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FREEDOM FOR SALE  
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Amy Dru Stanley
April 22, 2025
Dissent Magazine
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_ The government funds institutions that stretch across American
society. The Trump administration is demanding the relinquishment of
constitutional rights to keep the money flowing. _

UGA professors hold up signs protesting the defunding of research at
a Hands Off protest against President Trump in Athens, Ga., on
Saturday, April 5, 2025., Joshua L. Jones, Athens (GA) Banner-Herald

 

At a time when the Red Scare remained a palpable memory, a law
professor named Charles Reich warned of government’s arbitrary power
to withdraw the wealth it poured into institutions as diverse as
universities, corporations, and welfare programs. “Government
largess” was his term for such wealth—wealth carrying sweeping
power on a “vast, imperial scale.” The flow of money, and fear of
its loss, augmented the power of government “to investigate, to
regulate, and to punish.” Buttressed by loyalty oaths and
blacklists, largesse induced fealty and abridged civil liberties,
enabling “government to ‘purchase’ the abandonment of
constitutional rights
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Today, largesse once again represents a potent form of government
coercion. A devil’s bargain is on the table, with freedom up for
sale—a bargain involving unconscionable conditions: losing largesse
is the price paid for asserting constitutional rights. That was the
lesson taught at Columbia University last month, an example of the
unfreedom so worrying to Reich a half century ago. At Columbia, $400
million purchased the abandonment of a lot of academic freedom, a deal
prompting some belated university repentance about ill-gotten gains
and avowals of independence
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Lately, I’ve begun worrying about my own academic freedom. I’m a
historian, and I teach a class on American civilization, and even
aspects of American history once seen as ordinary textbook fare have
become no less fraught than, say, Middle Eastern studies. The problem
is that in my American civilization class students learn about ideas
that may seem unworthy to the White House paymaster, who is now using
the power of the purse to govern private universities
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well as to control history teaching in public institutions, including
the Smithsonian.

Especially subversive might seem ideas about property or equality or
slavery, raising questions of justice that students explore when
learning about the workings of American democracy in my class. For
instance, that Andrew Carnegie
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an inheritance tax, whereby “the state marks its condemnation of the
selfish millionaire’s unworthy life.” That the Supreme Court
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long deemed immigrants—even when classified as “aliens” and
“strangers”—as entitled to equal protection of the law.
That Abraham Lincoln
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the Civil War as a divine punishment for slavery’s sins, “as the
woe due to those by whom the offense came.” Such ideas belong to an
American canon of moral thought but run contrary to MAGA doctrine.

Moreover, the language studied and spoken in my American civilization
class is filled with words designated suspect by an official White
House list
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such as “historically” and “political” and “community” and
“expression” and “promote” and “men” and “women” and
“equality.” For how can I teach history without
saying _historically?_ Or speak of people without
saying _men _and _women_? Or ask students to think about the
promise of America without invoking _equality_? To forbid such words
means restricting knowledge of aspirations to realize the rights of
American freedom.

Soon, I fear, the ideas I teach about may bring another devil’s
bargain. I’m afraid that the pressure of government largesse may
erode my freedom to teach the fullness of the ideas that form American
history—that my class on American civilization could be scrutinized
under an academic receivership demanded by the White House.

Perhaps I’d be shielded by the ideals affirmed by my own university,
codified a decade ago as the Chicago Principles of Free Expression
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and adopted by colleges across the country
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Ideally, the principled defiance of Harvard
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become a model
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No doubt, I’d be defended by the American Association of University
Professors
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a teachers’ union that has defended academic freedom
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more than a century.

If all this failed, the unconscionable condition would prevail: a
bounty of largesse exchanged for loss of free inquiry. No university
can evade the risk of this trade-off, even if, like mine, it hasn’t
yet confronted the surveillance of the executive branch for alleged
violations of antidiscrimination rules on antisemitism, DEI programs,
and transgender athletes. The risk inheres in the arbitrary power of
largesse.

Often, brutal needs—of a vulnerable public—are at stake in the
dependence on government largesse. Here, universities join the ranks
of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National
Institutes of Health in facing the human suffering caused by the
punitive withdrawal of federal funding for projects supporting public
health, food assistance, and environmental sustainability. The harm
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immediate, evident in the rising incidence of disease and
malnutrition, with deadly effects on the future of the world
community.

Of course, constitutional protections exist against the arbitrary
withdrawal of government funding. Courts have adopted an
“unconstitutional conditions doctrine
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meaning government can’t require ceding rights in return for
receiving something valuable from government—a doctrine that
especially protects “interest in freedom of speech.” And due
process entitlements forbid revoking government funding without a
prior hearing. So does Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the
antidiscrimination law cited by the White House in sanctioning
universities, which requires a hearing before any funding is
withdrawn.

But present harm is not stopped by rights guarantees. Courts seldom
act with all deliberate speed, and the appeals process is full of
uncertainties—uncertainties heightened by a White House that now
brazenly flouts court orders. This is hardly to discount the pursuit
of rights claims. Rather, it’s to illustrate the cruel power of
government largesse, which now makes the funding of life-saving
projects depend on giving up constitutional rights—like mine to talk
of the Red Scare’s legacies in teaching American history. As we
await relief in the courts, it’s worth remembering
the _historically _subversive words of that era: “Have you no
sense of decency, sir?” But authoritarianism never has yielded to
moral appeals unattached to political power and mass dissent. To think
otherwise would be ahistorical.

_[AMY DRU STANLEY is an American history professor at the University
of Chicago.]_

* Academic Freedom
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* scientific research
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* cancer research
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* Medical research
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* Colleges
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* universities
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* public universities
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* higher education
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* higher ed
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* First Amendment
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* constitutional rights
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* Free Speech
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* freedom of association
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* Fifth Amendment
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* Fascism
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* Donald Trump
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* Trump 2.0
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* government overreach
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* political interference
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* government intrusion
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* public research
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* government funds
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* Hands Off
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