Trump’s Yemen policy is one of hypocrisy and indifference, By Ishaan Tharoor

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Edited by Max J. Rosenthal and Ruby Mellen

BY ISHAAN THAROOR Trump’s Yemen policy is one of hypocrisy and indifference Last December, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, held a news conference highlighting what she described as proof of Iran’s role in supplying illicit weapons to Yemen’s Houthi rebels. A ballistic missile fired at Riyadh by the Houthis the month before — a failed attempt to hit a major airport there — apparently carried components manufactured by an Iranian firm. This, Haley argued, was “devastating evidence” of Iranian perfidy. Others diplomats weren’t so sure. They suggested the American envoy was overstating the conclusions drawn by U.N. investigators — and possibly seeking to divert attention away from the Trump administration’s controversial moves elsewhere in the Middle East. It’s worth considering Haley’s adamant stance in light of what has happened since. The failed Houthi missile strike caused no casualties, but it prompted Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies to tighten their blockade on Yemen and intensify the war against the Houthis. Since then, the country’s epochal humanitarian crisis has only worsened, and airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition have killed dozens of civilians. The most glaring incident happened less than two weeks ago, when a missile struck a bus in northern Yemen. According to local health officials, 54 people were killed, 44 of whom were children traveling on a rare school outing. The BBC’s Orla Guerin, reporting from the scene days later, described the agony of parents finding their dead children among piles of corpses; she spoke to young boys helping dig small graves for their classmates. Meanwhile, Saudi officials said the bus was a “legitimate military target,” pointing to allegations that the Houthis are training child soldiers. The United States, as we’ve detailed in the past, has abetted the Saudi-led war in Yemen, helping refuel aircraft and supplying intelligence and munitions to the coalition. But while Trump administration officials leap to conclusions about the Iranian hand in Yemen’s ruinous war, they are far more coy about their own. When pressed about the American role in the deadly strike, a senior U.S. official expressed apathy. “Well, what difference does that make?” the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said to reporters in Cairo. “We are providing the refueling and support to Saudi aircraft. We are also selling them munitions … We are not denying that.” Over the weekend, CNN concluded that it was an American bomb — manufactured by Lockheed Martin, an influential defense contractor — that sent dozens of Yemeni children to their deaths. The report cited munition experts and shrapnel evidence from the scene of the strike. While the Trump administration may wave away its actions in Yemen, there’s a growing uproar in Washington about the horrors of the war. Haley’s performance last year did not silence critics, who are unconvinced by Trump’s arguments about checking Iranian influence. “Whenever the United States intervenes in the Middle East, or supports others’ interventions, it creates the chaotic conditions that amplify Iran’s malign influence,” wrote Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Moreover, it is preposterous that backing a horrific and indiscriminate bombing campaign, which primarily targets Iranian-supported Houthi forces, will compel any change in Iran’s behavior outside of its territory.” And while the Saudis and their U.S. allies “have a point” when it comes to pinning the blame the Houthis, argued Frank Giustra and Robert Malley of the International Crisis Group, it’s not a strong one. “The Houthis have interfered with aid delivery and killed civilians,” they wrote in the Globe and Mail. “But the Saudi-led coalition is by far the strongest combatant and its Western allies are the most influential powers involved. Together, they are the ones that can now do the most to end the horrors befalling Yemeni civilians.” As my colleague Missy Ryan reported, lawmakers in Congress are citing the catalogue of civilian casualties as grounds to establish greater oversight over the war. “I am deeply concerned that continued U.S. refueling, operational support functions and weapons transfers could qualify as aiding and abetting these potential war crimes,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) wrote in a letter to the Pentagon’s inspector general. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sought clarification from Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, over how the U.S. military helps support and oversee Saudi and Emirati bombing missions in Yemen. “The ongoing military escalation threatens millions of civilians, and hundreds of thousands are at risk of starvation,” Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said in a statement to The Washington Post. “The United States must have a cohesive strategy to address the situation.” The violence in Yemen — and the mounting evidence of American complicity in atrocities — is fueling a broader conversation about the White House’s ability to wage war. The Trump administration is following the Obama administration’s tacit support of the Saudi-led campaign, but has likely emboldened Riyadh with its vehement grandstanding over Iran and the Houthis. Elsewhere, President Trump has also prioritized strength of arms over diplomacy. In Syria, Trump celebrated his military’s ruthless bombing campaign against the Islamic State, which helped drive out the militants from the city of Raqqa. But now, after laying waste to the city, Trump wants to cut the U.S. funds set aside to help its recovery and reconstruction — a paltry $230 million compared to the $716 billion defense spending bill Trump signed last week. Trump insists that U.S. allies, including the Saudis, can foot the bill to clean up the mess in Syria. But critics say the White House needs to get tough on its friends in the Gulf rather than simply eying their pursestrings. “The U.S. allies will accept a peace process only if it is clear that they will not have Washington’s support for more war,” The Washington Post wrote in an editorial. “Because President Trump remains in thrall to the Saudi princes, it’s fortunate that Congress has applied some pressure.” The editorial concluded: “It is long past time to end U.S. support for this misbegotten and unwinnable war.”

