I write southern historical fiction, local history, and I've written a devotional book. The two novels I'm writing are set in Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1760s. My weekly blog started out to follow my journey as a writer and a reader, but in 2025 it has been greatly expanded to include current events and politics in the United States as I see our democracy under attack from within. The political science major in me cannot sit idly by and remain silent.
I rarely have good news to blog about, so I’m delighted to dedicate my entire post today to some good news that came from President Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) last Friday.
Photo by Mohammed Shonar on Unsplash
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has recently invited nine colleges and universities to sign a compact to change admissions policies and the way they hire faculty. By signing the compact, the colleges and universities give up their right to make public a stance on societal or political events. They must be neutral, as in no opinion, no free thinking, no thoughts whatsoever. You know, sort of like operating in an authoritarian nation.
They must also agree to define sex as “male” and “female.” They must do all this while they ensure there is “a broad spectrum of viewpoints” on their campuses. I’m not sure how you can do that while meeting the other requirements. Some of the requirements appear to negate the others.
In return for signing the compact, a college would receive preferential treatment for federal funding. It seems like a high price to pay.
Photo by Muzammil Soorma on Unsplash
On Friday, October 10, 2025, in a letter to Secretary McMahon, MIT President Sally Kornbluth rejected the promised preferential treatment and refused to sign the compact. It was reported that in her letter, Kornbluth indicated that MIT disagrees with principles set forth by the Trump Administration in the compact and signing it would restrict the school’s freedom of speech and independence.
MIT is the first of the nine colleges to respond to Secretary McMahon’s offer of preferential treatment. Other schools that received McMahon’s offer for preferential treatment in return to selling their souls to the Trump Administration include are Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Arizona, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University.
It seems to me that most of the people who have stood up to President Trump have been women. My mother would be so proud of them!
It is not humanly possible for one person to keep up with more than a fraction of the bad things that have happened this week to the American way of life. I have blogged the last two days about the demise of freedom of speech under the Trump Administration.
I will just mention three other items of concern from the last seven days.
NATO, tariffs, Russia
Trump went on a rant on social media on Saturday morning in which he laid out how he is going to blackmail all the other NATO countries into not buying any oil from Russia. He said when they all agree to that, he will in turn place sanctions on Russia.
What a lame way to announce he has no intentions of sanctioning Russia! Any former U.S. President would not have had to wait on all other NATO nations to act before he could put tariffs on Russia.
U.S. Department of Education
One of the main things Trump ran on last year was the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education. It is ironic that the more department employees they fire, the more new ideas they come up with for new programs.
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash
The illustrious U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced a new idea this week. Since her background is in the wrestling industry, I really doubt it was her idea. I think any thinking person can figure out the source of the new plans she announced on Wednesday.
McMahon said not enough young Americans love America because they don’t have any knowledge of America. (That’s a paraphrase, but you get the point.) To remedy this, the U.S. Department of Education (I guess until it no longer exists, if we can trust Trump to eliminate it) is partnering with 40 conservative organizations to create The America 250 Civics Education Coalition.
Someone apparently slipped up and told McMahon that 2026 will be the 250th birthday of the United States of America. Who knew! She is scrambling as 2025 comes to an end to teach every American student some civics next year.
The Administration that has pledged to root out all vestiges of wokeness and all vestiges of indoctrination is now partnering with the most politically and religiously conservative organizations in the country (including Turning Point USA, Turning Point Education, Hillsdale College, the America First Policy Institute, and The Heritage Foundation) to “encourage” all students in the United States from elementary school through higher education to learn about “American history, values, and geography with an unbiased approach.”
I’m trying to get my head around how one would teach geography in a biased way. I thought geography was factual. Oh, I just smacked my forehead. I just remember that I was told for 72 years that the Gulf of Mexico was the Gulf of Mexico, but President Trump renamed it this year to the Gulf of America. I guess teaching children and college students that it is the Gulf of Mexico is now considered “biased.”
I don’t want to beat a dead horse over this, so I will just leave you with a quote from Linda McMahon. Keep in mind that she is the U.S. Secretary of Education. She said the following on Wednesday in an interview with Marisa Schultz, news editor for the Washington Examiner:
“”I mean, when you have high school students that don’t know you know what those three departments of our government are for heaven sakes, they don’t know what even that you have to register to vote in different states. I mean, it is appalling the lack of knowledge that many of our students have. And so one of my initiatives is to make sure that patriotic education, even though the Department of Education does not control curriculum, we don’t hire teachers, we don’t buy books, we don’t do any of that. But let’s encourage, if we can.”
Two things jumped out at me from that quote: (1) The U.S. Secretary of Education thinks we have three “departments” in the U.S. Government and (2) The U.S. Secretary of Education has trouble forming a complete sentence.
