History Redux?
Dear Leading Ladies,
We celebrated the good news that Harvard University stood up to Trump’s demands. The richest school in America refused to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, ban masks at campus protests, enact merit-based hiring and admissions reforms, and reduce the power of faculty. The Republican administration has called Harvard “more committed to activism than scholarship.” In response, the Trump administration froze over $2 billion in multi-year grants and contracts at Harvard University, but most recently claimed the whole brouhaha erupted because of a mistakenly sent email. Meanwhile, Columbia University, another wealthy and elite institution, took another route. Under threats of losing all its federal funding, the school agreed to put in place several policy changes, “including overhauling its rules for protests and conducting an immediate review of its Middle Eastern studies department,” as described in Forbes.
We think this might be a good time for another dive into history for ourselves and others.
Even before Hitler took power, there was a great deal of pro-Nazi sentiment in universities, so that the bulk of faculties supported Hitler’s takeover in 1933.
Pre-1933, there was harassment of Social Democratic and all suspected Jewish and non-Aryan faculty.
Then, in April of 1933, three months after Hitler became chancellor of Germany, under the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service Act, all Jewish teachers and teachers with undesirable political beliefs (such as communists), were fired. (12% of all German professors and 25% of Germany's Nobel Prize winners.)
In targeting non-Aryans, primarily Jews, “the law ‘racialized’ politics and thereby changed the very meaning of what was meant by ‘political’ dismissals,” according to Mitchell G. Ash in “The Suppression and Misuses of Academic Freedom During the Nazi Regime,” Forum Transregionale Studien.
Though Hitler’s intent may not have been to harm these fields of study, physics, mathematics, and chemistry were hit hardest because of the prevalence of Jewish professors in those departments.
“The dismissals,” according to Ash, “show that the freedom of science that had been constitutionally guaranteed since 1871 could be revoked by the German state under certain political conditions abrogating the Weimer constitution.”
At the same time, it became compulsory for all teachers to become members of the Nazi party and the National Socialist Teachers League, created four years earlier, took control of the education of teachers. The new iteration of this organization was required to assess the political loyalty of anyone proposed for a professorship.
The only substantial resistance on campus came from the White Rose group at the University of Munich, “a courageous but small and ineffectual group of protesters.” (Cambridge University Press)
Since “Nazis were critical of ‘ivory tower intellectuals’, when they came to power, they began to institute in the universities a new regime of hard physical culture coupled with military and ideological training for junior faculty as well as for students.” (Cambridge University Press: Universities and the Rise of Hitler)
In May of 1933, members of the National Socialist German Students’ Association initiated the book burning to purge German science and culture of “Jewish” writings, including the works of scientists such as Sigmund Freud.
Meanwhile, the field of Racial Studies arose, categorizing different people according to physical appearances, using photographs to classify them.
Finally, it is necessary to recognize that much sophisticated science was conducted willingly by researchers in and out of German universities during Hitler’s reign to develop ways to murder Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and the mentally challenged.
“Examples include the murderous human experiments conducted by Sigmund Rascher and others on prisoners of war in Nazi concentration camps, for example, to see whether humans could survive long-term submersion in freezing water. In these studies, the possible death of the research subjects was part of the experimental design. Somewhat different was the requisitioning of brains from the murdered victims of the so-called euthanasia program by Julius Hallervordern and other neurologists; at least in this case it is unclear that murders were actually “ordered up” to provide specimens needed for research. And then there are the infamous “studies” by Josef Mengele and associates on inmates at Auschwitz, ranging from efforts to develop a blood test to diagnose “racial” identity (which did not necessarily lead to the death of the victims) to the murder of twins with different eye color in Mengele’s laboratory so that his associate Karin Magnussen could obtain the eyes for anatomical study. In all these cases, again, the scientists involved were not forced to participate, but did so by choice.” Mitchell G. Ash
Nationalsozialistische “Rassenkarte” [National Socialist “Race Map”]; Source: DFG
What’s next?
Trump has threatened to cancel the tax-free status of US colleges and universities. Research funds to more and more institutions will, no doubt, be slashed. Students who might discover cures for diseases and vaccines to prevent pandemics will have to curtail their studies. What’s next? Might Trump fund research to support evidence of racial superiority? Or tying mental illness to sexual preference? Who knows what he and RFK Jr. might dream up and some amoral brainiacs could support?
We need to be afraid. And we need to support academic freedom. Not just from Trump, but also from what is going on inside some of our institutions. Jake Auchincloss, Representative to the US House of Representatives, recently commented on NPR that he was very supportive of Harvard’s refusal to cave to Trump’s demands, but he also believes Harvard needs to take a hard look at its commitment to making Harvard a safe place for students of all backgrounds and beliefs while making sure free speech and broad curricula are in place.
Keeping our eyes open to the complexities of today’s issues can be tiring. If we remember to blink, and look away now and again, it helps, but let’s not ignore what is in front of us.
Need to do something with the anxiety all this causes? Write to the president of your alma mater and tell her/him you want to be proud to say your school stood up for what’s right by not letting the government dictate what they teach, what their policies are about human rights, or whom they accept.
All the best,
Therese (she/her/hers)
Judy (she/her/hers)
Didi (she/her/hers)
Leading Ladies Executive Team
Leadingladiesvote.org
ladies@leadingladiesvote.org