Consensus And Privilege

Knowledge

intellectual work, such as research (the creation of new knowledge) and learning (the creation of new knowledge within oneself)

Jonsson, B., Nunnally, T., & Cuir, G. D. (2001). Unwinding the Clock: Ten Thoughts on Our Relationship to Time (Unabridged Edition). Audio Literature.

The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was run by Magnus Hirschfeld, who had his German citizenship revoked and died in exile. The book burning was a clear signal and erased a huge part of research on queer people, as so well stated in this post. Today's equivalent could be the removal of online resources and the withdrawal of access and licences to ressources once free or purchased.

The Wikipedia article on Magnus Hirschfeld captures extremely well what Magnus Hirschfeld's research meant to individual queer people and to the queer community as a whole. I so wish I could stop being afraid of history repeating itself.

Content Warning: Mention of Suicide

In particular, Hirschfeld cited the story of one of his patients as a reason for his gay rights activism: a young army officer suffering from depression [...], leaving behind a [...] note saying that despite his best efforts, he could not end his desires for other men, and so had ended his life out of his guilt and shame. [...] the officer wrote that he lacked the "strength" to tell his parents the "truth", and spoke of his shame of "that which nearly strangled my heart". The officer could not even bring himself to use the word "homosexuality", which he instead conspicuously referred to as "that" in his note. However, the officer mentioned at the end of his suicide note: "The thought that you [Hirschfeld] could contribute a future when the German fatherland will think of us in more just terms sweetens the hour of my death."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld

Btw, this is how conservatives keep getting to claim that trans people are a new thing no one has ever heard, because our history and existences have continually been erased or obscured systematically through out history.

The most famous example was 92 years when the Nazis raided the library of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, the medical practice where the term transsexual was first coined and the first gender affirming surgery was performed in in 1931.

What did the Nazis do after raiding the library on May 6th, 1933? You may be familiar with these images

It is happening again.

A New Meaning of the Ivory Tower

This kind of turn can begin anywhere, anytime — like right this moment, here and now — wearing the mask of pragmatism and accommodation: let’s not make waves, let’s not use words or make speeches that draw attention, let’s make friendly connections to state legislators, let’s rename that program, let’s quietly defund that one center. Let’s not grant tenure to that person. Let’s encourage that professor to retire. Let’s look for a leader who is acceptable to interests that really hate the university and its values. Let’s take the money for an independent institute that pushes far-right economic philosophy. Let’s take away some governance from faculty, because they tend to provoke our enemies too much. Let’s compromise. Let’s be realistic.

Burke, T. (2022, Juni 30). Academia: Waiting for Heideggers. Eight by Seven. https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/academia-waiting-for-heideggers

We think it's necessary, that not much can be done, that it's just this one little thing, that it's not that important, that we're just protecting our people, at least most of them, forgetting that it won't stop there. We are gradually eroding our freedom one tiny step at a time. We are leaving people behind one tiny step at a time.

To understand what happens from the perspective of those we leave behind through compromise, we should consider the concept of slow violence.

By slow violence I mean a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all. [...] a violence that is neither spectacular nor instantaneous, but rather incremental and accretive, its calamitous repercussions playing out across a range of temporal scales.

Nixon, R. (2011). Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674061194

So what can we actually do? Well.

Watch for those who will come forward with the aim of making us easier to deliver on a platter to some future monstrosity, and block their path whenever they step forward. Start building the foundations for a maze, a moat, a fortress, a barricade, for becoming as hard to seize as possible. Time for the ivory tower to take on new meaning.

Burke, T. (2022, Juni 30). Academia: Waiting for Heideggers. Eight by Seven. https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/academia-waiting-for-heideggers

Funding Terminations

Research funders like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have been cutting grants across the United States. Some amazing people have created trackers to collect and visualize the decimation of science funding and what kind of research is being cut. I think we can all guess what kind of research it is. It will look similar to what will happen or already is happening in other countries, in the Netherlands, for example.