Can the Catholic Church Reform From Within? by Sarah Jones

newrepublic.com

Can the Catholic Church Reform From Within?

By Sarah Jones, writing for The New Republic

12-15 minutes

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The numbers alone are staggering: 1,000 victims, 300 priests. On Tuesday, to collective horror, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court released the results of its grand jury investigation into child sexual abuse in the state’s Catholic dioceses. The report spans all but one of the state’s dioceses and documents abuse that goes back decades. “There have been other reports about child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church,” the report begins. “But not on this scale. For many of us, those earlier stories happened someplace else, someplace away. Now we know the truth: It happened everywhere.”

Tale after tale of unimaginable exploitation and cruelty make up the grand jury report. One priest tried to tie altar boys up with rope. That same priest also belonged to a child porn ring with other priests. In a detail that reads like a fever dream, clergy gave victims large gold crucifix necklaces, which marked the children as prey to other members of the ring. One priest collected trophies of urine, pubic hair, and menstrual blood from female victims. Another impregnated a minor and urged her to get an abortion.

Throughout it all, the church stumbled over itself to protect its priests and its reputation. In 1996, the Pittsburgh diocese received a report that one priest had been repeatedly accused of “sexual impropriety”—he remained a priest until 2004. When dozens of parents complained that a different priest had inappropriately touched and ogled their naked sons at a Catholic school, the diocese removed him from the school, but issued him a letter of good standing in 2014 that denied that there had ever been any report of wrongdoing.

What happened in Pennsylvania is similar to what infamously occurred in the archdiocese of Boston, where victims were bribed into silence and accused priests were transferred to new parishes. What happened in Pennsylvania and Boston is similar again to what happened on the island of Guam, where there are 200 clergy sex abuse cases for a population of under 160,000 people and where the archbishop himself stood accused of rape. Other clergy scandals are unfolding in the cities of Buffalo and Rochester, New York; in Baltimore, Maryland; in Chicago, Illinois; in the countries of Ireland, Poland, Argentina, Australia, and Paraguay. The scandal is as universal as the church.

At this point, what could the church possibly do to cleanse itself in the eyes of its congregants and the world? And if the church cannot police itself, is there anything outside authorities can do to intervene?

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The church’s secrecy is a repeating fact throughout the Pennsylvania grand jury’s narrative of predation. While dioceses did take some complaints seriously and removed priests from ministry, it’s clear that accused priests did not consistently face justice from their own church. Instead, dioceses shuffled priests from parish to parish. The report implicates some prelates: Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who served as the bishop of Pittsburgh before becoming archbishop of Washington, D.C., repeatedly allowed accused priests to remain in ministry, usually at the recommendation of the church’s own treatment centers for abusive priests.

How deep does the problem go? The sheer size of the Catholic Church means it’s difficult to know the extent of clerical abuse. In recent years, however, church officials have made efforts to provide a systematic approach to oversight and accountability. The Dallas charter, first created by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 and revised in 2005, 2011, and 2018, requires dioceses to publicize procedures for reporting abuse and to create review boards for investigating claims—boards that will include lay people as well as clergy. It further orders dioceses to “demonstrate a sincere commitment” to the “spiritual and emotional well-being” of victims and forbids dioceses from entering settlements that require confidentiality from victims unless it’s at a victim’s request.