We are doomed.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for the teaching of civics in our schools, but I’m not in favor of a lopsided, skewed right-wing white Christian view of government, history, and geography being taught.
There is no courage, bravery, or integrity in our corporate institutions. There is no courage, bravery, or integrity in our three branches of government.
By the way, Secretary McMahon, we have three branches of government, not three departments of government. Maybe you aren’t the best person to be in charge of the teaching of civics in our country. Just sayin’.
Trump and his entourage are royally treated by the King Charles
There were more cringe-worthy photographs and quotes from Trump’s trip to London this week. I cringed to see how inappropriately the First Lady and the White House Press Secretary were dressed for dinner on Wednesday night, but I also cringed to see how King Charles kowtowed to Trump.
The British Royal Family sets the bar high for decorum, and Trump trips over that bar every time he goes across the pond.
With the demise of free speech in America this week, I admit I did not pay much attention to Trump’s trip, but I understand that he announced in front of God and everybody that he was the first United States President to be invited to Great Britain.
Does he not remember that he was invited there in 2018? Is he so ignorant of history that he does not know that numerous United States Presidents have been invited to Great Britain over the centuries?
It is just one more in a long line of indications that everything is all about him. I’m hard pressed to think of anyone in the history of the world who had a bigger or more fragile ego than Donald John Trump, Sr.
What struck me this week above everything else about Trump’s trip to England was that not only do citizens of Great Britain have more freedom than American citizens to protest the U.S. President, but the press there has more freedom to ask the U.S. President pointed questions than American reporters and journalists. That alone should be what Americans are taking away from the trip.
It’s hard to feel sorry for a wealthy university like Duke University that has an enormous endowment; however, the Trump Administration’s current little-publicized attack on the institution raises a larger issue.
Duke University will survive without federal grants, at least for a while. Its endowment can pick up the slack, at least for a while.
Exterior of Duke Chapel. Photo credit: Chuck Givens on unsplash.com
The larger issue is the Trump Administration’s continual attack on education on all levels. I believe Trump has no interest in education. He has no interest in what any school, college, or university teaches. He says, “I love the uneducated.” It might be the only truth he has ever spoken.
In a democracy, a president does not dictate university admissions or curriculum in public schools or private schools. In today’s United States, though, Trump believes he has that authority.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sent Duke University a letter. Specifically, Kennedy and McMahon threatened the Duke University Medical School and Duke Health (the entire Duke Health healthcare system). If writing letters to threaten universities for having diversity, equity, and inclusion is the only thing the U.S. Department of Education is going to do now, perhaps it needs to be abolished.
The letter alleges that the medical school and healthcare system engage in “wrongful racial preferences” in hiring and admissions. The letter reportedly states, “This vile racism carries a host of excuses and hides behind a smug superiority that such ‘benefitted’ races cannot compete under merit-based consideration.”
Furthermore, the letter says, “Like all racism, ‘affirmative action’ undermines America’s commitment to merit-based justice and violates the nation’s civil rights laws.”
North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC, reports, “Kennedy and McMahon urge Duke administrators set up a ‘Merit and Civil Rights Committee’ to review its diversity policies ‘to avoid invasive federal engagement.’ The secretaries warn the university’s federal funding could be at risk if it doesn’t change course. ‘It is our hope that Duke Medical School and other components of Duke Health will either demonstrate that they merit the privilege of receiving taxpayer support or will enact reforms that make further enforcement efforts unnecessary,’ the letter said.
“McMahon and Kennedy ask the university to respond to the letter within ten business days.”
Earlier this year, nearly 600 Duke employees took voluntary buyouts after Trump slashed research funding. According to WUNC, “Cuts at the National Institutes of Health, along with reductions in Medicare/Medicaid funding could cost the university $350-600 million annually.
Duke plans to lay off more employees between August 5 and August 19.
That’s not just what Duke as an institution and business will lose: Duke Health operates Duke Children’s Hospital, Duke Health Lake Norman Hospital, Duke Raleigh Hospital, Duke Regional Hospital, and Duke University Hospital, as well as 12 urgent care facilities.
But that’s not the only attack on Duke University
The U.S. Department of Education also sent Duke University a letter last week threatening the Duke School of Law’s student-edited Law Journal.
It seems that the law students are too open to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
We have gone from recognizing that the playing field is not level to declaring that it is so level that to give anyone a hand up is a violation of everyone’s civil rights.
The playing field in the United States is not level, folks. For an alleged billionaire living in the White House to proclaim that it is level does not make it so. Someone who was born with a silver (or gold?) spoon in his mouth does not have the right to say that every person in America has an equal opportunity.
Those who say that white privilege does not exist are only fooling themselves. This falls into the category of “alternative facts” that the first Trump White House was famous for giving us.
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