Here’s some inspiring /troubling breaking news: “Two top security officials at the US Agency for International Development were put on administrative leave Saturday night after refusing to allow officials from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access systems at the agency, even after DOGE personnel threatened to call law enforcement, multiple sources familiar told CNN. Personnel from the Musk-created office physically tried to access the USAID headquarters in Washington, DC, and were stopped.”
Most of us aren’t setting organizational policies, but a lot of us implement or enforce them. Where will we draw the line? It’s probably good to know this at all times, but at times like this it would be wise to develop some principles to use as things get worse.
When the CDC’s advisory board sent a letter demanding answers about the agency’s destruction of public health resources under Trump orders, board member Daniel Dawes acknowledged, “We expect to be fired.” These are unpaid advisors, with other day jobs. What about the people who actually work at CDC — or other agencies? If they told you to take down the rainbow flags, or replace the gender inclusive bathroom signs, or delete webpages with links to vital public health resources, would you do it? What about handing over the passwords to a system that controls every federal expenditure?
Almost everyone has to do things at work they don’t want to. The question of resistance requires some assessment of the stakes. How bad is the bad thing they want you to do, and how bad is the punishment if you refuse?
As MAGA threatened to prosecute local officials for resisting their crackdowns on civil rights, they were also considering a purge of thousands of FBI agents. Jamelle Bouie said, “I think this should be factored into how states, counties, localities and hospitals respond to these executive orders. ‘we will investigate you if you teach DEI.’ okay, with what agents, specifically? with what state capacity?” That day, the sheriff in Tompkins County, New York (site of Ithaca, a sanctuary city), was under threat of “potential prosecution” from the MAGA Department of Justice for refusing to illegally hold an immigrant beyond the time of his court-mandated release. Will the DOJ really devote resources to such a prosecution? To a thousand such prosecutions? Thanks to gerrymandering, Democrats in Ithaca just won a close House race. Would a federal crackdown and an energized progressive populous undermine the next Republican to run there? Is Sheriff Osborne ready to go to jail — should he?
We have obligations as humans (citizens, in the broad sense), and we also have professional obligations. At the CDC the other day, scientists were ordered to withdraw pending publications at scientific journals if they contain words MAGA deems verboten, such as “transgender” or “LGBT.” That does harm to public health and the work of the agency, but it also violates professional norms and ethics. What would happen if a CDC scientist refused to comply? Who would figure out they had refused, who would figure out how to fire them, who would take the required steps? Is it worth it? I don’t know.
These are the questions more of us will face. I am pretty sure I would not collaborate with a researcher who might have to take an action like the CDC has demanded with regard to our joint work. People funded by NSF have had their payments frozen, and they are at risk of losing their homes. Would you carry out that order?
It’s also relevant how the situation plays into MAGA’s authoritarian mission. What does compliance entail, and what is its product? For 20 years I have used data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey to educate many thousands of students about trends in teen sexual behavior. As in this figure from the 4th edition of my book.
This is basic information about our society, not available from any other source. Now, because Trump and MAGA are afraid of knowledge and education, access to this information is denied the public. “We are in the midst of a youth mental health crisis,” the CDC website still says, as of today, but you can’t have the information about it, because the survey also includes information about gender identity.
MAGA says this is about “defending women” but it does not defend women — or anyone else. This is denying education to the public. They cannot rule over an educated public. Trump says his lies are “common sense” — and you have to be ignorant to believe him. My heart bleeds for the people who have devoted their careers to these vital public health efforts, now ordered to pull the plug on them.
They aren’t just threatening access to existing data. An informed public requires new data all the time. The scientists at CDC were working to improve and develop the survey, to respond to social change as it happens. This is how modern society works. If we let Trump kill programs like this, we lose our society. Across the federal government, scientists have been working on how to understand and measure sex and gender identity and behavior. Millions of dollars, many experts, many studies. Getting the science right matters. They are setting alight years of scientific effort — which the public paid for — to try to get us the information we need to get these questions right. It’s a bonfire of knowledge. (Here’s a presentation describing these efforts, just removed from the CDC website. Here is a 10-year-old working paper at the Department of Education, just removed from its website.)
What are our values, and how do we best defend them? “Efficiency” is a lie. This censorship is incredibly wasteful. Even if the data and associated materials some day come back, you can’t turn science off and on again without vast losses of time and money. “Protection” is a lie. This science does not hurt women, children, or girls. The CDC scientists are not militant trans activists. They are doing the research that gives us a common basis of knowledge upon which to hash out our differences.
Elections have consequences, and scientists understand this. In a democracy, we know, this may mean shifting priorities and funding, turnover in programs. We do our part as citizens to push society in the direction demanded by our values, and we adapt professionally to the changing landscape. But tearing down the knowledge already produced is not that process. I’m not so naive about government and science, as agents of human liberation and rights. These have always been real, debatable, choices. But the institutions are nevertheless terrain we can contest, as long as they continue to exist. Democracies use data for arguments over government policy. How many trans kids are there, and how are they doing? Where can we see good or bad programs and outcomes? What care is effective, how? Scientific data doesn’t determine policy, it lets us debate it rationally. That’s what they can’t handle.
I would have worked for the CDC last year. This year, if it were me, I hope I would say “no.” (Or, “Sure, I’ll take care of it, you can count on me” — as I change the passwords, rename the files, and walk out for the last time.) To my own actual circumstances, this question also arises: How will the universities respond, and how we will respond to that? I am open to suggestions.
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Previously Published on familyinequality with Creative Commons License
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