The most important documents to emerge from the charter include two reports commissioned by the church in conjunction with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The first, released in 2003, examined the church’s abuse record from 1950 to 2002; the second, released in 2011, examined the “causes and context” of Catholic clergy abuse, and says the absence of “human formation” courses at Catholic seminaries contributed to abuse.

“Before, there was spiritual formation, intellectual formation, and pastoral formation,” explained Sr. Katarina Schuth, O.S.F., the endowed chair for the scientific study of religion at the Saint Paul Seminary and a contributor to the 2011 John Jay report. “Pope John Paul II required that there be a fourth area of formation, human formation, which included a good deal of more in-depth education about celibacy.” The idea was that previously the church had not properly prepared priests for a lifetime of celibacy. As a result of the human formation initiative, according to Schuth, abuse cases receded from their peak in the 1960s and 70s.

But the Pennsylvania scandal, combined with recent revelations that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick rose to the upper echelons of the church even though some officials knew he had sexually abused seminarians and altar boys, shows that there is a limit to the church’s willingness to take responsibility for the decades of suffering it has caused. When confronted with the realities of abuse, it covers it up, retreats to a defensive crouch, or attributes abuse to external, rather than internal or doctrinal, factors.

On Tuesday, the archdiocese of Washington, D.C., launched a short-lived website dedicated solely to the defense of Cardinal Wuerl. Some priests also offered up scapegoats. “Men who have suffered sexual abuse, in particular as a child, should not be admitted to priestly formation,” tweeted Fr. Kevin M. Cusick. “They need help of an intense kind and that would not be it. On the contrary, for some it has proven an insuperable temptation. Children should never be thus placed at risk.”

At the religious journal First Things, Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., who teaches systematic theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., blamed gay priests. “First, we need to investigate the past and have a transparent accounting of the failures. How were known networks of active homosexual priests (and bishops) allowed to continue?” he asked. Legge recommended screening out priests who have “a history of deep-seated homosexual attraction.”

Legge isn’t the first Catholic to pin clergy abuse on the presence of gay priests, or to link homosexuality with predatory behavior. The Vatican’s then-secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, told the Chilean bishops’ conference in 2012 that “many psychologists and many psychiatrists” had told him “that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia.” In 2018, Chilean police raided the same bishops’ conference as part of an investigation into child sex abuse committed by members of the Marist Brothers.

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The 2011 John Jay report rejected any causal link between homosexuality and child sex abuse, and so do other clergy. “It’s true that many of these cases are men abusing boys. But you can’t blame all gay priests,” Fr. James Martin, S.J. told me in an email. “It’s very close to saying homosexuality leads to pedophilia, which is the worst kind of homophobia. The reason you don’t see counterexamples of the many healthy celibate gay priests is that they’re afraid to come out—now, more than ever, in this environment of blaming and stereotyping.”

Martin also rejected the idea that clerical celibacy is the root problem. “I think a clerical culture of secrecy and privilege contributed more,” he wrote. “Most abuse happens in the context of families, but does anyone believe that heterosexuality or marriage causes abuse? Blaming it on celibacy is really missing the boat.”

But the church’s highest officials are still reluctant to relinquish that privilege and secrecy. In New York and Maryland, the church opposed bills that would have expanded the statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases, further restricting accountability for pedophilia and more. (The archdiocese of Baltimore did not return a voicemail requesting comment; the New York State Catholic Conference did not have a spokesman available for comment.) And it is worth remembering that the only reason we are having this discussion is that Pennsylvanian authorities stepped in. If the church truly intended to shed light on past and present abuse, it wouldn’t have taken a grand jury investigation to expose the abuses in Pennsylvania. For his part, Martin believes that if the statutes are expanded, secular institutions should be included in that expansion, an argument echoed by Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J. at The National Catholic Reporter.

Aside from expanding that measure in a way that includes secular institutions, there’s little secular authorities can do without running afoul of the First Amendment. The constitutional wall between church and state means that the state has an obligation to protect the church’s ability to conduct business in accordance with its doctrinal dictates—which means reform to doctrine, priestly oversight, education, and systems of accountability can only come from within. Victims of clergy abuse do not even have a universal right to sue the church for negligence that contributes to abuse; some state supreme courts have ruled against it on religious freedom grounds (others have permitted it).

