Columns
Federal funding cuts are only one problem facing America’s colleges and universities
December 04 ,2025
Higher education is under stress. The highest-profile threat has been
the Trump administration’s efforts to cut funding to several
universities, including Harvard, Columbia and Northwestern.
:
Roger Meiners, University of Texas at Arlington and Andrew P. Morriss, Texas A&M University; Institute for Humane Studies
(THE CONVERSATION) — Higher education is under stress. The highest-profile threat has been the Trump administration’s efforts to cut funding to several universities, including Harvard, Columbia and Northwestern.
Research universities heavily depend on federal money to conduct research and carry out other areas of work. For example, after tuition, federal money allocated for research made up 40% of the total revenue for two major research universities — Johns Hopkins University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology — in the 2022-23 academic year.
Since January 2025, the Trump administration has terminated various federal grants for universities valued between US$6.9 billion and $8.2 billion.
While there’s been a lot of public attention to the federal government’s financial pressure on universities, universities have been experiencing financial pressure from other sources.
Understanding that is key for applicants and parents to understand their bargaining position when choosing whether and where to pursue a college degree.
As scholars of public administration and economics and former university administrators, we think parents and college applicants need to understand this economic landscape to make smart choices about making such a major investment. Here are four key things to know.
—————
1. Universities are an industry
Most American private colleges and universities are nonprofits, but they still care about revenue. These schools aren’t responsible to shareholders, but they may respond to pressure from alumni, students, employees, donors, boards, the federal government and, if the schools are public universities, state governments.
And like businesses, nonprofit colleges and universities need money. As a result, despite what you might think, most colleges are not particularly selective. Though they don’t advertise that fact, hundreds of schools will take any student who meets minimal academic requirements and can pay tuition.
The added cost of teaching additional students is minimal when there are empty seats, so admitting more students can lead to an increase in revenue for most schools.
This is important because colleges’ costs – largely staff salaries and building maintenance – are hard to cut and are mostly fixed. Those costs must be spread across fewer students when there are unfilled seats.
As the number of people who go to college is declining, colleges need to respond to people’s skepticism about the value of degrees – but change is difficult.
Becoming a smaller school is challenging. If students show less interest in foreign language study and more interest in data science classes, the school cannot have a German language professor suddenly teach data science.
As a result, colleges can become stuck with faculty who teach course students don’t want to take.
Unlike business leaders, who may be rewarded for fixing a failing company by laying off workers, university leaders who eliminate faculty positions become unpopular among their peers. This can reduce their chance to advance their careers at their current universities or switch to a new school.
—————
2. Schools have to work to admit students
Colleges enrolled 8.4% fewer students in 2024 than when attendance peaked at 21 million in 2010. As a result, schools must increasingly compete harder to attract students.
One way is to offer a better price, meaning lower tuition. Like most elite schools, Harvard has a listed price of about $60,000 for tuition alone in one academic year – and nearly $87,000 when food, housing and other services are included. Few students actually pay that amount, though the exact percentage getting a discount is not public information.
The average net price a Harvard student paid in 2023-24 was $17,900, as colleges offered either financial aid, straight-up discounts or scholarships.
Most schools engage in this sort of price discrimination, the term economists use to describe charging different prices to different customers based on their willingness to pay. In some ways, this is much like airlines selling seats on the same flights at different prices.
—————
3. Schools have a declining foreign customer base
Another enrollment remedy for colleges and universities to boost tuition revenue has been focusing on admitting international students, who typically pay full price.
One-fourth of all international students in the U.S. come from China, while another quarter come from India.
Most schools have not pursued this strategy of expanding foreign enrollment as aggressively as Columbia University, where international students approach 40% of the student body.
By comparison, international undergraduate students made up 6% of Columbia’s undergraduate student population in 2000, and 12% in 2011.
But the revenue that international students generate is not a guarantee. Foreign student enrollment declined 17% from fall of 2024 to 2025.
In part, that’s because of some students’ inability to get a visa or fear their authorization to study in the U.S. will be revoked.
Rising competition from universities in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, combined with stricter U.S. visa policies and geopolitical tensions with China, have led to rapid declines in Chinese students enrolling at American schools.
The number of Chinese undergraduate and graduate students attending U.S. colleges and universities has dropped from 317,299 in 2019 to 265,919 in the 2024-25 school year.
This change has increased the financial strain on American colleges and universities, many of which have grown accustomed to having large numbers of international students who pay their own way.
—————
4. The value of the product is in question
With recent changes to federal loan forgiveness programs, some students and their parents are questioning the value of a college degree.
Just 22% of Americans said in 2024 that a college degree is worth the cost, if a student has to borrow money to get it.
The University of Texas system – made up of nine universities and four medical schools – shares information on the average income of graduates for every degree program after graduation.
In the case of the University of Texas at Arlington, the average salary for a drama, theater arts and stagecraft major is $14,933 one year after graduation. This amount goes up to $39,608 10 years after graduation, resulting in a negative $324,210 return on the price of college over that first decade.
Of course, some degrees pay off. A University of Texas at Arlington graduate with a degree in civil engineering earns an average of $67,920 one year after college and $105,377 10 years after graduation, demonstrating a positive return on investment of $1.15 million.
We believe that universities and colleges should reform to address the next generation’s uncertainty about higher education.
College applicants should be asking hard questions. What is the data on graduates’ earnings compared to the cost of their program? Where are graduates employed?
If more people treated buying a college degree with the same care they use to buy their first home – an equivalent investment – colleges and universities would feel pressure to become more transparent for students and parents. They would also become more aligned with the rapidly evolving demands of the workplace.
Research universities heavily depend on federal money to conduct research and carry out other areas of work. For example, after tuition, federal money allocated for research made up 40% of the total revenue for two major research universities — Johns Hopkins University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology — in the 2022-23 academic year.
Since January 2025, the Trump administration has terminated various federal grants for universities valued between US$6.9 billion and $8.2 billion.
While there’s been a lot of public attention to the federal government’s financial pressure on universities, universities have been experiencing financial pressure from other sources.
Understanding that is key for applicants and parents to understand their bargaining position when choosing whether and where to pursue a college degree.
As scholars of public administration and economics and former university administrators, we think parents and college applicants need to understand this economic landscape to make smart choices about making such a major investment. Here are four key things to know.
—————
1. Universities are an industry
Most American private colleges and universities are nonprofits, but they still care about revenue. These schools aren’t responsible to shareholders, but they may respond to pressure from alumni, students, employees, donors, boards, the federal government and, if the schools are public universities, state governments.
And like businesses, nonprofit colleges and universities need money. As a result, despite what you might think, most colleges are not particularly selective. Though they don’t advertise that fact, hundreds of schools will take any student who meets minimal academic requirements and can pay tuition.
The added cost of teaching additional students is minimal when there are empty seats, so admitting more students can lead to an increase in revenue for most schools.
This is important because colleges’ costs – largely staff salaries and building maintenance – are hard to cut and are mostly fixed. Those costs must be spread across fewer students when there are unfilled seats.
As the number of people who go to college is declining, colleges need to respond to people’s skepticism about the value of degrees – but change is difficult.
Becoming a smaller school is challenging. If students show less interest in foreign language study and more interest in data science classes, the school cannot have a German language professor suddenly teach data science.
As a result, colleges can become stuck with faculty who teach course students don’t want to take.
Unlike business leaders, who may be rewarded for fixing a failing company by laying off workers, university leaders who eliminate faculty positions become unpopular among their peers. This can reduce their chance to advance their careers at their current universities or switch to a new school.
—————
2. Schools have to work to admit students
Colleges enrolled 8.4% fewer students in 2024 than when attendance peaked at 21 million in 2010. As a result, schools must increasingly compete harder to attract students.
One way is to offer a better price, meaning lower tuition. Like most elite schools, Harvard has a listed price of about $60,000 for tuition alone in one academic year – and nearly $87,000 when food, housing and other services are included. Few students actually pay that amount, though the exact percentage getting a discount is not public information.
The average net price a Harvard student paid in 2023-24 was $17,900, as colleges offered either financial aid, straight-up discounts or scholarships.
Most schools engage in this sort of price discrimination, the term economists use to describe charging different prices to different customers based on their willingness to pay. In some ways, this is much like airlines selling seats on the same flights at different prices.
—————
3. Schools have a declining foreign customer base
Another enrollment remedy for colleges and universities to boost tuition revenue has been focusing on admitting international students, who typically pay full price.
One-fourth of all international students in the U.S. come from China, while another quarter come from India.
Most schools have not pursued this strategy of expanding foreign enrollment as aggressively as Columbia University, where international students approach 40% of the student body.
By comparison, international undergraduate students made up 6% of Columbia’s undergraduate student population in 2000, and 12% in 2011.
