[Editor's Note: As part of her efforts to connect at as many local meetings as she can, Sarah Green -- Michigan Technological University professor emerita, former chair of chemistry and founder of CRAG (Citizens Rally for Accountable Government) -- has spoken twice, in February and in April of this year, during the public comment period at the Board of Trustees meeting for Michigan Technological University. Here is her April 25, 2025, speech to that Board of Trustees.]
By Sarah Green
April 25, 2025, Statement to the Michigan Technological University Board of Trustees
Published here with permission.
Graduation is always an exciting time as newly minted alumni are launched into the world. However, this year they are heading into a profoundly uncertain future.
Graduates who aspired to careers of public service have been discarded as expendable, being fired from agencies that protect our health, improve our environment, design our infrastructure, manage our financial system, and conduct fundamental research.
Future graduates are having opportunities yanked from under them as visas are revoked with no explanation or research grants are canceled.
But this threat is far greater than the loss of a few jobs or grants.
Our democratic institutions are under attack. Historians, political scientists, economists, journalists, and leaders from across the political spectrum are raising the alarm that we are seeing a rapid authoritarian take-over of our system of government.
This is an emergency. I feel like I’m watching coyote suspended in the air after running off the cliff.
We are seeing ruthless and unprincipled attacks on research institutions, the press, and universities, in short any place that encourages critical thinking.
The easy response to this chaos for board members like yourselves is to make a few concessions, then a few more. But that’s a dangerous slope; with each capitulation the bullies return to demand more.
The only way to stop bullies and mobsters is to band together and fight back.
As of this morning, 443 university presidents have signed a letter "speak[ing] with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education."*
President Koubek’s name was not on this letter.**
I urge the university to be fully transparent about government pressures, including the number of revoked visas, impacted grants and other impacts.
I urge you to join and support efforts to oppose the illegal attacks on universities.
I’ll finish with a few words from journalist Adrienne LaFrance who interviewed numerous people who have lived under dictators and autocrats:
"Today, right now -- and I mean right this second -- you have the most power you’ll ever have in the current fight against authoritarianism in America. Authoritarian leaders topple democracy faster than you can imagine. If you wait to speak out against them, you have already lost." (Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, 2025)
Inset photo: Sarah Green. (Photo courtesy Michigan Tech University and Sarah Green)
Notes:
* The statement in the letter was developed in collaboration with university and college presidents and other educational leaders across the country, after national meetings convened by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
** For the record, Michigan Technological University President Koubek’s name still does not appear on the AACU letter, which today shows 565 sigatures.
Editor's addendum: If you wish to join Sarah Green's CRAG (Citizens Rally for Accountable Government) email group, go to https://app.keila.io/forms/nfrm_qkVPbe38