In any case, it is already illegal to abuse children. Crimes committed by predatory priests aren’t just crimes against the Catholic faithful. They are crimes against all society, to which Catholics belong. Priestly crimes do not end at the doors of the church; they afflict neighborhoods and cities and states, too. The church then has an obligation to the public as well as to its own laity. And that obligation is to tell the truth, and to do so in the open, even it it harms church coffers.

It is possible for the church to fulfill its obligations without sacrificing its constitutional rights. In a July column for The New York Times, in response to the McCarrick scandal, Ross Douthat urged Pope Francis to convene an inquest, “a special prosecutor—you can even call it an inquisition if you want—into the very specific question of who knew what and when about the crimes of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and why exactly they were silent.”

Douthat’s call resembles an earlier thought experiment by Jennifer Haselberger, a whistleblower who resigned from the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese over an abuse cover-up. Haselberger, a canon lawyer, suggested a truth and reconciliation committee, based on the post-apartheid South Africa model. Haselberger’s proposal would still be an internal investigation, but its results would presumably be public—and that is exactly why Haselberger has said her experiment will never take shape as a real effort. “If we had bishops all of a sudden admitting to knowledge and actions...in any kind of public forum, we’d never be able to prevent that from being used against them, which could lead to criminal prosecutions, civil liability, we just can’t control that,” she told the National Catholic Reporter in 2014.

On Thursday, two full days after the grand jury report broke, the Vatican released a six-sentence statement about the report’s findings. Lessons must be learned, said the Holy See; abuse is “morally reprehensible.” It urged accountability, but did not explain how it planned to achieve that goal. Meanwhile, Pope Francis’s current itinerary for an upcoming visit to Ireland lacks a visit with victims of clergy abuse. Victims and faithful Catholics alike must then hope and trust that the church’s current procedures are enough to prevent future outbreaks of abuse—that the Vatican takes the problem seriously, though its prelates and even the pope either contribute to the problem or respond tepidly to its moral and criminal outrages.

One of the most disturbing details of the Pennsylvania report did not describe the abuse of children. “Abuse complaints were kept locked up in a ‘secret archive.’ That is not our word, but theirs; the church’s Code of Canon Law specifically requires the diocese to maintain such an archive,” the report states. “Only the bishop can have the key.”

Why did Papadopoulos hold out on the special counsel investigations?

By Josh Marshall

August 19

I’ve mentioned several times the inscrutable story of George Papadopoulos, particularly his and his wife’s turning against the plea agreement he made last fall and her going on a media tour associating herself with all the “Deep State” conspiracy theories now ubiquitous on Fox News. Last night we got the Special Counsel’s sentencing recommendation. It just deepens the mystery. But it also sheds some light on what might be behind Mangiante’s recent claims and public statements.

Let’s start with the basics of what are contained in the document.

According to the Special Counsel, Papadopoulos never really cooperated in good faith. Even after the deceptions that he was charged with, he only provided additional information when pressed with things the Special Counsel’s office already knew. The sentencing recommendation reads: “The defendant did not provide “substantial assistance,” and much of the information provided by the defendant came only after the government confronted him with his own emails, text messages, internet search history, and other information it had obtained via search warrants and subpoenas well after the defendant’s FBI interview as the government continued its investigation.” He also held back a cell phone until confronted about it.

One key point we didn’t know is that Joseph Mifsud, the Professor and alleged Russian cut-out, was in the United States in early 2017, seemingly not long after President Trump’s inauguration. The lies Papadopoulos told the FBI when they questioned him on January 27th, 2017 prevented the them from effectively questioning and challenging Mifsud when they located and questioned him in the Washington area in early- mid-February. They further suggest that had Papadopoulos not lied to the FBI, they might have detained or arrested Mifsud then. According to the document, Mifsud more or less immediately fled the country after being questioned by the FBI.

The document also specifically calls out what they claim are falsehoods Simona Mangiante made in her press tour.

The gist of the account is this. They arrested Papadopoulos on July 27th, 2017. He admitted he’d lied and became a cooperating witness. This led to follow up meetings. But over time it became clear he wasn’t cooperating in good faith. After his plea agreement became public, there was another scheduled meeting. But the Special Counsel’s office learned that Papadopoulos and Mangiante were giving press interviews. The Special Counsel’s office then canceled that meeting and cut off further contact.