But the revenue that international students generate is not a guarantee. Foreign student enrollment declined 17% from fall of 2024 to 2025.
In part, that’s because of some students’ inability to get a visa or fear their authorization to study in the U.S. will be revoked.
Rising competition from universities in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, combined with stricter U.S. visa policies and geopolitical tensions with China, have led to rapid declines in Chinese students enrolling at American schools.
The number of Chinese undergraduate and graduate students attending U.S. colleges and universities has dropped from 317,299 in 2019 to 265,919 in the 2024-25 school year.
This change has increased the financial strain on American colleges and universities, many of which have grown accustomed to having large numbers of international students who pay their own way.
—————
4. The value of the product is in question
With recent changes to federal loan forgiveness programs, some students and their parents are questioning the value of a college degree.
Just 22% of Americans said in 2024 that a college degree is worth the cost, if a student has to borrow money to get it.
The University of Texas system – made up of nine universities and four medical schools – shares information on the average income of graduates for every degree program after graduation.
In the case of the University of Texas at Arlington, the average salary for a drama, theater arts and stagecraft major is $14,933 one year after graduation. This amount goes up to $39,608 10 years after graduation, resulting in a negative $324,210 return on the price of college over that first decade.
Of course, some degrees pay off. A University of Texas at Arlington graduate with a degree in civil engineering earns an average of $67,920 one year after college and $105,377 10 years after graduation, demonstrating a positive return on investment of $1.15 million.
We believe that universities and colleges should reform to address the next generation’s uncertainty about higher education.
College applicants should be asking hard questions. What is the data on graduates’ earnings compared to the cost of their program? Where are graduates employed?
If more people treated buying a college degree with the same care they use to buy their first home – an equivalent investment – colleges and universities would feel pressure to become more transparent for students and parents. They would also become more aligned with the rapidly evolving demands of the workplace.
Labeling dissent as terrorism: New U.S. domestic terrorism priorities raise constitutional alarms
December 04 ,2025
A largely overlooked directive issued by the Trump administration marks a
major shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, one that threatens bedrock
free speech rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
:
By Melinda Haas
University of Pittsburgh
(THE CONVERSATION) — A largely overlooked directive issued by the Trump administration marks a major shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, one that threatens bedrock free speech rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, issued on Sept. 25, 2025, is a presidential directive that for the first time appears to authorize preemptive law enforcement measures against Americans based not on whether they are planning to commit violence but for their political or ideological beliefs.
You’ve probably heard a lot about President Donald Trump’s many executive orders. But as an international relations scholar who has studied U.S. foreign policy decision-making and national security legislation, I recognize that presidents can take several types of executive actions without legislative involvement: executive orders, memoranda and proclamations.
This structure allows the president to direct law enforcement and national security agencies, with little opportunity for congressional oversight.
This seventh national security memorandum from the Trump White House pushes the limits of presidential authority by targeting individuals and groups as potential domestic terrorists based on their beliefs rather than their actions.
The memorandum represents a profound shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, one that risks undermining foundational American commitments to free speech and association.
—————
Presidential national security powers
Executive memoranda instruct government officials and agencies by delegating tasks and directing agency actions.
They can, for example, order a department to prepare reports, implement new policies, coordinate interagency efforts or review existing programs to align with the administration’s priorities.
Unlike executive orders, they are not required to be published. When these memoranda, like NSPM-7, relate to national security and military and foreign policy, they are called national security directives, although the specific name of these directives changes with each administration.
Many of these directives are classified. They may not be declassified, if at all, until years or decades after the end of the administration that issued them.
The stated purpose of NSPM-7 is to counter domestic terrorism and organized political violence, focusing mainly on perceived threats from the political left. The memorandum identifies “anti-Christian,” “anti-capitalism” or “anti-American” views as potential indicators that a group or person will commit domestic terrorism.
The memorandum claims that political violence originates with “anti-fascist” groups that hold the following views: “support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
The strategy laid out in NSPM-7 includes preemptive measures to disrupt groups before they engage in violent political acts. For example, multiagency task forces are empowered to investigate potential federal crimes related to radicalization, as well as the funders of those potential crimes.
—————
‘Domestic terrorist organizations’
The memorandum directs the Department of Justice to focus the resources of the FBI’s approximately 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces on investigating “acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons” for the purpose of “political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights; and the violent deprivation of any citizen’s rights.”
NSPM-7 also allows the attorney general to propose groups for designation as “domestic terrorist organizations.” That includes groups that engage in the following behaviors: “organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder.”
Existing laws allow the secretary of state to designate groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” that are then subject to financial sanctions.
But these laws do not permit the president to label domestic groups this way.
—————
Defining terrorism
NSPM-7 marks a major conceptual shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy. Its focus on domestic terrorism significantly departs from historical approaches that primarily targeted foreign threats.
Earlier presidential directives largely defined terrorism as a foreign threat to be countered through military power, diplomacy and international cooperation.
Since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the U.S. government had treated terrorism as a global menace to democratic institutions, emphasizing protection of citizens and allies abroad. By moving away from a traditional law enforcement framework and recasting terrorism as an act of war, the Reagan administration situated the issue within the broader realm of Cold War geopolitics and military advantage.
In the 1990s, the Clinton administration reframed terrorism as both a foreign policy and domestic security challenge, particularly after high-profile attacks such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Clinton’s policy highlighted the dangers of transnational networks and the need to defend critical infrastructure.
After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration fused counterterrorism with national defense. The Bush-initiated global war on terrorism expanded the concept of who constituted a threat to include countries that harbored or aided terrorist organizations.
The Obama administration tried to narrow and regulate those powers by embedding counterterrorism within a system of legal rules and procedures. The key question, according to the declassified guidance, was whether the targeted individuals “pose a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.”
This standard was not focused on ideology but rather on tactical considerations, such as the feasibility of capture and continued threat to U.S. interests.
For example, the lethal drone strike on al-Qaida propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki in 2011 was justified on the basis that he was actively involved in plotting attacks and remained unreachable for capture.
During the first Trump presidency, executive orders were used to change counterterrorism policy, most notably through several iterations of a “travel ban” that attempted to restrict immigration from terror-prone countries such as Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.
The Biden administration redirected attention toward preventing catastrophic threats, especially from weapons of mass destruction in the hands of groups or individuals outside of governments, such as terrorist organizations.
—————
First Amendment rights at risk
There is no single official definition of terrorism in U.S. law.
Instead, laws use different definitions based on their purpose, whether criminal law or laws relating to intelligence collection or civil liability.
Definitions in all those areas typically focus on identifying violent or dangerous acts done with the intent to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy.
But more than redefining terrorism, NSPM-7 reorients the machinery of national security toward the policing of belief.
The First Amendment generally prevents the government from punishing people for unpopular opinions. It also protects the ability for people to associate to advance public and private ideas in pursuit of political,
economic, religious or cultural goals.
The directive’s emphasis on ideological orientations – “anti-Christianity,” “anti-capitalism” and “anti-American” views – as indicators of domestic terrorism potentially jeopardizes First Amendment rights.
Thirty-one members of Congress sent a letter to Trump expressing “serious concerns” about NSPM-7, warning that it poses “serious constitutional, statutory and civil liberties risks, especially if used to target political dissent, protest or ideological speech.”
As the ACLU warns, any definition of terrorism that includes ideological components risks criminalizing people or groups based on belief rather than based on violence or other criminal conduct.
Congress has declined to create a domestic complement to the foreign terrorist designation in large part because of the potential for impinging on First Amendment–protected association and speech.
But I fear that chilling speech may be the point.
—————
Silencing dissent
NSPM-7 does not authorize new actions in the legal and institutional framework for counterterrorism. It does not criminalize previously legal conduct.
Rather, it states that the Trump administration’s investigative focus will be around the identity and ideology of supposed perpetrators. Prioritizing investigations into this broad swath of ideologies serves to instill fear, silencing anti-fascist and other messages in opposition to the Trump administration.
Law professor Steve Vladeck frames this chill as “obeying in advance,” in which organizations self-censor rather than risk investigation, prosecution or defending against the “domestic terrorist” label.
Although left-wing violence has risen in the past decade, empirical evidence proves that this violence remains at very low absolute levels, well below historical levels of right-wing or jihadist violence.
In fact, most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, and right-wing attacks account for the vast majority of fatalities from domestic terrorism.
Yet NSPM-7 focuses disproportionately on left-wing ideologies. NSPM-7 departs from prior U.S. counterterrorism frameworks by prioritizing the suppression of ideologically motivated dissent, even in the absence of concrete evidence of violent intent.
