Due Process

Due process isn't sexy, unless, perhaps, you are a geeky law student. I'll admit that I've never been turned on by legal documents and HR contracts. Nevertheless, the words in these documents, and our devotion to their accurate interpretation, is what fuels our civilization. And civilization is the only way I can see for human beings to contribute something positive to the universe in which we have evolved. 

The fact that I want that, and that everyone I've ever talked with personally wants that, is something that continues to give me hope even when I'm faced with what appears to be evidence of, at best, indifference, and at worst, vindictive cruelty perpetrated by the most powerful nation in the world.

This profoundly un-sexy desk scene courtesy FFSA/OWI

Civilization is at its best when it realizes its potential for error and works to rectify its mistakes. When Congress passed the Administrative Procedure Act in 1946, it was doing just that. The New Deal attempted to respond to human suffering in the United States by vastly expanding the state. With that state expansion came a vast new potential for abuse. People came to rely on the state for benefits ranging from veterans disability payments to disease control and public health information. With so much power, and so many touch-points in people's lives, it became necessary to separate the state's essential functions from the whims of any one executive. Thus, the APC created a due process for making changes in federal agencies that disallowed "arbitrary or capricious" actions in hiring, firing, or policy directives. People who work for the government should be able to trust their employer to treat them fairly just as the people who hire them to carry out their duties should be able to trust them to do so faithfully. 

This act came sixty years after another moment when Congress recognized the need for bureaucratic reform. The Pendleton Act of 1883 established a professional civil service, recognizing the potential for political corruption in state administration. The U.S. civil service has been the gold standard for democratic state administration ever since.

That is, until now. The current administration's slash and burn approach to cutting jobs in the federal bureaucracy is a microcosm for their approach to dismantling the civilized world order that we've been attempting to uphold for the 80 years since the passage of the APA on the heals of World War II. Rather than reasoned arguments for actions, backed up by reputable citations, authoritarianism’s only answer to “why?” is “because I said so.” As champion of the “free world,” the United States draws its authority only from the consent of the governed, a consent born of respect. This regime rejects those requisites and instead seeks to impose its will in a many spheres as it is able. (And, say what you will about “wokeism,” it never withdrew security details from threatened officials or made legislators fear for the safety of their families…) In an era when a powerful government has more tools than ever at its disposal to undertake a sound self-analysis and attempt meaningful reforms, instead, a chaotic and contradictory approach is being applied with the finesse of an angry elephant. 

There is no doubt in my mind that, in addition to causing suffering, this will waste our treasure and precipitate a brain drain away from public service. What, then, becomes of those essential services? What is the point of having so much power if it is wielded arbitrarily and capriciously? 

A good example of this approach appears in the removal of some (but not all) peer-reviewed, grant-funded reports from the National Parks Service's "Telling All American Stories" portal that was created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Parks Service in 2016.  A crusade against “DEI” and transgender recognition has led to discriminatory removal of literature focused on some minorities’ experiences but not others. This has been especially salient for me as I've undertaken a study of the establishment of the Stonewall National Monument in advance of my dissertation. So much has been written about the erasure of "T" and "Q" from official NPS material, that it warrants a future post. 

Domination for domination's sake has never been a part of my understanding of the ideal of American power.  Even in our darker periods, nods to civilization were made by those who wielded power on our behalf. And even people with very different priorities from my own still see the potential for improving the world only through a lens of trust and moral responsibility. 

The words of the White Rose in Germany call to me as I write this:

"Nothing is more shameful to a civilized nation than to allow itself to be “governed” by an irresponsible clique of sovereigns who have given themselves over to dark urges – and that without resisting."

There are many notions of what resistance should look like. But at least from where I sit, I refuse to do the administration's job for it. If they want to use their power to enact their agenda, let them do it. Let them prove that an educational program "creates a hostile environment." Let them create new legal categories that differ from their semantic or scientific meaning, and then let us call them out on it. I will not do their work for them. My commitment is to civilization's potential. My commitment is to due process.