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Greenland’s independence push resurges amid U.S. acquisition interests. Greenland Prime Minister Mute B. Egede reaffirms Greenland's commitment to independence at a press conference in Denmark (credit: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images) CLAREMONT, Calif. — Greenland heads to a parliamentary election next month as fierce debates over independence from Denmark escalate, further fueled by renewed U.S. acquisition interests from President Donald Trump. At a time when discussions of independence are gaining momentum in Greenland, global interest in the Arctic’s resources has intensified, with the U.S. vying for influence in the region. The renewed interest from Trump, who once floated the idea of purchasing Greenland during his first term in 2019, has rekindled debates about the island’s strategic value as climate change opens new shipping routes and exposes untapped mineral resources, including oil, uranium, and large deposits of iron ore. In addition, Greenland’s geopolitical significance as a midpoint between the U.S. and Russia has long made it a focal point for U.S. security operations. “Greenland is necessary not just for us; it’s necessary for international security,” Trump said  in January. Regarding economic and military coercion to acquire the island, Trump responded , “It might be that you’ll have to do something.” Greenlandic Prime Minister  Múte B. Egede has since expressed interest in keeping close ties with the U.S. and Denmark, but only to an extent. “Greenland is for the Greenlandic people,” Egede said  during a visit to Copenhagen last month. “We do not want to be Danish, we do not want to be American.”  The election will serve as a pivotal moment in Greenland’s push for sovereignty, with both the ruling and opposition parties advocating for a post-election independence referendum. While 84%  of Greenlanders support independence from Denmark and 85%  oppose becoming a U.S. territory, the challenges of self-sustainability make full independence unrealistic. Currently, half of Greenland’s public budget comes from a Danish grant of 4 billion Danish krone ($560 million). On top of that, Denmark subsidizes Greenland’s legal system, military presence, and foreign policy initiatives. “A common attitude among Danes is that Greenlanders should be grateful for all the good that Denmark has done,” Frank Sejersen, a professor of Greenlandic and Arctic studies at the University of Copenhagen, said via email. As Greenland contemplates its future, it should be careful about choosing the right moment to seek sovereignty. It must first secure its economy and defenses. Strengthening ties with the U.S. could play a crucial role, and despite Trump’s bold threats, a cooperative future between the two nations — independent of American ownership — remains a possibility. In fact, many foreign policy experts consider the idea of the U.S. purchasing the island highly unlikely. “U.S. acquisition of Greenland remains quite unrealistic,” says Troy Bouffard, a retired U.S. Army master sergeant and director of the Center for Arctic Security and Resilience at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.   Trump’s aggressive statements likely originate from his “formidable experience involving competitive business practices and, like many business negotiations … the United States and Greenland will find common ground that provides an increase to overall benefits and outcomes resulting in mutually advantageous absolute gains,” Bouffard said in an email. With one month until elections, Greenland’s path to independence is precarious. While media narratives continue to frame sovereignty as a central issue, past referendums and most notably the last parliamentary election in 2021 have failed to turn rhetoric into reality. The question remains among Greenland’s voters whether this election will break the cycle, or if history will once again delay its ambitions.

If the alleged killer is a latter-day Raskolnikov, the implications are striking. Left: Pyotr Boklevskiy's portrait of Rodion Raskolnikov, protagonist of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (Credit: Wikimedia Commons); Right: Courtroom sketch of Luigi Mangione (Credit: Jane Rosenberg) Recently, Luigi Mangione, who has been charged with the murder of Brian Thompson, appeared in Court ahead of trial. Thompson, the chief executive at United Healthcare—America’s largest health insurer—was fatally shot in Manhattan on December 4th of last year.   As details about the alleged killer—Mangione—have emerged, I noticed parallels between Mangione and Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, the protagonist in Fyodor Dostoevky’s famous novel Crime and Punishment . As I re-read and discussed the novel this semester in a CMC history course—Dostoevsky’s Russia, taught by Professor Gary Hamburg—the similarities appeared overwhelming. A few others in my class had the same idea, and this piece is admittedly indebted to similar comparisons made in posts on   X (formerly Twitter) ,   Reddit ,   Quillette , and perhaps most prominently, the   New York Times .   Dostoevsky describes Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment  as an incredibly intelligent young man—a former student who is also “exceptionally handsome, above the average in height, slim, well-built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair.” An impoverished Raskolnikov hatches a plan to murder a greedy pawnbroker and steal her wealth. In executing his plan, Raskolnikov ruthlessly axes the elderly woman and also kills her half-sister. The novel centers on Raskolnikov’s psychological torment following the murder and the forces that impelled him to commit the heinous act in the first place.   Beyond physical resemblance, Raskolnikov and Mangione share uncanny similarities. Mangione, also a former student, graduated as valedictorian from a prestigious all-boys secondary school in 2016 before going on to earn a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 2020. Despite their intelligence, Raskolnikov and Mangione could not function as normal members of society; the former was debilitated by poverty, the latter by a spinal condition called spondylolisthesis. In the years prior to the murders, both grew increasingly isolated—not speaking to essentially anyone for long stretches of time.  The setting of their crimes—1860s St. Petersburg and modern-day New York City—were the largest urban centers of their respective countries. These cities came with all the peculiar vicissitudes of urban life—chief among them, the change in material circumstance one experiences when traveling between the working class and wealthy subsets of the city. Further still, the murders mimic each other: a premeditated, quick, and shocking attack from behind—a fatal blow and shot to the victim’s back.   Raskolnikov’s inner-monologue and Mangione’s manifesto  offer perhaps the most striking comparison: that is, the motivation for the crime. Indeed, despite their differences in their personal socioeconomic status, both Raskolnikov and Mangione betray similar attitudes toward their victims. Raskolnikov views the pawnbroker  as a “sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman… a louse… a black-beetle… [who] is doing harm.” In his manifesto, Mangione labels Thompson a “parasite” that “had it coming.” The killers do not view their victims as victims ; instead, Raskolnikov and Mangione respectively view the pawnbroker and Thompson as societal leeches who obtain their wealth through the exploitation of others. Moreover, in the novel, Raskolnikov views himself as “a great man” who, because of his intelligence and potential, possesses a moral right to kill the pawnbroker. Where others were constrained by law, Raskolnikov’s “great man” was capable of stepping over  moral and legal limitations in order to do what needed to be done . One cannot help but think that Mangione must have (if only for a moment) imagined himself as one of those great men too; such an analysis seems to comport with Mangione’s own declaration that he was “the first to face [the issues of the healthcare system] with such brutal honesty.”  