University of Pittsburgh
(THE CONVERSATION) — A largely overlooked directive issued by the Trump administration marks a major shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, one that threatens bedrock free speech rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, issued on Sept. 25, 2025, is a presidential directive that for the first time appears to authorize preemptive law enforcement measures against Americans based not on whether they are planning to commit violence but for their political or ideological beliefs.
You’ve probably heard a lot about President Donald Trump’s many executive orders. But as an international relations scholar who has studied U.S. foreign policy decision-making and national security legislation, I recognize that presidents can take several types of executive actions without legislative involvement: executive orders, memoranda and proclamations.
This structure allows the president to direct law enforcement and national security agencies, with little opportunity for congressional oversight.
This seventh national security memorandum from the Trump White House pushes the limits of presidential authority by targeting individuals and groups as potential domestic terrorists based on their beliefs rather than their actions.
The memorandum represents a profound shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, one that risks undermining foundational American commitments to free speech and association.
—————
Presidential national security powers
Executive memoranda instruct government officials and agencies by delegating tasks and directing agency actions.
They can, for example, order a department to prepare reports, implement new policies, coordinate interagency efforts or review existing programs to align with the administration’s priorities.
Unlike executive orders, they are not required to be published. When these memoranda, like NSPM-7, relate to national security and military and foreign policy, they are called national security directives, although the specific name of these directives changes with each administration.
Many of these directives are classified. They may not be declassified, if at all, until years or decades after the end of the administration that issued them.
The stated purpose of NSPM-7 is to counter domestic terrorism and organized political violence, focusing mainly on perceived threats from the political left. The memorandum identifies “anti-Christian,” “anti-capitalism” or “anti-American” views as potential indicators that a group or person will commit domestic terrorism.
The memorandum claims that political violence originates with “anti-fascist” groups that hold the following views: “support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
The strategy laid out in NSPM-7 includes preemptive measures to disrupt groups before they engage in violent political acts. For example, multiagency task forces are empowered to investigate potential federal crimes related to radicalization, as well as the funders of those potential crimes.
—————
‘Domestic terrorist organizations’
The memorandum directs the Department of Justice to focus the resources of the FBI’s approximately 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces on investigating “acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons” for the purpose of “political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights; and the violent deprivation of any citizen’s rights.”
NSPM-7 also allows the attorney general to propose groups for designation as “domestic terrorist organizations.” That includes groups that engage in the following behaviors: “organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder.”
Existing laws allow the secretary of state to designate groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” that are then subject to financial sanctions.
But these laws do not permit the president to label domestic groups this way.
—————
Defining terrorism
NSPM-7 marks a major conceptual shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy. Its focus on domestic terrorism significantly departs from historical approaches that primarily targeted foreign threats.
Earlier presidential directives largely defined terrorism as a foreign threat to be countered through military power, diplomacy and international cooperation.
Since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the U.S. government had treated terrorism as a global menace to democratic institutions, emphasizing protection of citizens and allies abroad. By moving away from a traditional law enforcement framework and recasting terrorism as an act of war, the Reagan administration situated the issue within the broader realm of Cold War geopolitics and military advantage.
In the 1990s, the Clinton administration reframed terrorism as both a foreign policy and domestic security challenge, particularly after high-profile attacks such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Clinton’s policy highlighted the dangers of transnational networks and the need to defend critical infrastructure.
After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration fused counterterrorism with national defense. The Bush-initiated global war on terrorism expanded the concept of who constituted a threat to include countries that harbored or aided terrorist organizations.
The Obama administration tried to narrow and regulate those powers by embedding counterterrorism within a system of legal rules and procedures. The key question, according to the declassified guidance, was whether the targeted individuals “pose a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.”
This standard was not focused on ideology but rather on tactical considerations, such as the feasibility of capture and continued threat to U.S. interests.
For example, the lethal drone strike on al-Qaida propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki in 2011 was justified on the basis that he was actively involved in plotting attacks and remained unreachable for capture.
During the first Trump presidency, executive orders were used to change counterterrorism policy, most notably through several iterations of a “travel ban” that attempted to restrict immigration from terror-prone countries such as Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.
The Biden administration redirected attention toward preventing catastrophic threats, especially from weapons of mass destruction in the hands of groups or individuals outside of governments, such as terrorist organizations.
—————
First Amendment rights at risk
There is no single official definition of terrorism in U.S. law.
Instead, laws use different definitions based on their purpose, whether criminal law or laws relating to intelligence collection or civil liability.
Definitions in all those areas typically focus on identifying violent or dangerous acts done with the intent to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy.
But more than redefining terrorism, NSPM-7 reorients the machinery of national security toward the policing of belief.
The First Amendment generally prevents the government from punishing people for unpopular opinions. It also protects the ability for people to associate to advance public and private ideas in pursuit of political,
economic, religious or cultural goals.
The directive’s emphasis on ideological orientations – “anti-Christianity,” “anti-capitalism” and “anti-American” views – as indicators of domestic terrorism potentially jeopardizes First Amendment rights.
Thirty-one members of Congress sent a letter to Trump expressing “serious concerns” about NSPM-7, warning that it poses “serious constitutional, statutory and civil liberties risks, especially if used to target political dissent, protest or ideological speech.”
As the ACLU warns, any definition of terrorism that includes ideological components risks criminalizing people or groups based on belief rather than based on violence or other criminal conduct.
Congress has declined to create a domestic complement to the foreign terrorist designation in large part because of the potential for impinging on First Amendment–protected association and speech.
But I fear that chilling speech may be the point.
—————
Silencing dissent
NSPM-7 does not authorize new actions in the legal and institutional framework for counterterrorism. It does not criminalize previously legal conduct.
Rather, it states that the Trump administration’s investigative focus will be around the identity and ideology of supposed perpetrators. Prioritizing investigations into this broad swath of ideologies serves to instill fear, silencing anti-fascist and other messages in opposition to the Trump administration.
Law professor Steve Vladeck frames this chill as “obeying in advance,” in which organizations self-censor rather than risk investigation, prosecution or defending against the “domestic terrorist” label.
Although left-wing violence has risen in the past decade, empirical evidence proves that this violence remains at very low absolute levels, well below historical levels of right-wing or jihadist violence.
In fact, most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, and right-wing attacks account for the vast majority of fatalities from domestic terrorism.
Yet NSPM-7 focuses disproportionately on left-wing ideologies. NSPM-7 departs from prior U.S. counterterrorism frameworks by prioritizing the suppression of ideologically motivated dissent, even in the absence of concrete evidence of violent intent.
Ranked choice voting outperforms the winner-take-all system used to elect nearly every U.S. politician
December 03 ,2025
American democracy is straining under countless pressures, many of them
rooted in structural problems that go back to the nation’s founding.
:
Ismar Volic and Andy Schultz, Wellesley College
and David McCune, William Jewel College
and David McCune, William Jewel College
(THE CONVERSATION) — American democracy is straining under countless pressures, many of them rooted in structural problems that go back to the nation’s founding. Chief among them is the “pick one” plurality voting system – also called winner-take-all – used to elect nearly all of the 520,000 government officials in the United States.
In this system, voters select one candidate, and the candidate who receives the highest number of votes wins.
Plurality voting is notorious for producing winners without majority support in races that have more than two candidates. It can also create spoilers, or losing candidates whose presence in a race alters the outcome, as Ralph Nader’s did in the 2000 presidential election. And it can result in vote-splitting, where similar candidates divide support, paving the way for a less popular winner. This happened in the 2016 Republican primaries when Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and John Kasich split the anti-Donald Trump vote.
Plurality can also encourage dishonest voting. That happens when voters are pressured to abandon their favorite candidate for one they like less but think can win. In the 2024 elections, for example, voters whose preference for president was Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, might have instead cast their vote for Democrat Kamala Harris.
An increasingly well-known alternative to plurality voting is ranked choice voting. It’s used statewide in Maine and Alaska and in dozens of municipalities, including New York City.
—————
Better performance
Whereas plurality voting allows voters to select only one candidate, ranked choice lets them rank candidates. If a candidate secures a majority of first-place rankings, they are the winner just like they would be under plurality.
But the two systems diverge when there is no majority winner. Plurality simply chooses the candidates with the most first-place votes, while ranked choice voting eliminates the person with the fewest first-place votes and transfers their votes to the next candidate on each ballot. The process is repeated until there is a majority winner.
Ranked choice voting makes use of more information from the voters than plurality, but does it avoid some of the problems plurality suffers from?
We are a team of mathematicians who recently concluded a study aimed at answering this and related questions. We analyzed some 2,000 ranked choice elections from the U.S., Australia and Scotland. We supplemented those real-world results with 60 million simulated elections.
The results were clear: Ranked choice voting performed much better across all the measures we tested, including spoiler, vote-splitting, strength of candidates and strategic voting.