Following the proffer sessions in August and September 2017, the government arranged to meet again with the defendant to ask further questions in late December 2017. However, upon learning that the defendant had participated in a media interview with a national publication concerning his case, the government canceled that meeting. (PSR ¶ 50). The government is aware that the defendant and his spouse have participated in several additional media interviews concerning his case.

There are a number of basic questions here. The government points out that the deal they made with Papadopoulos was not actually a standard cooperation agreement. But it did agree to speak on his behalf if he continued to cooperate and provide meaningful assistance. It seems from the document that even before this, he wasn’t cooperating in good faith. So why suggest even the non-standard agreement?

Also curious, if the government believed Papadopoulos had critical information why simply cut off contact because he and his wife were doing press interviews? I’ve seen one of Mangiante’s journalist defenders say Papadopoulos’s fairly to provide “substantial assistance” means he didn’t really know anything. It’s pretty clear that’s not what it means. But the Special Counsel’s decision to cut him off does suggest that they believed either that he did not know that much or that they were able to get the information in other ways. Otherwise, I don’t know why they wouldn’t seek to apply greater pressure. (On this point, my lack of knowledge of prosecutorial strategy may be leading me astray.)

The biggest question is why, when presented with an offer of leniency, Papadopoulos continued to conceal information from the government? Is he just a fool? I have heard from people who’ve spoken with him that at just the most basic level he does not seem like a terribly bright guy. But that doesn’t seem like an adequate explanation.

I come back to the role of Simona Mangiante, who married Papadopoulos this spring. As we’ve discussed, there have long been suspicions in the press and US law enforcement that she is herself in some way connected to Russian intelligence, even that she may not even be Italian.

Let’s consider the timeline.

The key interactions between Mifsud and Papadopoulos happen in the Spring of 2016. Mangiante worked for Mifsud from September through November of 2016. Papadopoulos apparently first messaged Mangiante in October 2016 over Linked-in. According to their story, he reached out unprompted because he saw they were both LinkedIn connected to Mifsud and she worked for him. This lead to a friendly and then romantic connection. But they didn’t meet in person until many months later in April 2017. That’s more than two months after Papadopoulos was first questioned by the FBI in Janaury and February and a couple months after Mifsud left the country. After they met in the US they vacationed together in Europe through the spring and summer, hitting various vacation hot spots in Greece and Italy. It was quite a whirlwind.

It was on his return from Europe that he was arrested at Dulles airport by FBI agents working for the Special Counsel’s office. By the time he was released from FBI custody on July 28th he had become a cooperating witness. He and Mangiante weren’t in contact again until August 1st. She promptly flew to Chicago to be with him. Papadopoulos then had a series of proffer sessions with the Special Counsel’s office in August and September 2017 (the ones where he allegedly was not forthcoming) before finalizing a plea agreement on October 5th, 2017. They got engaged in September 2017. They married in early March 2018.

As even Mangiante concedes, the FBI was suspicious about the relationship from the start. But at least in this period Mangiante was saying Papadopoulos’s decision to cooperate put him on “the right side of history.” In other words, she seemed behind what seemed like his decision to help the investigation. At some point in the late Spring she (and he?) shifted gears and started adopting the “spygate”/”Deep State” talking points of the right. On June 5th she went on Fox News asking the President for a pardon.

Perhaps Papadopoulos is simply a fool who screwed himself out of a good deal. Possibly the most mundane (possibly the best) explanation is that the couple became dissatisfied that he wasn’t being treated as well as they expected and they got bamboozled by the host of Trumpist DC journalists claiming Papadopoulos was set up by the “Deep State”. But it’s hard not to suspect what investigators made clear to both of them they suspected from the outset: that something wasn’t right about their relationship, that Magiante wasn’t who she claimed to be. The fantastical version of the story is this: She worked for Mifsud before she and Papadopoulos ever met. She struck up an online relationship with him to monitor him or exert influence over him in some way, met him in person after his initial interviews with the FBI and Mifsud’s flight from the US, and then came to the US to become engaged to him after he was arrested and compelled to cooperate.