Most reactions to Mangione’s crime on social media—especially amongst younger Americans—remain unconcerned, however, with a nuanced psychological study of the criminal. The motive for Mangione’s actions appears to them quite simple—dissatisfaction with the American healthcare system—and in fact,   laudable . A Generation Lab poll  found that college students were three times more likely to sympathize with Mangione than Thompson, and an   Emerson College poll  found that 41 percent of voters aged 18 to 29 thought the murder was “acceptable,” compared to just 40 percent that thought it was “unacceptable.” But if Mangione is indeed a latter-day Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky’s work teaches us that no matter the apparent justification, the only proper way to understand cold-blooded murder is as a moral transgression. Despite his continual rationalization of the murder, Raskolnikov is wracked by physical illness, paranoia, and subconscious guilt that changes into the seedlings of repentance at the end of the novel. Beyond illustrating Raskolnikov’s psychological state, Dostoevsky uses a series of dream sequences throughout the novel to prove his point. Before Raskolnikov commits the murder, he dreams of himself as a young boy, witnessing a drunk peasant violently kill a lame mare. Upon waking from the dream, Raskolnikov asks himself: “Can it be, that I shall really take an axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split her skull open... that I shall tread in the sticky warm blood, break the lock, steal and tremble; hide, all spattered in the blood... with the axe.... Good God, can it be?” Beneath the trappings of his impressive intellect, Raskolnikov knows deep in his soul that what he is doing is wrong.  Beyond the effects of Raskolnikov’s “great man theory” on himself, the novel’s epilogue warns of the impact that the proliferation of ideas like his—in this case, that individuals are permitted to murder someone based on the latter’s lifestyle—may have on broader society. While in a hard labor camp, Raskolnikov dreams of “a terrible new strange plague” in which “whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection.” As a result of infection, “never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible.” Simply put, the plague endowed every individual with their own unique sense of morality; it made them singular judges of “what to consider evil and what good… whom to blame, [and] whom to justify.” As the contagion spread across the globe, the result was war, famine, and destruction.  Upon reading the novel, many readers sympathize with Raskolnikov, often more so than with the pawnbroker. But Dostoevsky subtly gives the reader the tools they need to challenge that natural sympathy. One may immediately associate Raskolnikov’s crimes with his poverty, but such an account fails to explain why Razumikhin, Raskolnikov’s similarly-situated friend, does not succumb to crime. Moreover, one may conclude that the pawnbroker deserved her fate because of the exploitation she is accused of, but perhaps a retelling of the story from her perspective—coupled with Dostoevsky’s analysis of how difficult society was on women in 1860s St. Petersburg—would leave the reader with a different perspective. Brian Thompson certainly did not share the prevailing view among young people about the proper role of insurance companies in the healthcare system. But by all personal accounts  he was a hardworking and modest man from a rural, working-class upbringing; a loving husband who enjoyed spending time with his two kids; and someone who had aspirations of making healthcare more, not less, accessible. Whether or not these accounts are a true reflection of Thompson’s life, however, are ultimately irrelevant in determining Mangione’s guilt. If the presented facts are to be believed, Mangione stepped over  moral law and killed a man in cold blood. For that, he has committed a transgression that nobody, regardless of their ideological beliefs, should deem permissible.

How can we educate responsible leaders in a modern democratic society? Walter Lippmann in 1920 (credit: Media Nation)   You’ve probably never heard of Walter Lippmann, but historians Clinton Rossiter and James Lare described him as “perhaps the most important political thinker of the twentieth century.”    A prolific public intellectual, journalist, and political philosopher, Lippman published dozens of books and wrote thousands of articles over his half-century career. His syndicated column, “Today and Tomorrow,” appeared in hundreds of newspapers and was read by millions of Americans. Though Lippmann began his career as a socialist and ended it as a conservative, his work maintained a remarkably consistent focus: the challenge of responsible leadership in modern democracy.   Today, on the 50th anniversary of his death, Lippmann’s insights still resonate, particularly for an institution like Claremont McKenna College, whose mission  is to prepare students for “responsible leadership in business, government, and the professions.” But Lippmann’s vision of responsible leadership challenges CMC’s current approach to fulfilling its mission.    Five years before CMC’s founding, Lippmann warned that deference to public opinion “destroys the sense of responsibility in public men and deprives public opinion of responsible leadership .” This perspective might seem counterintuitive—aren’t leaders supposed to be accountable to the public? For Lippmann, the answer lies deeper: leaders must first be accountable to the moral law, a higher standard of truth and justice. But in modern democratic society, leaders are always tempted to defer to public opinion rather than the moral law.   Though the moral law exists independently of the public, it must be supported by public opinion. Modern society, however, has been captivated by relativism and nihilism, which deny the existence of the moral law. Lippmann observed how the industrial revolution unsettled the customs and traditions that once anchored American society. “We have changed our environment more quickly than we know how to change ourselves,” Lippmann wrote. This upheaval eroded support for the moral law and left individuals alienated in the world they created.   So how can CMC cultivate responsible leadership in such a world? Some suggest that a modern democratic society demands a modern democratic education focused on teaching students to address the political problems of the day. But Lippmann railed against modern democratic education for focusing on technical competence rather than timeless truths. “Democracy,” Lippmann wrote, “has never developed an education for the public. It has merely given it a smattering of the kind of knowledge which the responsible man requires.” Instead of fostering good citizens or responsible leaders, democratic education risks producing “a mass of amateur executives.”   But if not technical competence or the political problems of the day, what ought the university to teach? According to Lippmann, universities must preserve “the tradition of the good life” rooted in “the religious and classical culture of the Western world.” By doing so, they can offer students the tools to engage with perennial moral questions rather than just fleeting political controversies. Modern universities, including CMC, often eschew this mission, instead favoring what Lippmann called “the elective, eclectic, the specialized, the accidental and incidental improvisations and spontaneous curiosities of teachers and students.”   But why does traditional education matter? Why shouldn’t students just follow their “spontaneous curiosities?” Because humans are rational, they are capable of knowing the moral law, but because humans are flawed, they are capable of getting it wrong. Without guidance from traditional wisdom, knowledge about the good life must be rediscovered, which stalls moral progress. “A society can be progressive only if it conserves its traditions,” Lippmann wrote. The university plays an indispensable role in this process, transmitting knowledge accumulated over the course of millennia.   If CMC aspires to cultivate responsible leadership, it must grapple with Lippmann’s critique. For the university to successfully educate responsible leaders, it must separate itself from contemporary political pressures. Responsible leadership, according to Lippmann, is not about addressing the political and economic problems of the day but confronting the deeper, perennial issues of human existence. This requires an education that prioritizes moral clarity over technical expertise, tradition over novelty, and wisdom over popularity. For this reason, the university should refrain from wading into partisan political controversies.   If CMC truly hopes to cultivate responsible leadership, it must resist the Siren songs of everyday political concerns and insulate itself from democratic pressures. It must counter the disaffection that dominates our society and embrace traditional education. Or, as Lippmann himself might have put it: in an age defined by relativism and nihilism, the most radical act a university can undertake is to conserve the wisdom of the past. This article earned a first-place commendation in the Dreier Roundtable Op-Ed Contest . This piece is part of the Salvatori Center's Profiles in American Political Thought. You can find a complete list of those pieces here .