—————
Empowering voters
Plurality voting produced a spoiler up to 15 times more often than ranked choice voting. And it was 50% more likely to elect an extreme candidate. Plurality, furthermore, was highly susceptible to vote-splitting, while ranked choice voting was nearly impervious to it.
Ranked choice voting picked strong candidates up to 18 times more frequently than plurality voting, where by “strong” we mean candidates who received many first-place votes and also had broad support, even among their noncore supporters. This method also rarely elects a weak or fringe candidate and typically elects a candidate near the electorate’s ideological center.
Ranked choice voting is also more resistant to various forms of strategic behavior such as bullet voting, where voters choose only one candidate despite the ability to rank more, and burying, where voters disingenuously rank an alternative candidate lower in the hopes of defeating them.
Our research also studied the ways in which election systems can influence behavior. In a plurality election, voters are afraid that their ballot could be “wasted” on a candidate who doesn’t have a shot at winning, or that they might contribute to a spoiler. Our study shows that ranked choice voting largely avoids these pitfalls, empowering voters to express their true preferences rather than being strategic.
We found that candidates in ranked choice voting elections do best when they adopt the policies the greatest number of people support, meeting the voters where they are.
In Alaska’s 2022 special U.S. House election, for example, Democrat Mary Peltola positioned herself firmly within Alaska’s center-left base – while still embracing some positions considered conservative outside of Alaska. She won by garnering enough second-place votes from supporters of Republican Nick Begich.
And in the New York mayoral primary in June 2025, Zohran Mamdani won by creating a coalition with another progressive candidate, Brad Lander, and occupying a progressive space representing a range of voters.
The Alaska and New York examples highlight some differences with plurality voting, which often favors appealing to a narrow base without the necessity of reaching out beyond it.
—————
Mending a broken system
A mathematically interesting feature of Alaska’s 2022 special U.S. House election is that Begich beat both Peltola and Republican Sarah Palin in head-to-head contests – meaning that more people ranked Begich above Peltola than the other way around – but lost the ranked choice voting election to Peltola.
Critics seize on such cases as reasons to avoid ranked choice voting. But our work shows that these are statistical outliers, occurring fewer than 1% of the time.
Overall, our research shows that ranked choice voting elects candidates with broader support and greater democratic legitimacy than plurality. It therefore seems sensible that voting reform advocates continue to pursue this method as an alternative to plurality voting.
At a time when Americans are losing faith in democracy, voters cannot afford systems that hand victory to unrepresentative candidates and force them to play tactical games. The math is in, and the evidence is overwhelming: Plurality voting is broken. Ranked choice voting will not solve every democratic ailment, but it is a good step toward mending them.
In this system, voters select one candidate, and the candidate who receives the highest number of votes wins.
Plurality voting is notorious for producing winners without majority support in races that have more than two candidates. It can also create spoilers, or losing candidates whose presence in a race alters the outcome, as Ralph Nader’s did in the 2000 presidential election. And it can result in vote-splitting, where similar candidates divide support, paving the way for a less popular winner. This happened in the 2016 Republican primaries when Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and John Kasich split the anti-Donald Trump vote.
Plurality can also encourage dishonest voting. That happens when voters are pressured to abandon their favorite candidate for one they like less but think can win. In the 2024 elections, for example, voters whose preference for president was Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, might have instead cast their vote for Democrat Kamala Harris.
An increasingly well-known alternative to plurality voting is ranked choice voting. It’s used statewide in Maine and Alaska and in dozens of municipalities, including New York City.
—————
Better performance
Whereas plurality voting allows voters to select only one candidate, ranked choice lets them rank candidates. If a candidate secures a majority of first-place rankings, they are the winner just like they would be under plurality.
But the two systems diverge when there is no majority winner. Plurality simply chooses the candidates with the most first-place votes, while ranked choice voting eliminates the person with the fewest first-place votes and transfers their votes to the next candidate on each ballot. The process is repeated until there is a majority winner.
Ranked choice voting makes use of more information from the voters than plurality, but does it avoid some of the problems plurality suffers from?
We are a team of mathematicians who recently concluded a study aimed at answering this and related questions. We analyzed some 2,000 ranked choice elections from the U.S., Australia and Scotland. We supplemented those real-world results with 60 million simulated elections.
The results were clear: Ranked choice voting performed much better across all the measures we tested, including spoiler, vote-splitting, strength of candidates and strategic voting.
—————
Empowering voters
Plurality voting produced a spoiler up to 15 times more often than ranked choice voting. And it was 50% more likely to elect an extreme candidate. Plurality, furthermore, was highly susceptible to vote-splitting, while ranked choice voting was nearly impervious to it.
Ranked choice voting picked strong candidates up to 18 times more frequently than plurality voting, where by “strong” we mean candidates who received many first-place votes and also had broad support, even among their noncore supporters. This method also rarely elects a weak or fringe candidate and typically elects a candidate near the electorate’s ideological center.
Ranked choice voting is also more resistant to various forms of strategic behavior such as bullet voting, where voters choose only one candidate despite the ability to rank more, and burying, where voters disingenuously rank an alternative candidate lower in the hopes of defeating them.
Our research also studied the ways in which election systems can influence behavior. In a plurality election, voters are afraid that their ballot could be “wasted” on a candidate who doesn’t have a shot at winning, or that they might contribute to a spoiler. Our study shows that ranked choice voting largely avoids these pitfalls, empowering voters to express their true preferences rather than being strategic.
We found that candidates in ranked choice voting elections do best when they adopt the policies the greatest number of people support, meeting the voters where they are.
In Alaska’s 2022 special U.S. House election, for example, Democrat Mary Peltola positioned herself firmly within Alaska’s center-left base – while still embracing some positions considered conservative outside of Alaska. She won by garnering enough second-place votes from supporters of Republican Nick Begich.
And in the New York mayoral primary in June 2025, Zohran Mamdani won by creating a coalition with another progressive candidate, Brad Lander, and occupying a progressive space representing a range of voters.
The Alaska and New York examples highlight some differences with plurality voting, which often favors appealing to a narrow base without the necessity of reaching out beyond it.
—————
Mending a broken system
A mathematically interesting feature of Alaska’s 2022 special U.S. House election is that Begich beat both Peltola and Republican Sarah Palin in head-to-head contests – meaning that more people ranked Begich above Peltola than the other way around – but lost the ranked choice voting election to Peltola.
Critics seize on such cases as reasons to avoid ranked choice voting. But our work shows that these are statistical outliers, occurring fewer than 1% of the time.
Overall, our research shows that ranked choice voting elects candidates with broader support and greater democratic legitimacy than plurality. It therefore seems sensible that voting reform advocates continue to pursue this method as an alternative to plurality voting.
At a time when Americans are losing faith in democracy, voters cannot afford systems that hand victory to unrepresentative candidates and force them to play tactical games. The math is in, and the evidence is overwhelming: Plurality voting is broken. Ranked choice voting will not solve every democratic ailment, but it is a good step toward mending them.
Larry Summers’ sexism is jeopardizing his power and privilege, but the entire economics profession hinders progress for women
December 03 ,2025
House lawmakers released damning correspondence between economist Larry
Summers and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Nov. 12,
2025.
:
By Yana van der Meulen Rodgers
Rutgers University
(THE CONVERSATION) — House lawmakers released damning correspondence between economist Larry Summers and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Nov. 12, 2025.
The exchanges, which were among more than 20,000 newly released public documents, documented how Summers – a former U.S. Treasury secretary and Harvard University president – repeatedly sought Epstein’s advice while pursuing an intimate relationship with a woman he was mentoring.
The two men exchanged texts and emails until July 5, 2019, the day before Epstein was arrested on federal charges of the sex trafficking of minors. That was more than a decade after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a girl who was under 18. Epstein died by suicide that August, while in jail.
“As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement,” Summers wrote in a statement to The Crimson, Harvard’s newspaper, after the documents came to light. “I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” he said in another statement.
The texts have ignited a new round of scrutiny of Summers and calls for Harvard to revoke his tenure.
—————
Prestigious career is unraveling
These revelations are leading to the unraveling of Summers’ prestigious career.
The 70-year-old economist went on leave from teaching at Harvard on Nov. 19. He has also stepped down from several boards on which he was serving, including Yale University’s Budget Lab, OpenAI and two think tanks – the Center for American Progress and the Center for Global Development.
In addition, Harvard has launched an investigation into whether Summers and other people affiliated with the university broke university policies through their interactions with Epstein and should be subject to disciplinary action.
Many organizations have severed their ties with Summers. Summers’ withdrawal from public commitments include his role as a paid contributor to Bloomberg TV and as a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. He also withdrew from the Group of 30, an international group of financial and economics experts.
