally funded antiracist and anti-sexist education. The Executive Order is called Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping. In this order, all anti-racist and anti-sexist training has been banned for any entity that receives federal funding. The EO insists that the idea that racism and sexism are woven into the fabric of this country is a "divisive concept" along with the other listed topics in Section 2a. The examples used portray whites and men as victims of oppression of antiracism and anti-sexism in need of saving by this executive order.
Regarding education, there are two sections I'd like to draw attention to. Section 5 say "The heads of all agencies shall review their respective grant programs and identify programs for which the agency may, as a condition of receiving such a grant, require the recipient to certify that it will not use Federal funds to promote the concepts that..."The Department of Education is a federal agency and I'm pretty sure St. John's Law gets federal money (as does almost every university and school with students in debt).
On top of that, Section 10(b) about academia also implies we're in trouble: "Nothing in this order shall be construed to prohibit discussing, as part of a larger course of academic instruction, the divisive concepts listed in section 2(a) of this order in an objective manner and without endorsement." So does that mean that professors and instructors must avoid promoting antiracist or anti-sexist material? And if they do, will the school be forced into a tough position where it has to choose between federal funding and antiracist/anti-sexist faculty? Does this have implications for research? I really hope I'm misinterpreting this because it sounds like forced neutrality. The question of the US's racism and sexism is a binary question; you cannot remain neutral. When the problems are systematic, silence is violence.
This is also especially atrocious as it was released four days after RBG's death. RBG's litigation strategy for promoting women's rights was to strengthen gender protections by cases where men had fallen victim to a sex-related disparity (not sexism). For Trump to use race and especially gender protections to ban the promotion of antiracist and anti-sexist like this is his administration spitting on RBG's legacy before she's even buried. And the kicker is, he's firmly got the Supreme Court now, pending the nomination which is supposed to happen before Halloween, so this may be codified in SCOTUS precedent.
I've been reassured by Pharoah that NY, specifically AG Letitia James, will challenge this and get a stay like NY has for many of Trump's Executive Orders, which is a relief, but still, the implications of this as a working EO is fascism, at least the way I see it. What do y'all think?