The current ASCMC term ends at Spring Break, and the time has comes to elect a new executive board for the 2025-2026 academic year. The CMC student body will elect a new Student Body President, Executive Vice President (EVP), Vice President of Student Activities (VPSA), Dormitory Affairs Chair (DAC), and Senior/Junior/Sophomore Class President on March 4th, 2025. On Monday, March 3rd, join your candidates at 10:30 pm during Collins Late Night Snack as they present their personalities, platforms, and proposals for their candidacies. Voting will be open to the whole school starting 11:59 pm on March 3rd and will be open for 20 hours, ending at 8:00 pm, March 4th. ASCMC uses an instant run-off system. Voters are asked to rank candidates. If no candidate has a majority, the least popular candidate is eliminated and ballots for that candidate have their next highest choice counted instead. The process is repeated until one candidate has a majority. Here are your candidates for ASCMC elections in alphabetical order by position: Student Body President: Carson Bloom, Tendai Nyamuronda, Kylee Tevis EVP: Amrit Dhaliwal VPSA: Bardia Mizani DAC: Leah Gaidos Senior Class President: Chloe Ross, Michael Sweeney Junior Class President: Reid Jones, Avi Rangarajan Sophomore Class President: Evelyn Chavez, Selah Han, Ibukun Owolabi Read more to learn about the specifics of each candidate and their hopes, dreams, and aspirations for ASCMC and the broader CMC community. Bardia Mizani, Leah Gaidos, Reid Jones, and Selah Han did not submit statements or photos. Student Body President Candidates Carson Bloom Hello everyone, I’m Carson Bloom, a junior from Whitefish, Montana, and I’m running to be your next Student Body President! In my time as VPSA I organized every party from Pirate Palooza to most recently Wedding Party. In the process I developed leadership skills and gained experience in ASCMC. I have many ideas on how to improve CMC, and I’ve learned how to work with DOS and other stakeholders to make change. So I decided to run for Student Body President. Here’s a few initiatives I plan to tackle if I’m successful: First, I’ll send out a survey to determine the locations where students are having trouble with the wifi. I’ll take that data to IT and DOS and work with them to upgrade our wireless internet infrastructure. My goal is for these upgrades to take place over the summer. We’ll re-evaluate in the fall to determine if the problems have been resolved. Second, I’ll work with the staff at Roberts Pavilion to replace old equipment with new and get more of the machines students actually use. For example, who uses that back extension machine? It’s in the middle of the upper story and I rarely see anybody use it. Meanwhile, the bikes and cable machines are almost constantly taken during busy hours. Third, I’m going to talk with grounds about adding additional grass and outdoor seating in Midquad. Why is North Quad the hub of campus life? It’s because students spend time outside there. Green Beach is arguably the most popular and iconic spot and campus and yet it’s literally just a grassy hill. Students want outdoor tables with shade to do work at, and they want grassy lawns where they can play games and sunbathe. Fourth, I’m going to continue the Collins Committee that Ava Kopp started. I’ve personally noticed a significant improvement in the food quality and selection at Collins, and I credit Ava and the Collins Committee. In particular, I’ll focus on student favorites such as the new acai bowl bar and making the ever-popular chicken breast the best it can be! If you have any other improvements in mind or questions for me please reach out @ cbloom26@cmc.edu . Kylee Tevis Hello! My name is Kylee Tevis, and I am running for Student Body President. I’m currently a junior, and it has truly been an honor to serve as class president this past year. The opportunity to continue contributing to our community is something I am deeply passionate about, and I am excited to take this next step. I’m a Philosophy major with a leadership sequence, and I’m from Pasadena, CA. On campus, I manage the mailroom and the Marks Music Room. I’ve also had the privilege of being a First Year Guide for the past two years. So, why am I running? I truly believe that ASCMC has the ability to make a real difference on this campus, and I am passionate about being a part of that change. I’m committed to fostering an inclusive, diverse, and equitable community by building relationships across all groups on campus. You don’t have to come to Senate to be a part of ASCMC, we are all ASCMC. I want you to feel comfortable coming to me with your ideas, concerns, or feedback, whether or not you’re able to attend Senate meetings or don’t feel comfortable speaking up in that setting. I’ll always be here to listen, support, and work with you to make sure your voices are heard. My vision for CMC includes a focus on transparency, accountability, building relationships, and actively seeking out feedback. This is not just about meeting the current needs of students, it’s about advocating for what you need, what you want, and what will make this community the best it can be. Over the course of this campaign, I’ve been listening to your feedback. Some of the things that have come up include: - Finding more social spaces on campus - A separate line for grilled chicken at Collins on busy days (in a bucket by the fries?) - Continuing the work on affinity group leader compensation - Getting our mascots at big rivalry games - Creating a committee to continue the conversation about CMC traditions As president, I will work to bring these ideas to life and ensure that every student has the chance to participate in creating the CMC that we all want to be a part of. Please reach out if you have any questions, thoughts, or just want to chat! Let’s work together to make this campus a place where we all thrive. Email: ktevis26@cmc.edu Campaign Instagram: @KyTev4Prez Tendai Nyamuronda When I first arrived at Claremont McKenna College, I was stepping into a world of opportunity, challenge, and community. As an international student, I come from a culture that deeply values collective success, where no one rises alone. Back home, we say "Ndiri nekuti tiri"—"I am because we are." These words have shaped my understanding of leadership—not as an individual pursuit, but as a commitment to the people around me. For the past few years, I have lived CMC life not as a decision-maker, but as a student—one who understands the daily joys and struggles of our community. I’ve felt the excitement of our shared achievements, the weight of the challenges we face, and the desire for a campus that feels like home to everyone. I am running for Student Body President because I believe in a CMC where we all belong, where every voice is valued, and where our differences don’t divide us but weave together into something greater. But this is not something I can do alone. Rome was not built in a day, and CMC is not built by one person. It takes all of us. My goal is to continue the work of those before us and ensure that, together, we create a lasting legacy—one where future students can build upon what we have started. This campaign is about us. It is about making our shared home stronger, more inclusive, and more connected. If you believe in this vision, let’s make it happen—together. Executive Vice President Candidates Amrit Dhaliwal “Yea I’d vote for her.” - Obama Senior Class President Chloe Ross Hi! I’m Chloe Ross, and I’m so excited to be running for senior class president! I’ve been part of the class cabinet since freshman year–first as Freshman Class Events Coordinator, then Sophomore Class Vice President, and now Junior Class Vice President–and I’ve loved every second of it. From organizing the Dating Game to filming “Dorm Tour Tuesday” to Pirate Party pre-games, I’ve loved creating moments that bring the Class of 2026 together. Now, as we head into our final semesters, we have one last chance to make the most out of CMC. I’d be honored to continue bringing our class together, celebrating everything we’ve accomplished, and making sure we leave Claremont with memories that last a lifetime. If there is one thing I’ve learned from my time on cabinet, it is that this is not a one man job. I will need all the help I can get to make our last year special. In order accomplish and execute this, I want to create a four pronged cabinet (all of which will need cooler names): 🎉 CMC Traditions Committee – Responsible for the iconic senior events like 100 Days, Thesis Parties, and other classic CMC traditions that define our last year. 🌅 Senior Experience Committee – Focused on potential new events like Senior Sunset @ Baldy, a Senior Sleepover in McKenna, a Senior Road Rally, and more events that bring our class together. 📖 Yearbook Committee – Ensuring we capture every memory in a senior yearbook that actually reflects our class to look back on! 