—————
Choice of a wingman was problematic
The correspondence that surfaced in late 2025 indicated that the prominent economist had engaged in more than casual banter with a convicted sex criminal.
Epstein called himself Summers’ “wing man.” Summers asked Epstein about “getting horizontal” with his mentee – a female economist who had studied at Harvard. And, not for the first time, Summers questioned the intelligence of women.
Summers, who is one of the nation’s most influential economists, also complained about the growing intolerance among the “American elite” of sexual misconduct.
These comments call into question Summers’ judgment, behavior and beliefs and the power dynamics between him and the women he has mentored.
As a female economist and a board member of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, I wasn’t surprised by the latest revelations, shocking as they may appear.
After all, it was Summers’ disparaging remarks about what he said was women’s relative inability to do math that led him to relinquish the Harvard presidency in 2006. And researchers have been documenting for years the gender bias that pervades the profession of economics.
—————
A leaky pipeline in higher education
Summers taught my first-year Ph.D. macroeconomics course before he became a prominent policymaker during the Clinton administration, and he advised me during his office hours.
Thankfully I did not experience any sexual harassment, but as an economics doctoral candidate at Harvard in the late 1980s, I did gain firsthand insight into the elitist culture of the nation’s top economics program.
Back then, only about 1 in 5 of the people who earned a Ph.D. in economics in the U.S. were women. This percentage rose to 30.5% by 1995 and has barely budged since then.
In 2024, according to the National Science Foundation, 34.2% of newly minted economics Ph.D.s – about 1 in 3 – in the U.S. were women, a considerably lower share than in other social sciences, business, the humanities and science.
After earning doctoral degrees in economics, women face a leaky pipeline in the tenure track, the highest-paid, most secure and prestigious academic jobs. The higher the rank, the lower the representation of women.
In 2024, 34% of assistant professors in economics were women, but only 28% of tenured associate professors – the next step on the ladder – were women. And just 18% of tenured full professors in economics were women.
The gender gap is wider in influential positions, such as economics department chairs and the editorial board members of economics journals. As of 2019, only 24% of the 55,035 editorial board members of economics journals were women. A brief look at the websites of the top 10 economics departments in late 2025 indicates that only one of those 10 department chairs is a woman.
Publication patterns also reflect this inequality. Women are substantially underrepresented as authors in the top economics journals, and this imbalance is not explained by quality differences. Rather, studies have found that women face higher hurdles in peer review, departmental support and finding productive co-authors.
—————
Chilly climate
The data paints a clear picture of systemic bias in the profession’s practices and culture. That bias influences who succeeds and who is sidelined.
A 2019 survey by the American Economic Association, a professional association for economists, documented widespread sexual discrimination and harassment. Almost half of the women surveyed among the association’s members said that they had experienced sexual discrimination that interfered with their careers in some way, and 43% reported having experienced offensive sexual behavior from another economist.
A follow-up survey in 2023 indicated that the association’s new initiatives to improve the professional climate had resulted in little improvement.
—————
Beyond academia
Economists can influence policymakers’ decisions on interest rates, taxation and social spending. In turn, the underrepresentation of women in economics can hamper policymaking by limiting the range of perspectives that inform economic decisions.
Researchers have found that arguments from female economists are roughly 20% more persuasive in shaping public opinion than identical arguments from men.
And yet the gender gap still pervades economics outside academia. At the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, for example, women constituted just 23% of 411 research track economists in 2022.
—————
Following its own code of conduct
“Economists have a professional obligation to conduct civil and respectful discourse in all forums,” the American Economic Association’s code of conduct states. The code gives
organizations in economics a clear basis for deciding whether to keep or cut ties with Summers.
The Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession has called for all economic institutions to undertake investigations into Summers’ conduct.
As of early December, the extent to which economic journals and other economics groups are responding to the controversy was still unclear.
I believe that eliminating inequity in economics would take more than an investigation of Summers’ conduct. In my view, institutions and professional associations, including the American Economic Association, should strengthen and enforce codes of conduct that cover harassment, conflicts of interest and misuse of mentorship roles.
In addition, I think that Summers’ ties to Epstein are a powerful reminder of why university economics departments need clearer standards and more transparency in hiring, promotions and leadership appointments. Strengthening those standards would help them root out the sexism and other forms of elitism that have historically marked the profession so that academic success is driven more by merit than self-perpetuating privilege.
It makes little sense to me that the economics profession is claiming to wield authority while tolerating inequity and ethical lapses. Taking these steps toward greater accountability would help to restore trust.
Rutgers University
(THE CONVERSATION) — House lawmakers released damning correspondence between economist Larry Summers and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Nov. 12, 2025.
The exchanges, which were among more than 20,000 newly released public documents, documented how Summers – a former U.S. Treasury secretary and Harvard University president – repeatedly sought Epstein’s advice while pursuing an intimate relationship with a woman he was mentoring.
The two men exchanged texts and emails until July 5, 2019, the day before Epstein was arrested on federal charges of the sex trafficking of minors. That was more than a decade after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a girl who was under 18. Epstein died by suicide that August, while in jail.
“As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement,” Summers wrote in a statement to The Crimson, Harvard’s newspaper, after the documents came to light. “I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” he said in another statement.
The texts have ignited a new round of scrutiny of Summers and calls for Harvard to revoke his tenure.
—————
Prestigious career is unraveling
These revelations are leading to the unraveling of Summers’ prestigious career.
The 70-year-old economist went on leave from teaching at Harvard on Nov. 19. He has also stepped down from several boards on which he was serving, including Yale University’s Budget Lab, OpenAI and two think tanks – the Center for American Progress and the Center for Global Development.
In addition, Harvard has launched an investigation into whether Summers and other people affiliated with the university broke university policies through their interactions with Epstein and should be subject to disciplinary action.
Many organizations have severed their ties with Summers. Summers’ withdrawal from public commitments include his role as a paid contributor to Bloomberg TV and as a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. He also withdrew from the Group of 30, an international group of financial and economics experts.
—————
Choice of a wingman was problematic
The correspondence that surfaced in late 2025 indicated that the prominent economist had engaged in more than casual banter with a convicted sex criminal.
Epstein called himself Summers’ “wing man.” Summers asked Epstein about “getting horizontal” with his mentee – a female economist who had studied at Harvard. And, not for the first time, Summers questioned the intelligence of women.
Summers, who is one of the nation’s most influential economists, also complained about the growing intolerance among the “American elite” of sexual misconduct.
These comments call into question Summers’ judgment, behavior and beliefs and the power dynamics between him and the women he has mentored.
As a female economist and a board member of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, I wasn’t surprised by the latest revelations, shocking as they may appear.
After all, it was Summers’ disparaging remarks about what he said was women’s relative inability to do math that led him to relinquish the Harvard presidency in 2006. And researchers have been documenting for years the gender bias that pervades the profession of economics.
—————
A leaky pipeline in higher education
Summers taught my first-year Ph.D. macroeconomics course before he became a prominent policymaker during the Clinton administration, and he advised me during his office hours.
Thankfully I did not experience any sexual harassment, but as an economics doctoral candidate at Harvard in the late 1980s, I did gain firsthand insight into the elitist culture of the nation’s top economics program.
Back then, only about 1 in 5 of the people who earned a Ph.D. in economics in the U.S. were women. This percentage rose to 30.5% by 1995 and has barely budged since then.
In 2024, according to the National Science Foundation, 34.2% of newly minted economics Ph.D.s – about 1 in 3 – in the U.S. were women, a considerably lower share than in other social sciences, business, the humanities and science.
After earning doctoral degrees in economics, women face a leaky pipeline in the tenure track, the highest-paid, most secure and prestigious academic jobs. The higher the rank, the lower the representation of women.
In 2024, 34% of assistant professors in economics were women, but only 28% of tenured associate professors – the next step on the ladder – were women. And just 18% of tenured full professors in economics were women.
The gender gap is wider in influential positions, such as economics department chairs and the editorial board members of economics journals. As of 2019, only 24% of the 55,035 editorial board members of economics journals were women. A brief look at the websites of the top 10 economics departments in late 2025 indicates that only one of those 10 department chairs is a woman.
Publication patterns also reflect this inequality. Women are substantially underrepresented as authors in the top economics journals, and this imbalance is not explained by quality differences. Rather, studies have found that women face higher hurdles in peer review, departmental support and finding productive co-authors.
—————
Chilly climate
The data paints a clear picture of systemic bias in the profession’s practices and culture. That bias influences who succeeds and who is sidelined.
A 2019 survey by the American Economic Association, a professional association for economists, documented widespread sexual discrimination and harassment. Almost half of the women surveyed among the association’s members said that they had experienced sexual discrimination that interfered with their careers in some way, and 43% reported having experienced offensive sexual behavior from another economist.
