Duke University plans to shed some of its faculty and staff in anticipation of actions by the Trump administration. WFAE’s Tommy Tomlinson, in his “On My Mind" commentary, says a lot of the cuts are self-inflicted.
My mama hated snakes. Once when I was a kid, and the neighbors lost their pet python, she stood on our couch until they found it. (Turns out it was under their couch.)
But it didn’t have to be a python for her to freak out. Any little garden snake would do. I’d tell her a garden snake couldn’t possibly do her any harm, and she’d reply with some south Georgia wisdom: “It won’t hurt you, but it’ll make you hurt yourself.”
Well, it feels like Duke University is more afraid of Donald Trump than my mama was of snakes.
Duke — the second-largest employer in North Carolina — announced on Thursday that it’s offering another round of faculty buyouts, on top of the buyouts offered at the end of April. It’s also likely that the university will start laying off staff, with a goal of reducing its overall budget by 10 percent.
Some of this is in reaction to actual cuts that the Trump administration has made to university research programs across the country. But it’s also in reaction to things that haven’t happened to Duke yet – potential limits to international students, threats to Duke’s nonprofit status and so forth.
Trump has gone after Harvard on similar fronts, trying to cut off the flow of money and students there. Harvard has replied, legally and otherwise, by basically telling Trump to get stuffed. (This might be the only time some of you will ever root for Harvard.)
Duke, it appears, has a less stiff spine.
Duke is sitting on an endowment of nearly $12 billion. There are restrictions on how some of that money can be spent, but it seems like at least some of that cash could be used as a rainy-day fund until the storm of this particular president blows over. Duke also has scads of wealthy alumni who could pony up a little extra to stave off buyouts and layoffs. Some of them are Trump supporters, of course — Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff, is a Dukie — but there have to be rich alums who are dismayed at what’s going on.
This fear-based leadership is a pattern all over this country, and higher education is leading the way. Both UNC Charlotte and UNC Asheville fired officials who were caught on camera by a right-wing media outlet saying they were finding ways around new rules against DEI programs. No defending them or suspending them. Just a gotcha video clip and they’re gone.
College and university administrators need to be among our strongest defenders of freedom, debate, discussion, and yes, diversity. A college education is one of the most reliable tickets ever invented to a better quality of life. Trump and his people know that, and they don’t want everybody to have a shot at those tickets.
The leaders at these universities need to take some of their own history classes. If they did, they’d know that real leaders have to stand up to pressure and fight for what they believe in. Instead, they are choosing to hurt themselves before their enemies even get the chance.
Tommy Tomlinson’s On My Mind column runs Mondays on WFAE and WFAE.org. It represents his opinion, not the opinion of WFAE. You can respond to this column in the comments section below. You can also email Tommy at ttomlinson@wfae.org.