💼 Administrative Committee – The backbone of our leadership team, including VP, Treasurer, Fundraising Officer, and more, making sure everything runs smoothly. This structure will allow us to plan more, execute better, and create the best senior year possible. But most importantly, I need your ideas and energy to make it happen. Be a boss, vote for Ross 🙂 Michael Sweeney Hi everyone, my name is Michael Sweeney, a junior at CMC from Washington, DC and I’m excited to run for Senior Class President! As we enter our final year, I want to make sure we make the most of it–creating lasting memories, strengthening the existing friendships we have made, and making new connections to further unify our class. If elected, I have several goals I will strive to accomplish as your President: organizing fun events throughout the year to celebrate all of our time at CMC, ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard through open discussions, and establishing initiatives to help us stay connected post-graduation. With over 2 years of experience on ASCMC and the Events Committee, I am excited to bring my substantial experience in event planning to this role. I would love to plan themed grade parties, wholesome bonding activities like camping on Green Beach or hosting movie nights, field trips to the beach and the mountains, and hosting senior nights at local Claremont restaurants and establishments! Although I have a lot of enthusiasm for planning events, I understand that this role is much more than that. I want to make sure everyone in our class feels seen and heard. To accomplish this, I want to establish open dialogue and communication between all of the members of the class and the Senior Class Cabinet. I want to open all Cabinet meetings to anyone a part of the grade, so you all have the opportunity to voice your opinions, concerns, or fun ideas! Finally, as the Senior Class President, is president for life, I want to organize a class yearbook, design Class of 2026 merch, and connect members of our class who will live near each other after we leave campus. Thank you and remember to vote next week! Junior Class President Avi Rangarajan I’m the missing piece. Sophomore Class President Evelyn Chavez Hey Class of 2028, I’m Evelyn! Did you know we are given $3,500 to spend on making our Sophomore year unforgettable? With that money, I have already outlined more than 200 Canes, Wingstop, Chipotle orders, and Insomnia Cookie socials– and we still have over half the money left for other events. Sophomores, we can do beach bonfires, hiking, create more parties, mixers… go golfing? Let me know! I will work to foster a community, not just among CMC ‘28 students, but across all 5Cs. This means more socials, mixers, parties & collaborations with BSA, APASA, MiGente, SAGA, and other affinity groups/clubs across the 5Cs. This is the year to create a stronger & more connected community within our class! As Soph Class President, improving our community will be one of my main focuses by voicing your concerns & requests. I see all our student-athletes, student workers, FirstGen, and everyone balancing a demanding schedule, so I am determined to foster a community where everyone can thrive and feel supported! 1. I will advocate for better dining options. Students shouldn’t worry about their next practice/class with the small 2 hour window they have to enjoy a meal. I will push for extending dining hall hours, more meal swipes… or both! 2. I will push for more accessible, on-campus, physical & mental health resources. I am advocating for your success, so share what resources work for you and what doesn’t! 3. I will ensure your concerns on WiFi issues, dining halls, social life, and community are being expressed and met with the ASCMC board and DOS! I will send emails (not spam) and hold meetings where you can share your input and request events, activities, & resources! Class of 2028, CMC is our home; given the opportunity, I will make it an unforgettable experience! I cannot promise to forgive your student loans, but I can promise you full transparency and commitment as your Sophomore Class President!! Ibukun Owolabi One of the best success stories in sports history is that of Serena and Venus Williams. Their whole life, they pushed each other as far as physically possible in the sport that they loved. Eventually, their hard work and dedication would lead to their cementation in the Sports’ Hall of Fame! Without one another, they would not have been able to become world champions. Without one another, they would not have been challenged and pushed hard enough to become better. When asked to write this statement, I was challenged. Not because the question was hard, but because there were so many ways to go about answering the question. As I pondered an answer, I thought about how Serena and Venus would tackle such a situation. And I realized that (if they were in such a position of running for Class President of CMC) no matter what their answer to this question would be, they would not go through it alone. That is where I took inspiration from as my answer. Regardless of who ends up as our class president, I encourage and implore you to put your voice and ideas out there. Solutions that seem minuscule to you can be life-changing for other people. Whether you go to senate meetings or reach out to your class representative, please use your voice to make CMC better. If I have the honor to serve you as president, I would love to hear all of the amazing ideas that all of you have and I would love the opportunity to learn more about the beautiful person behind that idea.

What does a French philosopher have to teach us about management consulting? Twenty-first century philosopher René Girard (Sophie Bassouls/Sygma/Corbis) You answered every question perfectly. Whether it’s a case interview for McKinsey, a technical for Goldman Sachs, or a group interview for the Claremont Marketing Group, you nailed it. But there’s one question you forgot to answer: why do you want to do it in the first place?  Twenty-first-century French philosopher and literary critic René Girard attained widespread recognition for his philosophical anthropology, but he is best known for his pioneering work on mimesis. This phenomenon refers to the human tendency to imitate the desires and behaviors of others, often unconsciously. Mimesis generates escalating rivalries grounded in achieving the same goals. Though deeply human and sometimes beneficial, mimesis can have corrosive effects on communities. Girard’s theory of mimesis offers a helpful model for understanding students' behavior at institutions like Claremont McKenna College. Above all, mimesis fuels the relentless freshmen frenzy for club memberships, lures unsuspecting sophomores into consulting and finance, compels juniors to sign two-year contracts, and drives seniors to champion its perpetual cycle. In many ways, peer-to-peer mimetic   influence eclipses even the most authoritative pressures from career services or scholar community advisors. Unchecked mimetic desire corrodes our souls and our tight-knit campus culture. For elite liberal arts students, the effects of mimetic desire begin well before stepping on campus. Building on a foundation of high school achievement, ambitious students arrive at college with an ingrained drive to excel. But college is the first place many elite students face formidable competition. While designations like “valedictorian” and “National Merit Scholar” may have been impressive in high school, they are now par for the course. New accolades replace the old. Merit scholarships like “McKenna,” “Seaver,” and, “Wagener” establish a hierarchy before students even arrive on campus. Other post-arrival titles like “First Year Class President,” “PPE major,” and “Robert Day Scholar” further stratify the class. But at what cost? In this competitive environment, students—for no genuine fault of their own—eagerly accept the next "shiny object" to pursue: an overly selective school club, a prestigious fellowship, an elite internship, or a resume-worthy leadership role. There’s something for everyone. But in this merciless pursuit of external validation, two essential things are sacrificed: authenticity and community. It’s a sacrifice that’s easy to identify: first and second-years are more concerned about posting self-congratulatory LinkedIn job updates than their classes. Don’t be mistaken; I appreciate the well-crafted, hard-earned LinkedIn post. But is the LinkedIn post an expression of gratitude? Or is it merely a signal to our mimetic peers that I, and not you, have achieved some goal? At a small campus like ours, a comparative environment poisons the well. Confidence erodes, friendships falter, and the knots of the tight-knit community loosen.  To avoid being self-righteous, let me clarify: this is neither an invective against management consulting nor a plea to avoid investment banking. I didn’t initially, and I’m likely better off for it. However, it is a call to ask ourselves the hard questions now . Why am I doing what I am doing? Is it for myself or for it to be seen? If you ask yourself these questions and don’t have compelling answers, you probably should reconsider your first principles. But don’t just take my word for it. Talk to almost any alumni, and they’ll tell you the exact same thing. To some extent, we all have to put up with mimetic desire. In many cases, too, it pays to go with the flow and trust the wisdom of crowds. After all, achieving high-end post-graduate opportunities is a good goal. That said, with offers in hand, many students may not realize how far they’ve strayed from who they once were.  Upperclassmen's behavior shapes the desires of the underclassmen. After all, what the elders think of the young seems like the most important thing in the world. It’s a mimetic feature that compels each of us to excel . But when you ask seniors how they feel now, they often say they cared too much about vapid campus accolades as a first-year. After all, the only things that seem to matter in retrospect are each other and genuine learning.  If Girard is correct, and we’re stuck with mimesis (at least for now), we must make the most of it. Our community is small. Small enough that each individual has an outsized opportunity to set the tone for our culture. Mimetic theory states that how you act shapes how others behave. This is true for our friends, classes, clubs, and beyond. Therefore, asking yourself the hard questions will likely yield thoughtful results. But past that, it might inspire others to do the same. We should seek out things that matter to us. Leveraged buyouts might matter to our friends, but that does not necessarily mean they matter to us. That’s something that we have to figure out for ourselves. That only happens when we ask ourselves the hard questions now, before staring down the barrel of two-year rotational analyst programs.  In many ways, the advantage college affords us is to try numerous things throughout our four years. For most of us, it takes most of those four to figure out what our passions might be. College enables exploring different pursuits with authenticity and an openness to being wrong. Mimetic desire detracts from this. It compels us to imitate others inauthentically and rewards rivalry. This doesn’t mean it’s right to be contrarian for contrarian’s sake. But we should be aware of the effects we have on each other and be careful not to let mimesis ruin our community.