A follow-up survey in 2023 indicated that the association’s new initiatives to improve the professional climate had resulted in little improvement.
—————
Beyond academia
Economists can influence policymakers’ decisions on interest rates, taxation and social spending. In turn, the underrepresentation of women in economics can hamper policymaking by limiting the range of perspectives that inform economic decisions.
Researchers have found that arguments from female economists are roughly 20% more persuasive in shaping public opinion than identical arguments from men.
And yet the gender gap still pervades economics outside academia. At the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, for example, women constituted just 23% of 411 research track economists in 2022.
—————
Following its own code of conduct
“Economists have a professional obligation to conduct civil and respectful discourse in all forums,” the American Economic Association’s code of conduct states. The code gives
organizations in economics a clear basis for deciding whether to keep or cut ties with Summers.
The Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession has called for all economic institutions to undertake investigations into Summers’ conduct.
As of early December, the extent to which economic journals and other economics groups are responding to the controversy was still unclear.
I believe that eliminating inequity in economics would take more than an investigation of Summers’ conduct. In my view, institutions and professional associations, including the American Economic Association, should strengthen and enforce codes of conduct that cover harassment, conflicts of interest and misuse of mentorship roles.
In addition, I think that Summers’ ties to Epstein are a powerful reminder of why university economics departments need clearer standards and more transparency in hiring, promotions and leadership appointments. Strengthening those standards would help them root out the sexism and other forms of elitism that have historically marked the profession so that academic success is driven more by merit than self-perpetuating privilege.
It makes little sense to me that the economics profession is claiming to wield authority while tolerating inequity and ethical lapses. Taking these steps toward greater accountability would help to restore trust.
First Amendment in flux: When free speech protections came up against the Red Scare
December 02 ,2025
As the United States faces increasing incidents of book banning and
threats of governmental intervention – as seen in the temporary
suspension of TV host Jimmy Kimmel – the common reflex for many who want
to safeguard free expression is to turn to the First Amendment and its
free speech protections.
:
Jodie Childers
University of Virginia
(THE CONVERSATION) — As the United States faces increasing incidents of book banning and threats of governmental intervention – as seen in the temporary suspension of TV host Jimmy Kimmel – the common reflex for many who want to safeguard free expression is to turn to the First Amendment and its free speech protections.
Yet, the First Amendment has not always been potent enough to protect the right to speak. The Cold War presented one such moment in American history, when the freedom of political expression collided with paranoia over communist infiltration.
In 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed 10 screenwriters and directors to testify about their union membership and alleged communist associations. Labeled the Hollywood Ten, the defiant witnesses – Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo – refused to answer questions on First Amendment grounds. During his dramatic testimony, Lawson proclaimed his intent “to fight for the Bill of Rights,” which he argued the committee “was trying to destroy.”
They were all cited for contempt of Congress. Eight were sentenced to a year in federal prison, and two received six-month terms. Upon their release, they faced blacklisting in the industry. Some, like writer Dalton Trumbo, temporarily left the country.
As a researcher focused on the cultural cold war, I have examined the role the First Amendment played in the anti-communist hearings during the 1940s and ‘50s.
The conviction and incarceration of the Hollywood Ten left a chilling effect on subsequent witnesses called to appear before congressional committees. It also established a period of repression historians now refer to as the Second Red Scare.
Although the freedom of speech is enshrined in the Constitution and prized by Americans, the story of the Second Red Scare shows that this freedom is even more fragile than it may now seem.
—————
The Fifth Amendment communists
After the 1947 hearings, the term “unfriendly” became a label applied by the House Un-American Activities Committee and the press to the Hollywood Ten and any witnesses who refused to cooperate with the committee. These witnesses, who wanted to avoid the fate of the Hollywood Ten, began to shift away from the First Amendment as a legal strategy.
They chose instead to plead the Fifth Amendment, which grants people the right to protect themselves from self-incrimination. Many prominent artists during the 1950s, including playwright Lillian Hellman and singer and activist Paul Robeson, opted to invoke the Fifth when called before the committee and asked about their political affiliations.
The Fifth Amendment shielded hundreds of “unfriendly” witnesses from imprisonment, including artists, teachers and federal workers. However, it did not save them from job loss and blacklisting.
While they could avoid contempt citations by pleading the Fifth, they could not erase the stain of perceived guilt. This legal approach became so widespread that U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the country’s leading anti-communist crusader, disparaged these witnesses as “Fifth Amendment Communists” and boasted of purging their ranks from the federal government.
—————
From Fifth back to First
In 1953, the physicist Albert Einstein became instrumental in revitalizing the force of the First Amendment as a rhetorical and legal tactic in the congressional hearings. Having fled Germany after the Nazis came to power, Einstein took a position at Princeton in 1933 and became an important voice in American politics.
Einstein’s philosophical battle against McCarthyism began with a letter to a Brooklyn high school teacher named William Frauenglass.
In April of that year, Frauenglass was subpoenaed to appear before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, “the Senate counterpart” of the House Un-American Activities Committee, to testify about his involvement in an intercultural education seminar. After the hearing, in which Frauenglass declined to speak about his political affiliations, he risked potential termination from his position and wrote to Einstein seeking support.
In his response, Einstein urged Frauenglass and all intellectuals to enact a “revolutionary” form of complete “noncooperation” with the committee.
While Einstein advised noncompliance, he also acknowledged the potential risk: “Every intellectual who is called before one of the committees ought to refuse to testify, i.e., he must be prepared for jail and economic ruin, in short, for the sacrifice of his personal welfare in the interest of the cultural welfare of his country.”
Frauenglass shared his story with the press, and Einstein’s letter was published in full in The New York Times on June 12, 1953. It was also quoted in local papers around the country.
One week later, Frauenglass was fired from his job.
After learning about Einstein’s public position, McCarthy labeled the Nobel laureate “an enemy of America.” That didn’t stop Einstein’s campaign for freedom of expression. He continued to encourage witnesses to rely on the First Amendment.
When the engineer Albert Shadowitz received a subpoena in 1953 to appear before McCarthy’s Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, to answer questions about alleged ties to the Communist Party, he traveled to Einstein’s home to seek out the physicist’s advice. After consulting with Einstein, Shadowitz opted for the First Amendment over the Fifth Amendment.
On Dec. 16, 1953, Shadowitz informed the committee that he had received counsel from Einstein. He then voiced his opposition to the hearing on the grounds of the First Amendment: “I will refuse to answer any question which invades my rights to think as I please or which violates my guarantees of free speech and association.”
He was cited for contempt in August 1954 and indicted that November, facing a potential year in prison and US$1,000 fine. As an indicator of McCarthy’s diminishing power, the charge was thrown out in July 1955 by a federal judge.
—————
The triumph of dissent
Well-known public figures also began to turn away from the Fifth Amendment as a legal tactic and to draw on the First Amendment.
In August 1955, when the folk musician Pete Seeger testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he voiced his rejection of the Fifth Amendment defense during the hearing. Seeger asserted that he wanted to use his testimony to call into question the nature of the inquiry altogether.
Pleading the protection of the First Amendment, Seeger refused “to answer any questions” related to his “political beliefs” and instead interrogated the committee’s right to ask such questions “under such compulsion as this.”
When the playwright Arthur Miller was subpoenaed by the committee in 1956, he also refused to invoke the Fifth. Both were cited for contempt. Seeger was sentenced to a year in prison. Miller was given the option to pay a $500 dollar fine or spend 30 days in jail.
As Seeger and Miller fought their appeals in court, McCarthy’s popularity continued to wane, and public sentiment began to shift.
Prompted by Einstein, the noncompliant witnesses in the 1950s reshaped the public discussion, refocusing the conversation on the importance of freedom of expression rather than the fears of imagined communist infiltration.
Although the First Amendment failed to keep the Hollywood Ten out of prison, it ultimately prevailed. Unlike the Hollywood Ten, both Miller and Seeger won their appeals. Miller spent no time in prison and Seeger only one day in jail. Miller’s conviction was reversed in 1958, Seeger’s in 1962. The Second Red Scare was over.
As the Second Red Scare shows, when free speech is under attack, strategic compliance may be useful for individuals. However, bold and courageous acts of dissent are critical for protecting First Amendment rights for everyone.
Yet, the First Amendment has not always been potent enough to protect the right to speak. The Cold War presented one such moment in American history, when the freedom of political expression collided with paranoia over communist infiltration.
In 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed 10 screenwriters and directors to testify about their union membership and alleged communist associations. Labeled the Hollywood Ten, the defiant witnesses – Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo – refused to answer questions on First Amendment grounds. During his dramatic testimony, Lawson proclaimed his intent “to fight for the Bill of Rights,” which he argued the committee “was trying to destroy.”
