Universities refuse to fully dismantle their DEI programs? The Trump administration
withdraws billions of dollars in federal funding, and cancels visas for their
foreign students. Law firms won’t donate their services to causes that President Donald Trump favors? Trump cancels their
lawyers’ security clearances and refuses to deal with their clients. Journalists still call the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of Mexico”? Trump
pulls their credentials for press briefings. The state of Maine allows some transgender athletes to compete on some girls’ and women’s sports teams? Trump threatens to cut off federal funding for its
public schools.
Different targets, but one common tool: leverage. Trump uses federal funds and other government benefits to pressure individuals and institutions into exercising their constitutional rights as he prefers. This is extortionate. And therefore unconstitutional.
If Trump can use threats over tariffs to pressure nations into opening their markets or strengthening their currencies or ordering more U.S. arms, why can’t he do the same with American institutions?
Because foreign nations have no constitutional rights, but American universities, lawyers, journalists and states do — rights protected by the First, Fifth, Sixth and Tenth Amendments. Trump’s efforts to leverage government benefits against them violate those rights by penalizing their exercise.