Christina Greer on Trump's Attacks on History, DEI, and Students

Systemic Erasure of Black History

• 💡 The Trump administration's actions, including edits to the Underground Railroad's history and the removal of Harriet Tubman's image, are seen not as surprising but as a continuation of a systemic erasure of Black history.
• 📌 Black Americans are not surprised by these efforts because they are familiar with the nation's history of progress and regress, including periods of brutality, Jim Crow, and redlining.
• 🎭 The narrative often jumps from slavery to the Civil Rights Movement, skipping over a brutal and dark history of Black people in America.

Attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

• 🎯 The US Department of Education's requirement for public school systems to certify the elimination of DEI programs is questioned, with the argument that knowing one's history is not discriminatory.
• 🧠 Understanding collective pasts, including the complexities of figures like LBJ and Eisenhower, is crucial for national progress and understanding the present.
• 📈 Diversity, equity, and inclusion are presented as beneficial for economic growth and a nation's bottom line, citing examples like Target and the historical impact of economic boycotts.

University and Student Safety

• 🎓 Universities must remain spaces for intellectual ideas and debates, not fear and silence, especially in response to government incursions like the detention of international students.
• 🤝 Universities need to band together and use collective action, leveraging endowments and power to protect students and academic freedom.
• ⚠️ Targeting one group, such as immigrant students, is a historical pattern that should prompt solidarity, as