They were all cited for contempt of Congress. Eight were sentenced to a year in federal prison, and two received six-month terms. Upon their release, they faced blacklisting in the industry. Some, like writer Dalton Trumbo, temporarily left the country.
As a researcher focused on the cultural cold war, I have examined the role the First Amendment played in the anti-communist hearings during the 1940s and ‘50s.
The conviction and incarceration of the Hollywood Ten left a chilling effect on subsequent witnesses called to appear before congressional committees. It also established a period of repression historians now refer to as the Second Red Scare.
Although the freedom of speech is enshrined in the Constitution and prized by Americans, the story of the Second Red Scare shows that this freedom is even more fragile than it may now seem.
—————
The Fifth Amendment communists
After the 1947 hearings, the term “unfriendly” became a label applied by the House Un-American Activities Committee and the press to the Hollywood Ten and any witnesses who refused to cooperate with the committee. These witnesses, who wanted to avoid the fate of the Hollywood Ten, began to shift away from the First Amendment as a legal strategy.
They chose instead to plead the Fifth Amendment, which grants people the right to protect themselves from self-incrimination. Many prominent artists during the 1950s, including playwright Lillian Hellman and singer and activist Paul Robeson, opted to invoke the Fifth when called before the committee and asked about their political affiliations.
The Fifth Amendment shielded hundreds of “unfriendly” witnesses from imprisonment, including artists, teachers and federal workers. However, it did not save them from job loss and blacklisting.
While they could avoid contempt citations by pleading the Fifth, they could not erase the stain of perceived guilt. This legal approach became so widespread that U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the country’s leading anti-communist crusader, disparaged these witnesses as “Fifth Amendment Communists” and boasted of purging their ranks from the federal government.
—————
From Fifth back to First
In 1953, the physicist Albert Einstein became instrumental in revitalizing the force of the First Amendment as a rhetorical and legal tactic in the congressional hearings. Having fled Germany after the Nazis came to power, Einstein took a position at Princeton in 1933 and became an important voice in American politics.
Einstein’s philosophical battle against McCarthyism began with a letter to a Brooklyn high school teacher named William Frauenglass.
In April of that year, Frauenglass was subpoenaed to appear before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, “the Senate counterpart” of the House Un-American Activities Committee, to testify about his involvement in an intercultural education seminar. After the hearing, in which Frauenglass declined to speak about his political affiliations, he risked potential termination from his position and wrote to Einstein seeking support.
In his response, Einstein urged Frauenglass and all intellectuals to enact a “revolutionary” form of complete “noncooperation” with the committee.
While Einstein advised noncompliance, he also acknowledged the potential risk: “Every intellectual who is called before one of the committees ought to refuse to testify, i.e., he must be prepared for jail and economic ruin, in short, for the sacrifice of his personal welfare in the interest of the cultural welfare of his country.”
Frauenglass shared his story with the press, and Einstein’s letter was published in full in The New York Times on June 12, 1953. It was also quoted in local papers around the country.
One week later, Frauenglass was fired from his job.
After learning about Einstein’s public position, McCarthy labeled the Nobel laureate “an enemy of America.” That didn’t stop Einstein’s campaign for freedom of expression. He continued to encourage witnesses to rely on the First Amendment.
When the engineer Albert Shadowitz received a subpoena in 1953 to appear before McCarthy’s Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, to answer questions about alleged ties to the Communist Party, he traveled to Einstein’s home to seek out the physicist’s advice. After consulting with Einstein, Shadowitz opted for the First Amendment over the Fifth Amendment.
On Dec. 16, 1953, Shadowitz informed the committee that he had received counsel from Einstein. He then voiced his opposition to the hearing on the grounds of the First Amendment: “I will refuse to answer any question which invades my rights to think as I please or which violates my guarantees of free speech and association.”
He was cited for contempt in August 1954 and indicted that November, facing a potential year in prison and US$1,000 fine. As an indicator of McCarthy’s diminishing power, the charge was thrown out in July 1955 by a federal judge.
—————
The triumph of dissent
Well-known public figures also began to turn away from the Fifth Amendment as a legal tactic and to draw on the First Amendment.
In August 1955, when the folk musician Pete Seeger testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he voiced his rejection of the Fifth Amendment defense during the hearing. Seeger asserted that he wanted to use his testimony to call into question the nature of the inquiry altogether.
Pleading the protection of the First Amendment, Seeger refused “to answer any questions” related to his “political beliefs” and instead interrogated the committee’s right to ask such questions “under such compulsion as this.”
When the playwright Arthur Miller was subpoenaed by the committee in 1956, he also refused to invoke the Fifth. Both were cited for contempt. Seeger was sentenced to a year in prison. Miller was given the option to pay a $500 dollar fine or spend 30 days in jail.
As Seeger and Miller fought their appeals in court, McCarthy’s popularity continued to wane, and public sentiment began to shift.
Prompted by Einstein, the noncompliant witnesses in the 1950s reshaped the public discussion, refocusing the conversation on the importance of freedom of expression rather than the fears of imagined communist infiltration.
Although the First Amendment failed to keep the Hollywood Ten out of prison, it ultimately prevailed. Unlike the Hollywood Ten, both Miller and Seeger won their appeals. Miller spent no time in prison and Seeger only one day in jail. Miller’s conviction was reversed in 1958, Seeger’s in 1962. The Second Red Scare was over.
As the Second Red Scare shows, when free speech is under attack, strategic compliance may be useful for individuals. However, bold and courageous acts of dissent are critical for protecting First Amendment rights for everyone.
Speaker Johnson’s choice to lead by following the president goes against 200 years of House speakers building up the office’s power
December 02 ,2025
When the framers of what became the U.S. Constitution set out to draft
the rules of our government on a hot, humid day in the summer of 1787,
debates over details raged on.
:
By SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor
University of Virginia
(THE CONVERSATION) — When the framers of what became the U.S. Constitution set out to draft the rules of our government on a hot, humid day in the summer of 1787, debates over details raged on.
But one thing the men agreed on was the power of a new, representative legislative branch. Article I – the first one, after all – details the awesome responsibilities of the House of Representatives and the Senate: power to levy taxes, fund the government, declare war, impeach justices and presidents, and approve treaties, among many, many others.
In comparison, Article II, detailing the responsibilities of the president, and Article III, detailing the Supreme Court, are rather brief – further deferring to the preferred branch, Congress, for actual policymaking.
At the helm of this new legislative centerpiece, there was only one leadership requirement: The House of Representatives must select a speaker of the House.
The position, modeled after parliamentary leaders in the British House of Commons, was meant to act as a nonpartisan moderator and referee. The framers famously disliked political parties, and they knew the importance of building coalitions to solve the young nation’s vast policy problems.
But this idealistic vision for leadership quickly dissolved.
The current speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, holds a position that has strayed dramatically from this nonpartisan vision. Today, the leadership role is far more than legislative manager – it is a powerful, party-centric position that controls nearly every aspect of House activity.
And while most speakers have used their tenure to strengthen the position and the power of Congress as a whole, Johnson’s choice to lead by following President Donald Trump drifts the position even further from the framers’ vision of congressional primacy.
—————
Centralizing power
By the early 1800s, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, first elected speaker in 1810 as a member of the Whig Party, used the position to pursue personal policy goals, most notably entry into the War of 1812 against Great Britain.
Speaker Thomas Reed continued this trend by enacting powerful procedures in 1890 that allowed his Republican majority party to steamroll opposition in the legislative process.
In 1899, Speaker David Henderson created a Republican “cabinet” of new chamber positions that directly answered to – and owed their newly elevated positions to – him.
In the 20th century, in an attempt to further control the legislation Congress considered, reformers solidified the speaker’s power over procedure and party. Speaker Joseph Cannon, a Republican who ascended to the position in 1903, commandeered the powerful Rules Committee, which allowed speakers to control not only which legislation received a vote but even the amending and voting process.
At the other end of the 20th century was an effort to retool the position into a fully partisan role. After being elected speaker in 1995, Republican Newt Gingrich expanded the responsibilities of the office beyond handling legislation by centralizing resources in the office of the speaker. Gingrich grew the size of leadership staff – and prevented policy caucuses from hiring their own. He controlled the flow of information from committee chairs to rank-and-file members, and even directed access to congressional activity by C-SPAN, the public service broadcaster that provides coverage of Congress.
As a result, the modern speaker of the House now plays a powerful role in the development and passage of legislation – a dynamic that scholars refer to as the “centralization” of Congress.
Part of this is out of necessity: The House in particular, with 435 members, requires someone to, well, lead. And as America has grown in population, economic power and the size of government, the policy problems Congress tackles have become more complex, making this job all the more important.
But the position that began as coalition-building has evolved into controlling the floor schedule and flow of information and coordinating and commandeering committee work. My work on Congress has also documented how leaders invoke their power to dictate constituent communication for members of their party and use campaign finance donations to bolster party loyalty.