We must reframe and reform the way that we think about innocence in our criminal justice system. Kennedy Brewer, who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1995 (credit: Innocence Project) Simply being innocent should be enough to be freed from jail. Unfortunately, it is not that simple in America.  Take as an example: Kennedy Brewer. In 1995, he was arrested and sentenced to death row for murdering his girlfriend’s three-year-old daughter in Mississippi. Brewer continuously maintained his innocence. While in prison, he took a DNA test which confirmed his innocence in 2001. However, he was forced to remain in prison for over five additional years awaiting a retrial. After the Innocence Project  intervened, the police found the real murderer, Justin Albert Johnson, who later confessed. Brewer displays how the wrongfully convicted are cheated from swift restorative justice.   While Brewer’s case displays how the individual decisions of the local district attorney may halt justice, the entire U.S. legal system ignores the plight of these innocent individuals.  A person wrongfully convicted can seek a pardon or file a coram nobis petition. However, a pardon typically requires influential political connections (say your father ) or massive public support. For the average applicant, a claim of innocence is seen by political officials as a sign of denial and immaturity. A coram nobis petition, only available in some states, requires a prisoner to present narrowly defined ‘new’ evidence which could not have been discovered during trial with due diligence. In addition, this evidence must be presented to the original trial judge, who is likely opposed to hearing evidence from someone they previously deemed guilty.   The last avenue of freedom for someone wrongfully imprisoned is to prove a constitutional violation occurred via a writ of habeas corpus, a legal petition where people can challenge their conviction. However, the Supreme Court case Herrera v. Collins determined that to imprison someone innocent of the crime they were committed for is not inherently a constitutional violation.  “There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough) for…a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence brought forward after conviction,” said  Justice Antonin Scalia   in a concurring opinion. Not only does someone wrongfully convicted have no right to their freedom but their evidence of innocence is not even guaranteed judicial consideration.   While numerous legal arguments can argue against the Supreme Court decision that holding an innocent person in jail is a constitutional violation, it’s largely futile. For the foreseeable future, the Supreme Court is a political entity which would rather keep people locked up than actually deliver justice to innocent people. While the thought of an innocent person behind bars might be jarring, it is not inaccurate. Since 1989, 3,622 people  have been exonerated and more than 32,750 years  of their lives have been stolen, according to the  National Registry of Exonerations (NRE) . An estimated 2.5-5%  of the people in prison right now are innocent of the crime they were put behind bars for. Currently, 55,000 to 110,000 people are currently trapped in a nightmare of wrongful imprisonment in America. Unsurprisingly, freedom is stolen across racial lines. More than half of the exonerees between 1989 and 2022  are Black, despite the fact that Black people account for only 13.6% of the nation’s population. Innocent Black people are seven times more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder than innocent white people, according to a 2022 report  by the NRE. There’s a balance, of course, to be struck between efficiency and accuracy in the U.S. criminal system, and the U.S. has certainly chosen efficiency–much to the horror of Benjamin Franklin who once wrote  “i t is better (for) 100 guilty Persons (to) escape, than that one innocent Person should suffer.”  Only an estimated 2-3%  of criminal charges result in a trial, and a large majority of criminal charges end in a plea deal. Prosecutors often threaten more serious criminal charges as a tax for going to trial. Combine that with the obvious financial burdens of trial and frequent discriminatory jury selection, a trial is a luxury not everyone can access equally. However, the U.S. legal system was built around an idea of strong opposition between the prosecution and defense. It is within this opposition that the truth appears. While this stream of plea deals might be easier on the tax payer’s wallet, it’s not on lady liberty’s. This article earned a second-place commendation in the Dreier Roundtable Op-Ed contest .

Self-censorship is more than just silence–it’s silencing.   Credit: Anne Derenne In recent years, the college free speech debate has descended into a blame game. Students often blame campus “watchdogs,” typically on the left, for policing speech and stifling open discourse. These watchdogs exist, without question. They discourage discussion by making the cost of speaking too high—usually through a mix of public shaming and social exclusion. However, the problem of free speech on campus is not as simple as blaming these self-appointed enforcers. Censorship on college campuses is a two-sided coin, and ignoring the other half would be a disservice. For every censor who shuts someone down, countless others shut themselves up.   At the 5Cs, there is rampant self-censorship. At CMC in particular, 24% of students report  self-censoring for fear of how other students will respond on a weekly basis . Often overlooked, self-censorship damages our community through its chilling effect extending beyond the individual.  To put it in language we CMCers might understand better: demand for diverse viewpoints is high, but the supply of people willing to express those views is low.  The relationship between censorship and self-censorship is synergistic. Watchdogs create an atmosphere where students hesitate to speak out, afraid that a poorly worded thought or a controversial opinion will lead to undesired backlash. Internalizing those pressures, students preemptively silence themselves. But without the catalysts of outspoken peers with controversial views, no one wants to be the first to break out of the cycle. We tend to think of self-censorship as an individual act—a private decision to remain quiet in a specific moment. But the effects of self-censorship extend far beyond one person’s reluctance.  What we often forget is that speaking out and speaking one’s mind is a habit, formed by repetition. Like any other skill, the ability to engage in open discourse strengthens with practice and withers without it. For most, it does not come easily to speak up at all, let alone to share a potentially controversial opinion. But just as an engaging classroom discussion depends on student participation, a campus-wide culture of free expression relies on students willing to engage openly. When few speak, the same voices dominate, not just limiting the diversity of ideas but also discouraging participation altogether. A silent classroom is not just missing perspectives—it is missing the collective effort required to create an environment where speaking feels possible in the first place. Part of the reason speaking out is so hard is that we often discourage sharing half-baked opinions. In other words, they shouldn’t voice their opinion unless they are willing to die on that hill. This leads to inauthentic rhetoric sanitized and diluted with jargon which only hints  at potential  opinions while encouraging individuals to never fully associate themselves with a stance.  Fear of cancel culture leads to self-cancelation. If we think it’s important to fight against cancel culture, that starts at the individual level. And if you don’t cancel others but simultaneously cancel yourself, you remain complicit. Of course there are certainly times when self-censorship is well-warranted. Words can injure and offend, destroy friendships or turn minor disagreements into major disputes. We can and should all choose our battles, and our words, carefully. But there is a distinction between common decency and corrosive self-censorship.  No doubt, people self-censor in censorious environments. Yet few recognize that censorious environments are not just those in which watchdogs call others out. They are environments where everyone self-censors to a fault.  At CMC, the message to students is not simply that the school wants people to express new points of view, but that students should  “ feel empowered… to present new and controversial ideas.” While some of us may feel able, I know few who feel empowered  to do so.  To reclaim the open exchange of ideas, students must understand that speech is not just a matter of personal risk—it is a shared responsibility.