I strongly suspect some version of what I’m calling the fantastical version of the story is true, even though contains all sorts of logical problems itself. But there are too many parts of the story that rely on suppositions and guesswork, the sheer improbability of their supposed story. For now, we simply have suspicions and a notional story that does not add up.

No to Academic Normalization of Trump by Dani Rodrik

project-syndicate.org 

 

Dani Rodrik

6-8 minutes

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CAMBRIDGE – The University of Virginia recently faced a storm of protest after its Miller Center of Public Affairs appointed President Donald Trump’s former Director of Legislative Affairs, Marc Short, to a one-year position as Senior Fellow. Two faculty members severed ties with the center, and a petition to reverse the decision has gathered nearly 4,000 signatures. A similar protest erupted at my home institution last year, when Corey Lewandowski, a one-time campaign manager for Trump, was appointed a fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics.

The Trump administration confronts universities with a serious dilemma. On one hand, universities must be open to diverse viewpoints, including those that conflict with mainstream opinion or may seem threatening to specific groups. Students and faculty who share Trump’s viewpoint should be free to speak without censorship. Universities must remain fora for free inquiry and debate. Moreover, schools and institutes of public affairs must offer student and faculty opportunities to engage with the policymakers of the day.

On the other hand, there is the danger of normalizing and legitimizing what can only be described as an odious presidency. Trump violates on a daily basis the norms on which liberal democracy rests. He undermines freedom of the media and independence of the judiciary, upholds racism and sectarianism, and promotes prejudice. He blithely utters one falsehood after another.

Those who serve with him are necessarily tainted by the experience. Trump’s close associates and political appointees are his enablers – regardless of their personal merits and how much they try to disassociate themselves from Trump’s utterances. Qualities like “intelligence,” “effectiveness,” “integrity,” and “collegiality” – words used by Miller Center Director William J. Antholis to justify Short’s appointment – have little to commend them when they are deployed to advance an illiberal political agenda. 

The stain extends beyond political operatives and covers economic policymakers as well. Trump’s cabinet members and high-level appointees share collective responsibility for propping up a shameful presidency. They deserve opprobrium not merely because they hold cranky views on, say, the trade deficit or economic relations with China, but also, and more importantly, because their continued service makes them fully complicit in Trump’s behavior.

Academic institutions must therefore tread a narrow path. They cannot turn their backs on Trump and his entourage, nor ignore their views. Otherwise, they would be stifling debate. This would run counter to what universities stand for. As a pragmatic matter, it would also backfire, by giving the Trump camp another opportunity to demonize the “liberal elite.”

But clear rules of engagement are necessary. The most important principle to uphold is the distinction between hearing someone and honoring someone. Trump’s immediate circle and senior appointees should be welcome for discussion and debate. They should be treated in a civil manner when they show up. But they should not be accorded the degree of respect or deference that their seniority and government positions would normally merit. We do not, after all, have a normal administration that can be served honorably.

This means no honorific titles (fellow, senior fellow), no named lectures, no keynote speeches headlining conferences or events. While individual faculty members and student groups should be free to invite Trump appointees to speak on campus, as a rule such invitations should not be issued by senior university officers. And lectures and presentations should always provide an opportunity for vigorous questioning and debate.

Without two-way interaction, there is no learning or understanding; there is only preaching. Administration officials who simply want to make a statement and escape searching interrogation should not be welcome.

Students and faculty who sympathize with Trump may perceive such practices as discriminatory. But there is no conflict between encouraging free speech and exchange of views, which these rules are meant to support, and the university making its own values clear.

Like other organizations, universities have the right to determine their practices in accordance with their values. These practices may diverge from what specific subgroups within them would like to see, either because there are contending values or because there are differences on the practicalities of how to realize them.

For example, some students may believe that requirements for a certain course of study are too stringent or that examinations are a waste of time. Universities allow free debate about such matters. But they reserve the right to set the rules on concentration requirements and exams. In doing so, they send an important signal to the rest of society about their teaching philosophy and pedagogical values. 

Allowing full debate of Trumpism while refusing to honor it would be no different.

Universities should uphold both free inquiry and the values of liberal democracy. The first calls for unhindered exchange and interaction with Trumpist views. The second requires that the engagement be carefully calibrated, with not even a semblance of honor or recognition bestowed on those serving an administration that so grossly violates liberal democratic norms.