This centralization has cemented the responsibilities of the speaker within the chamber. More importantly, it has elevated the speaker to a national party figure.
—————
Major legislation passed
Some successful leaders have been able to translate these advantages to pass major party priorities: Speaker Sam Rayburn, a Democrat from Texas, began his tenure in 1940 and was the longest-serving speaker of the House, ultimately working with eight different presidents.
Under Rayburn’s leadership, Congress passed incredible projects, including the Marshall Plan to fund recovery and reconstruction in postwar Western Europe, and legislation to develop and construct the Interstate Highway System.
In the modern era, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and the first and only female speaker, began her tenure in 2007 and held together a diverse Democratic coalition to pass the Affordable Care Act into law.
But as the role of speaker has become one of proactive party leader, rather than passive chamber manager, not all speakers have been able to keep their party happy.
—————
Protecting Congress’ power
John Boehner, a Republican who became speaker in 2011, was known for his procedural expertise and diplomatic skills. But he ultimately resigned after he relied on a bipartisan coalition to end a government shutdown in 2014 and avert financial crises, causing his support among his party to plummet.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted in 2023 from the position by his own Republican Party after working with Democratic members to fund the government and maintain Congress’ power of the purse.
Although these decisions angered the party, they symbolized the enduring nature of the position’s intention: the protector of Article I powers. Speakers have used their growing array of policy acumen, procedural advantages and congressional resources to navigate the chamber through immense policy challenges, reinforcing Article I responsibilities – from levying taxes to reforming major programs that affect every American – that other branches simply could not ignore.
In short, a strengthened party leader has often strengthened Congress as a whole.
Although Johnson, the current speaker, inherited one of the most well-resourced speaker offices in U.S. history, he faces a dilemma in his position: solving enormous national policy challenges while managing an unruly party bound by loyalty to a leader outside of the chamber.
Johnson’s recent decision to keep Congress out of session for eight weeks during the entirety of the government shutdown indicates a balance of deference tilted toward party over the responsibilities of a powerful Congress.
This eight-week absence severely weakened the chamber. Not being in session meant no committee meetings, and thus, no oversight; no appropriations bills passed, and thus, more deference to executive-branch funding decisions; and no policy debates or formal declarations of war, and thus, domestic and foreign policy alike being determined by unelected bureaucrats and appointed judges.
Unfortunately for frustrated House members and their constituents, beyond new leadership, there is little recourse.
While the gradual, powerful concentration of authority has made the speaker’s office more responsive to party and national demands alike, it has also left the chamber dependent on the speaker to safeguard the power of the People’s House.
University of Virginia
(THE CONVERSATION) — When the framers of what became the U.S. Constitution set out to draft the rules of our government on a hot, humid day in the summer of 1787, debates over details raged on.
But one thing the men agreed on was the power of a new, representative legislative branch. Article I – the first one, after all – details the awesome responsibilities of the House of Representatives and the Senate: power to levy taxes, fund the government, declare war, impeach justices and presidents, and approve treaties, among many, many others.
In comparison, Article II, detailing the responsibilities of the president, and Article III, detailing the Supreme Court, are rather brief – further deferring to the preferred branch, Congress, for actual policymaking.
At the helm of this new legislative centerpiece, there was only one leadership requirement: The House of Representatives must select a speaker of the House.
The position, modeled after parliamentary leaders in the British House of Commons, was meant to act as a nonpartisan moderator and referee. The framers famously disliked political parties, and they knew the importance of building coalitions to solve the young nation’s vast policy problems.
But this idealistic vision for leadership quickly dissolved.
The current speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, holds a position that has strayed dramatically from this nonpartisan vision. Today, the leadership role is far more than legislative manager – it is a powerful, party-centric position that controls nearly every aspect of House activity.
And while most speakers have used their tenure to strengthen the position and the power of Congress as a whole, Johnson’s choice to lead by following President Donald Trump drifts the position even further from the framers’ vision of congressional primacy.
—————
Centralizing power
By the early 1800s, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, first elected speaker in 1810 as a member of the Whig Party, used the position to pursue personal policy goals, most notably entry into the War of 1812 against Great Britain.
Speaker Thomas Reed continued this trend by enacting powerful procedures in 1890 that allowed his Republican majority party to steamroll opposition in the legislative process.
In 1899, Speaker David Henderson created a Republican “cabinet” of new chamber positions that directly answered to – and owed their newly elevated positions to – him.
In the 20th century, in an attempt to further control the legislation Congress considered, reformers solidified the speaker’s power over procedure and party. Speaker Joseph Cannon, a Republican who ascended to the position in 1903, commandeered the powerful Rules Committee, which allowed speakers to control not only which legislation received a vote but even the amending and voting process.
At the other end of the 20th century was an effort to retool the position into a fully partisan role. After being elected speaker in 1995, Republican Newt Gingrich expanded the responsibilities of the office beyond handling legislation by centralizing resources in the office of the speaker. Gingrich grew the size of leadership staff – and prevented policy caucuses from hiring their own. He controlled the flow of information from committee chairs to rank-and-file members, and even directed access to congressional activity by C-SPAN, the public service broadcaster that provides coverage of Congress.
As a result, the modern speaker of the House now plays a powerful role in the development and passage of legislation – a dynamic that scholars refer to as the “centralization” of Congress.
Part of this is out of necessity: The House in particular, with 435 members, requires someone to, well, lead. And as America has grown in population, economic power and the size of government, the policy problems Congress tackles have become more complex, making this job all the more important.
But the position that began as coalition-building has evolved into controlling the floor schedule and flow of information and coordinating and commandeering committee work. My work on Congress has also documented how leaders invoke their power to dictate constituent communication for members of their party and use campaign finance donations to bolster party loyalty.
This centralization has cemented the responsibilities of the speaker within the chamber. More importantly, it has elevated the speaker to a national party figure.
—————
Major legislation passed
Some successful leaders have been able to translate these advantages to pass major party priorities: Speaker Sam Rayburn, a Democrat from Texas, began his tenure in 1940 and was the longest-serving speaker of the House, ultimately working with eight different presidents.
Under Rayburn’s leadership, Congress passed incredible projects, including the Marshall Plan to fund recovery and reconstruction in postwar Western Europe, and legislation to develop and construct the Interstate Highway System.
In the modern era, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and the first and only female speaker, began her tenure in 2007 and held together a diverse Democratic coalition to pass the Affordable Care Act into law.
But as the role of speaker has become one of proactive party leader, rather than passive chamber manager, not all speakers have been able to keep their party happy.
—————
Protecting Congress’ power
John Boehner, a Republican who became speaker in 2011, was known for his procedural expertise and diplomatic skills. But he ultimately resigned after he relied on a bipartisan coalition to end a government shutdown in 2014 and avert financial crises, causing his support among his party to plummet.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted in 2023 from the position by his own Republican Party after working with Democratic members to fund the government and maintain Congress’ power of the purse.
Although these decisions angered the party, they symbolized the enduring nature of the position’s intention: the protector of Article I powers. Speakers have used their growing array of policy acumen, procedural advantages and congressional resources to navigate the chamber through immense policy challenges, reinforcing Article I responsibilities – from levying taxes to reforming major programs that affect every American – that other branches simply could not ignore.
In short, a strengthened party leader has often strengthened Congress as a whole.
Although Johnson, the current speaker, inherited one of the most well-resourced speaker offices in U.S. history, he faces a dilemma in his position: solving enormous national policy challenges while managing an unruly party bound by loyalty to a leader outside of the chamber.
Johnson’s recent decision to keep Congress out of session for eight weeks during the entirety of the government shutdown indicates a balance of deference tilted toward party over the responsibilities of a powerful Congress.
This eight-week absence severely weakened the chamber. Not being in session meant no committee meetings, and thus, no oversight; no appropriations bills passed, and thus, more deference to executive-branch funding decisions; and no policy debates or formal declarations of war, and thus, domestic and foreign policy alike being determined by unelected bureaucrats and appointed judges.
Unfortunately for frustrated House members and their constituents, beyond new leadership, there is little recourse.
While the gradual, powerful concentration of authority has made the speaker’s office more responsive to party and national demands alike, it has also left the chamber dependent on the speaker to safeguard the power of the People’s House.
headlines Detroit
headlines National
- Nikole Nelson champions a national model to bring legal services to those without access
- Social media and your legal career
- OJ Simpson estate accepts $58M claim by father of Ron Goldman, killed along with Nicole Brown Simpson
- Law prof who called for military action and end to Israel sues over teaching suspension
- The advantages of using an AI agent in contract review
- Courthouse rock, political talk lead to potential suspension for Elvis-loving judge