This article was published in conjunction with The Claremont Independent . From 2018 to 2024, the Claremont Colleges Democrat-to-Republican faculty ratio has increased from 8.5:1 to 14.8:1. Recently, The Forum  obtained access to California voter registration data to determine the political party affiliations of professors across the Claremont Colleges. The data encompass counties within a 50-mile radius of the Claremont Colleges—Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, and Riverside. The data were cross referenced with faculty names on the Pomona , Scripps , Claremont McKenna  (CMC), Harvey Mudd , and Pitzer  college webpages. Names without matching voter registrations or with multiple voter registrations were excluded from the analysis. The analysis examined the remaining 395 non-duplicate faculty voter registrations, which constitute 41% of all Claremont Colleges faculty.  College Democrat No Party Republican Third Party Pomona 92 24 6 5 Scripps 54 8 3 1 CMC 68 34 8 3 Harvey Mudd 28 9 1 0 Pitzer 44 5 1 1 Pitzer had the highest Democrat-to-Republican ratio of 44:1, followed by Harvey Mudd at 28:1, Scripps at 18:1, Pomona at 15.3:1, and CMC at 8.5:1. In 2018, Mitchell Langbert conducted  a similar analysis for all U.S. liberal arts colleges. Since 2018, the Democrat-to-Republican ratio at every Claremont College except Pomona has increased. In aggregate, the Claremont Colleges Democrat-to-Republican faculty ratio has increased from 8.5:1 to 14.8:1. Scripps’s ratio has increased from 10:1 to 18:1, CMC’s has increased from 3.7:1 to 8.5:1, Harvey Mudd’s has increased from 6.1:1 to 28:1, and Pitzer’s ratio has increased from 21.3:1 to 44:1. In that same time period, Pomona’s ratio decreased from 39.7:1 to 15.3:1. The Forum  also analyzed party affiliations by subject area, using the faculty titles listed on each website to categorize professors as either STEM, social science, humanities, or fine arts. Subject Area Democrat No Party Republican Third Party STEM 122 30 7 5 Social Science 75 29 10 1 Humanities 73 21 2 3 Fine Arts 16 0 0 1 Social science departments had the most Republicans of any subject area—a total of 10. The remaining Republicans were divided between STEM and Humanities departments. Fine arts departments had a total of zero Republicans.  The Forum  also analyzed party affiliations by gender, which was listed on 45% of non-duplicate faculty voter registrations. Gender Democrat No Party Republican Third Party Male 60 20 7 5 Female 67 16 2 1 Men and women display roughly similar political affiliations, with female professors about 13 percentage points more likely to register as Democrats. The Forum  also examined political affiliations by generation. For the analysis, the Silent Generation includes anyone born before 1946, Baby Boomers include anyone born between 1946 and 1964, Generation X includes anyone born between 1965 and 1980, and Millennials include anyone born between 1981 and 1996. Two Generation Z (born after 1996) professors were found in the voter rolls, both of whom were registered Democrats. Generation Democrat No Party Republican Third Party Silent 10 0 1 0 Boomer 62 14 9 2 Gen X 135 41 1 5 Millennial 77 25 8 3 Younger generations, especially Generation X, were much more likely to have Democrat political leanings. Republicans were about evenly split between the Boomer and Millennial generations. In response to request for comment, Scripps’s Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of Faculty, and Associate Dean of Faculty for Racial Equity Mary Hatcher-Skeers said that “As an equal opportunity employer, Scripps strongly opposes all forms of discrimination and hires applicants based on professional abilities, not political beliefs.” At the same time, she added that “to enhance broad faculty representation, in recent years Scripps has collaborated with the Faculty Executive and Appointments, Promotions, and Tenure Committees to revise its faculty handbook to ensure more inclusive hiring practices.” CMC's Executive Director of Strategic Communications Helena Paulin replied: What matters most is a professor’s pedagogic ability to engage students in a broad range of materials and diverse perspectives where rigorous debate and open inquiry thrive. We prioritize hiring faculty who demonstrate excellence in this commitment to both pedagogy and scholarship. This ensures that students encounter a wide range of ideas in the classroom and beyond, thus reinforcing the Open Academy commitments to freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and constructive dialogue. Pomona’s Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College Yuqing Melanie Wu said: Notwithstanding that the College does not know about or consider the voter registration status of any of its faculty, it would be a mistake to assume that any individual’s range of ideas, knowledge, and perspectives are bound solely by their voter registration; by that same token, it would also be erroneous to conclude that intellectual homogeneity can be determined solely based on voter registration status. The College aims to offer an ideal environment for intellectually curious students and strongly believes in providing resources and energy toward enhancing a campus culture in which all students, faculty, and staff feel welcome and supported. The deans of faculty at Harvey Mudd and Pitzer did not respond to requests for comment.

