A recent news story neatly encapsulates the present moment: a student at the University of Florida's law school wrote a paper for one of his classes arguing the U. S. Constitution was intended by the framers to apply only to white people, and only they should be allowed to vote -- and the Trump-nominated judge who taught the class awarded him top marks for it.
The student had expressed similar views in the past, writing that non-white people should be given a decade to leave the country and that naturalized aliens were never supposed to be more than second-class citizens. The University stood on viewpoint neutrality and free-speech rights, correctly pointing out that people have a right to speak their minds. What finally got him in trouble was a posting on the former Twitter, saying Jews must be abolished "by any means necessary." That resulted in his being suspended and barred from the campus, and increased police patrols in the area; the student sued and the case will work its way through the courts.
That's Trumpism in a nutshell: push to the limits, reward prejudice, and then see how much farther they can go. This is just one example but the pattern is repeated over and over, and the people pushing the hardest often embrace the idea of violence even if they do not take action themselves -- the Florida law student wrote that if U.S. courts failed to create white rule, the matter would be resolved "not by the careful balance of Justitia’s scales, but by the gruesome slashing of her sword." Whatever a society rewards, it gets more of. This is what Trumpism rewards.
This not what American society should reward. That's not a matter for polite debate over tea and cookies, it's a core value.
Update
6 months ago
2 comments:
1) Slight correction: he called Jews the "common enemy of humanity" but the "any means necessary" seems to have been said in connection to immigrants.
2)The implications of this (from near the end of the article) are just as bad as anything the school itself did/did not do;
"A number of students disagree, but several declined to be interviewed on the record for fear that criticizing the school, or a sitting federal judge, would harm their future job prospects.
One former student, who graduated in May, had his post-graduation job offer rescinded by a large law firm when he told them he had spoken to The New York Times for this article, criticizing Mr. Damsky’s paper and Judge Badalamenti for granting him the award. The student asked not to be identified for fear of jeopardizing other job offers."
Jeffrey Smith
Major correction: I'm finding multiple news stories that state his "by any means necessary" comment referred to abolition or elimination of Jewish people, and none have him using that particular phase in regard to immigrants. https://www.alligator.org/article/2025/04/uf-law-student-trespassed-from-campus-after-racist-antisemitic-social-media-posts
Interviewed by the New York Times, the student said "it would 'not be manifestly wrong' to describe him as a Nazi.
As for the students being silent, well...free speech doesn't mean free of consequences. I expect attorneys to have a well-calibrated sense of when to shut up, exactly as I expect jumped-up fascists not to. And I have no problem with people not being able to be both at once due to normal social sanctions by the free choices of their fellow citizens and residents.
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