NSF Grant Terminations 2025. https://airtable.com/appGKlSVeXniQZkFC/shrFxbl1YTqb3AyOO

NIH Grant Terminations in 2025. https://airtable.com/appjhyo9NTvJLocRy/shrNto1NNp9eJlgpA

Matthews, D. (2024). Far-right governments seek to cut billions of euros from research in Europe. Nature, 635(8037), 15–16. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03506-y

Good Research Practice and Academic Freedom

There's a lot to discuss about what's going on in the United States, but we all have limited time and capacity, so it's important to focus on some aspects that you feel you can address or help mitigate. It's also important not to judge others on which aspects they choose. Anyway.

Scholarly and Science Communication

I'm an expert in scholarly and science communication, so I was particularly alert to the news that not only future, but also already submitted and even accepted manuscripts by CDC researchers would have to be reviewed and cleaned of certain terms.

"CDC Researchers Ordered to Retract Papers Submitted to All Journals — Banned terms must be scrubbed from CDC-authored manuscripts" https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/faustfiles/114043

The Terms

Unfortunately, the terms in question did not surprise me. They are all related to trans and gender diverse people. There are so many layers to unpack and be outraged about. I want to focus on two and end with a third.

The Aspects

The first is good research practice. Censorship aside, it can be argued that, at the very least, it is not good research practice to replace accurate and medically correct scientific language with language that is very likely to be inaccurate or at least ambiguous, leaving room for misunderstanding. This is highly dangerous and damaging to the global scientific knowledge base. I must therefore question whether these articles can be accepted for publication or published at all.

Without ignoring censorship, the second aspect is that this is the beginning of the end of academic freedom, not just for the CDC, but for the whole country. They're restricting language and science.

The third is just to make it very clear that this is harmful to so many people. They're erasing people.

Queer Narrative

Coming-out stories [...] generally assume a stable sexual identity [...].

The idea of a stable identity has always puzzled me. As a person, I tend to grow and change with every breath I take, every experience I make, every conversation I have, every piece I read. Life is change and identity can change along the way. Sexual identity is no different.

Mulhall, A. (2020). Queer Narrative. In S. B. Somerville (Hrsg.), The Cambridge Companion to Queer Studies (1. edition, p. 142–155). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108699396.011

The Librarian of Congress

Trump fires Librarian of Congress Hayden, the first woman and first African-American to hold the post

"And when you have a free public library in particular," she said, it was an "opportunity center for people all walks of life, and you are giving them the opportunity to make choices on which information, entertainment and inspiration means the most to them".

Choosing what to read in a library that offers the full range of human experience, writing and expression opens up the world to everyone and opens the way to empathy and to each other. Of course, that's not what the current administration in the United States wants.

The group, American Accountability Foundation, accused Hayden and other library leaders of promoting children’s books with "radical" content and literary material authored by Trump opponents.

We know what the political systems are called that ban democratic opponents and what they have to say.

Associated Press. (2025, Mai 9). Trump abruptly fires librarian of Congress in latest purge of government. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/09/trump-congress-librarian-fired

A Call for Constructive Engagement

As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education. We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses. We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding. [...]

Signed by so many leaders of colleges and universities, even by some high profile ones such as Yale, Princeton and Brown.

https://www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-call-for-constructive-engagement

Das wäre nett.

So Harvard has decided not to give in without a fight

"No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue," said Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a statement to the university on Monday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/us/harvard-trump-reject-demands.html

This is a powerful and much-needed statement. Academia feels a glimmer of hope that not every university and not everyone in academia will give in without a fight. At the same time, the reasons are more strategic than simply protecting science, students, faculty and academic freedom.

Why Harvard Decided to Fight Trump

[...] any path the university chose seemed just as likely to lead to ongoing turmoil, and [...] officials at Harvard, [...] feared the White House would renege on any agreement.

[...] a strategy of "negotiation and conciliation seems to have no acceptable ending point."

[...] Harvard might have tried to negotiate just as Columbia did, "if it had assurance that the administration was negotiating in good faith."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/us/why-harvard-resisted-trumps-demands.html

There is no faith, no trust in the permanence of anything at this point. No decision, no agreement, no law is immutable, even for the shortest time, if the administration decides to change its mind. The ultimate goal is to dismantle academia anyway. So why even try to negotiate.