Any discussion on gun control that fails to address gun violence will ultimately fall short. Nickolas Cruz, the Parkland shooter who killed 17 of David Hogg’s classmates, captured on a security camera (credit: Wikimedia Commons) In advance of gun control activist David Hogg’s visit to the Athenaeum on February 4th, Shiv Parihar   published an article  in The Forum  titled, “David Hogg is No Human Rights Activist.” The piece admonishes Hogg for his strong stance on gun control and argues against the disarmament of American citizens. While the article raises important points, its distorted evidence and refusal to acknowledge the United State’s gun violence epidemic—all framed within a personal attack on Hogg—misleads readers. We believe that the piece overlooks critical factors that must be acknowledged in any solution-oriented conversation on the Second Amendment and gun violence. The piece states that guns “have historically served as a great equalizer” by helping victims, especially women, “resist crime.” Parihar cites two scientific   studies  to support these assertions but fails to acknowledge their flaws. The first study was led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), which casts suspicion on its motives and reliability. More notably, the National Research Council discredited  both studies for their reliance on a faulty self-reporting mechanism which likely overestimated instances of self-defense.  At the center of the article’s argument, though, is a nuanced point about firearms being a means for Black Americans to defend themselves against racial violence. Though this evidence is important and rarely brought up in Second Amendment debates, Parihar warps it to support a distorted conclusion. He argues that people like Hogg who believe in “systemic racial biases” should not entrust the government with gun violence prevention, as the implementation of such laws could disproportionately target communities of color. But the piece completely ignores the fact that gun violence disproportionately affects Black Americans, instead tokenizing the experiences of communities of color to advocate for a policy that is in direct contrast to the current policy agendas of organizations like the NAACP . A study  from UPenn Medicine shows that while Black individuals represent only 12.6% of the U.S. population, they are vastly overrepresented as gun violence victims, experiencing over 44.5% of total firearm injuries. Ultimately, the article fails to acknowledge that stricter gun control might protect these communities from the systemic harms they already suffer. More broadly, the article makes exactly zero mentions of gun violence. The most recent data  from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center shows that in 2021, a record-high 20,958 people died from gun murders (up 45% from 2019). Another recent study  from Johns Hopkins showed that in 2022, for the third year in a row, gun-related deaths were the leading cause of death among children and teenagers. While the article addresses the benefits of guns for self-defense, it fails to acknowledge the many offensive and unjustified uses of guns. Even if you believe that criminals rather than guns are responsible for violence, not mentioning the adverse impacts of firearms on any level is irresponsible from a journalistic standpoint.  Parihar—up to the very last sentence—levels his argument against disarmament, asserting that “we ought to be wary of those who seek to take [guns] away.” Earlier, the piece states that “When despots have sought to roll back human rights, they have inevitably targeted gun rights… Nazi Germany disarmed its Jewish population on the eve of the Holocaust.” This anecdote, made in relation to a larger argument about gun control, misconstrues disarmament as a serious possibility in present-day America when that is simply not the case. The article fails to provide a single piece of evidence to support the claim that large-scale disarmament is a credible threat, much less the policy agenda of David Hogg.  Though Hogg did say on X—as the article correctly cites—that, “You have no right to a gun,” he has never supported a government program of mass disarmament. In reality, his activism is centered around passing universal background checks  by registering voters  and promoting young progressive candidates . Generally, the framing of the article as an attack on Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland shooting  (in which 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, walked into his high school with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and multiple magazines, killing 17 people and wounding 14 more) seems, at best, tone-deaf.  As two Claremont students whose shared Portland community has been impacted by multiple instances of gun violence, resulting in the deaths of at least four of our former high school classmates, we were upset that the article failed to mention victims of gun violence. Considering the destructive impacts that guns have had on too many communities like ours, we believe that gun control discussions should be centered on solutions to address the epidemic.  When it comes to such a complex issue, we believe that more conversation is needed to both protect liberties and address gun violence. Any reporting on this issue should seek to reconcile both those interests. While we respect Parihar’s contribution to the conversation, we believe he ultimately misrepresented the nature of the gun control debate by taking it out of its present context. Even in the present day, it would be silly to impose or advocate for a one-size-fits-all solution to this issue. With this said, there are some promising proposals to address the gun violence epidemic that we support, including federal laws to ban AR-15-style rifles and close background check loopholes. We do not believe that it is a human right to own assault rifles, weapons of war designed specifically for the military . As for background checks, under the current federal law , they are only required for licensed gun dealers, not unlicensed sellers, including those who sell firearms online or at gun shows. This loophole has been abused by illegal firearm trafficking operations . Moreover, social services should be marshaled to address the mental health crisis sweeping our country. While these measures alone will not stop gun violence, we believe that they are a necessary first step to address the issue. This crisis cannot be swept under the rug, and any discussion on gun control that fails to address gun violence will ultimately fall short.

Prison Abolition Collective hosted “Jalil Muntaqim” at Pitzer. Joseph A. Piagentini and Waverly Jones, murdered by Anthony Bottom in 1971. (Credit: NYPD) Former militant Anthony Bottom, better known by his alias Jalil Muntaqim, delivered a talk for the 5C Prison Abolition Collective on Wednesday, February 5th, at Pitzer College’s Benson Auditorium. Sponsors included the Pomona departments of Media Studies, Religious Studies, Politics, Theater, Art History, Middle Eastern Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies; the Scripps departments of Anthropology and Religious Studies; the Motley Coffeehouse; and the CMC Department of Modern Languages and Literature.  Bottom, previously a member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and affiliated Black Liberation Army (BLA), served 49 years in prison between 1971 and 2020 for the murder of two NYPD officers. On May 21st, 1971, officers Waverly Jones and Joseph A. Piagentini responded to a domestic disturbance call at an apartment building where the militants intentionally ambushed them. Bottom used a pistol to shoot  Jones four times. Piagentini was kept alive to beg for his life, repeatedly mentioning his one-and-three-year-old daughters to no avail. Bell shot him a dozen times in intentionally non-lethal wounds so the trio could continue to hear the cop’s begging. After the officer had lost much blood, Bottom lethally shot Piagentini. A witness recalled that the officer’s last words mentioned his daughters. A weeks-long manhunt, made nationally famous by the 1985 film   Badge of the Assassin , culminated in the capture of all three murderers in San Francisco, where the BPP/BLA cell was located. At the time, Bottom claimed innocence of the murders but admitted to having bombed  a church planned as the site of an officer’s funeral. He would eventually plead guilty to the murder of both officers. Bottom had joined the militias to engage  in “armed struggle” against what he saw as white supremacy institutionalized within the United States government. Bottom was denied parole eleven times. At one hearing, he declared the murders were  part of “a war.” Bottom was eventually released in 2020, eventually expressing  regret for having ambushed and murdered the officers. His release was heavily lobbied against by Diane Piagentini, the widow of one of the slain officers, who described  the decision as “gut-wrenching” and herself as “heartbroken.” The BPP and BLA dissolved within ten years of his prosecution in the face of escalating prosecutorial efforts  from federal authorities in response to a series of organized killings and robberies. Bottom’s speech to 5C students avoided the topic of his killings, instead focusing on his organizing of prisoners. Considering himself to have been a “political prisoner,” he called for the abolition of prisons as institutions. Bottom encouraged students to resist “white supremacy” and demand an end to capitalism and imperialism.

