A Lesson in Civic Literacy

“Work in progress”: a partial view of Hampshire College, founded in 1970, re-founded in 2019. Photo courtesy of hampshire.edu

The “remaking” of a college.

In a few days, America will witness the pillars of civic literacy disrupted. On January 20, 2025, the 47th President of the United States will be inaugurated. As if we are uncovering, we are a nation founded on ignorance, America will begin to witness the ‘defunding’ of education as we know and currently experience it — in the cause of vilification and rank pettiness. (1)

Between the new administration’s Project 2025 and the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the ‘pillars’— a tax on university and college endowments, an attack on accreditation, eliminating the Department of Education and replacing it with a “Department of Privatization “— to name a few — will be on full display.

The soon-to be-invested executor of these threats has been sued and forced to pay a penalty in civil court for defrauding students. He enters the Executive Branch as the first elected, convicted felon and convicted perpetrator of multiple business frauds, including defrauding students who attended his branded “university”. (2)

We are fortunate to have witnessed a recent disruption — a good one — a college in the ‘remaking,’ Hampshire College in Hadley, Massacusetts, whose students in 2019 learned about civic literacy during their resistance to an orchestrated closing. That they accomplished this as a…