The right to bear arms is a human right. Northfield, Minnesota residents use personal arms to foil an 1876 bank robbery attempt. (Credit: Minnesota Historical Society) David Hogg, survivor of the 2017 Parkland high school shooting and founder of the gun control advocacy group March For Our Lives, is being hosted by the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum for a dinner program on February 4th. This appearance was sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights. This is an ostensibly reasonable decision and not much of a surprise. Supporters of additional firearm regulations often argue their position buttresses human rights. The American Civil Liberties Union, for instance, has argued  that firearm regulations are not a violation of civil rights–albeit with exceptions . David Hogg himself has stated  that Americans “have no right to a gun.” This framing ignores the nature of the Second Amendment and the history of gun control, both in the United States and globally.  Referencing the nation’s most successful firearms manufacturer, a 19th-century-tagline quipped “God created men, Sam Colt made them equal.” Indeed, civilian owned firearms have historically served as a great equalizer, a tool  for the oppressed to resist their oppressors and victims to resist crime. In particular, women  have benefitted from carrying firearms for self-defense.  When despots have sought to roll back human rights, they have inevitably targeted gun rights. The disarming of the oppressed has augured the coming of totalitarianism. Bolshevik Russia disarmed  its populace before the Red Terror. Nazi  Germany disarmed its Jewish population on the eve of the Holocaust. The Chinese  Communist Party and Cambodian  Khmer Rouge presided over disarmaments that paved the way for both nation’s killing fields. For most of American history, white supremacists have used gun control to enforce racial tyranny. A particularly egregious 1825 Florida law  authorized all white men to seize firearms in free Black possession. The United States witnessed a wave of gun control legislation several years later in response  to the 1831 Nat Turner slave rebellion. In his majority opinion in the notorious Dred Scott   v. Sanford , Chief Justice Roger Taney argued  against the notion of Black citizenship on the grounds that this would entail to them the right to bear arms. In doing so,  Taney recognizes a right to bear arms as a human right in the process of denying it.  Gun rights were restored to Black Americans along with other civil rights during Reconstruction. The state of Texas recognized  the right to bear arms as a racist regime in 1859. Texas revoked  its recognition of the right to bear arms during Reconstruction when the state was forced to extend dignity to each of its citizens. Explicitly colorblind gun control statutes were a key part of Southern racial tyranny. One Florida Supreme Court Justice wrote  in 1941 of a handgun registration law “never intended to be applied to the white population.” In turn, those challenging Jim Crow recognized gun ownership as a human right. Anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells noted  that Black Americans turned to firearms for the defense denied them by an unjust legal system.   This is not to argue that modern gun control legislation stems from racist or totalitarian motives. Yet, those that push for gun control, including  Hogg, typically recognize the existence of systemic racial biases. They entrust these very institutions to oversee restrictions. This dissonance is particularly strong in those who seek to eliminate firearms from circulation entirely. A state program of disarmament would be the only means to remove guns from the societal sphere of a nation with more firearms than people. Doing so would empower these flawed institutions and be contrary to the very foundations of our republic. The task of disarming America’s most vulnerable would necessarily fall to the very institutions that have perpetuated racial inequalities. The very concept of human rights begins with the inviolability of human life. From time immemorial, the English tradition and its American successor have recognized the importance of self-defense as the defense of that very inviolability and firearms as legitimate instruments of self-defense. The possession of tools of self-defense thus deserves recognition as a fundamental human right. History shows we ought to be wary of those who seek to take them away.

Americans across the political spectrum should be mortified. Pete Hegseth is sworn in as Defense Secretary, January 25 (Credit: Wikimedia Commons) Late last week, the Senate confirmed  Pete Hegseth to the position of Secretary of Defense by a vote of 50-50, with Vice President J.D. Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. The vote makes Hegseth, an Army veteran and former Fox News host, the second youngest Secretary of Defense ever; beyond his age, Hegseth is widely regarded as the least experienced  pick to head the Pentagon in American history.   While one can respect Hegseth’s military service, for which he earned the Bronze Star  while deployed to Iraq in 2005, his lack of experience and deficient personal character renders him wholly unfit for the office. Even if one sets aside the numerous accusations  of alcoholism, abuse, and sexual impropriety (including an allegation of sexual assault), Hegseth’s prior organizational mismanagement, remarkable personal infidelity, lack of knowledge about key issues, and propagandistic outlook on the role of government and military should instill substantial doubts within anyone about his ability to manage the U.S.’s largest government agency.   During his confirmation hearing, Democratic senators peppered Hegseth with questions surrounding the allegations that surfaced following his nomination, including a sexual assault allegation from 2017 (after a civil lawsuit was threatened, Hegseth paid his accuser  $50,000 as part of a settlement). Hegseth was also accused of repeated drunkenness  by at least a dozen former colleagues across three different organizations, sexually inappropriate behavior  in the workplace (including bringing employees  to a strip club), and abusing his second wife . Hegseth denied the allegations as “anonymous smears,” despite the third one emanating from a signed affidavit by his former sister-in-law; moreover, an email  from Hegseth’s 2018 divorce proceedings reveals that Hegseth’s own mother called him “an abuser of women” that “belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego.” Although Hegseth’s mother later said she wrote the email out of anger, if any of the aforementioned allegations are true, Hegseth’s misconduct is not only unbecoming of a man tapped to lead our nation’s military—it ought to be disqualifying.   Nevertheless, even if one discards the allegations as part of some orchestrated smear campaign, the available facts surrounding Hegseth’s personal life and career paint an equally damning picture. A serial womanizer, Hegseth admitted  to having five affairs in five years of marriage to his first wife. During those years, Hegseth’s irresponsibility and dishonesty extended to his professional pursuits as well. In 2007, Hegseth became the Executive Director of a veterans non-profit—Veterans for Freedom; between 2008 and 2011, under his leadership, the organization repeatedly ran annual deficits  in the hundreds of thousands and annual donations declined from $8.7 million to $22,000 after creditors became concerned that Hegseth was mismanaging funds. His time leading another veterans nonprofit—Concerned Veterans for America—tells a similar story; one account  details how Hegseth “treated the organization funds like they were a personal expense account.”   Beyond poor character and concerning experience, statements made by Hegseth demonstrate his profound misunderstanding of global affairs and the values of U.S. foreign policy. Despite touting the importance of the Indo-Pacific to national security, he failed to name  a single member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (his three guesses were all wrong). Moreover, Hegseth has repeatedly  disparaged U.S. allies and suggested that U.S. troops should ignore the Geneva Convention. Fittingly, Hegseth successfully lobbied  President Trump to pardon a Navy SEAL who had been court martialed after several members of his platoon accused him  of indiscriminately firing at civilian neighborhoods and stabbing a defenseless teenage captive to death.   Excerpts from Hegseth’s 2020 book— American Crusade —sound like a caricature of right-wing propaganda; in it, he argued that “[Trump] losing the 2020 election” means that “America will decline and die.” It is safe to say that his predictions—that “elitism will strangle us with political correctness until our thoughts are a crime,… leftism will enslave us all with big government until it’s enslaved by Islamism,… and the Second Amendment will be gone”—did not materialize during Biden’s presidency. Perhaps most concerning, Hegseth wrote: “The military and police… will be forced to make a choice. It will not be good. Yes, there will be some form of civil war.” Hegseth’s view of left-leaning citizens as subversives and the military as a domestic instrument of a civil war is more fitting of 1970’s Argentina than today’s America; and it certainly is not a view that a responsible Secretary of Defense should have.   As an International Relations major, I have had the privilege of taking a dozen courses relating to international politics, U.S. foreign policy, warfare, and international law, both at CMC and while studying abroad in Germany. It is clear to me, after four years of study, that Hegseth would not be able to secure a passing grade in a single one of those courses. For students of international relations, who are tasked each day with studying the dynamics of international security and the complex forces that draw U.S. troops into combat around the globe, Hegseth’s confirmation is nothing short of a disgrace—a repudiation of everything American foreign policy ought to stand for.