Expect the administration of President-elect Donald Trump to move quickly after Inauguration Day, panelists agreed at an NYU Law Forum on November 12.
Four faculty members—Deborah Archer, Margaret B. Hoppin Professor of Clinical Law; Ryan Goodman, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Professor of Law; Vanita Gupta ’01, distinguished scholar in residence; and moderator Samuel Issacharoff, Bonnie and Richard Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law—assessed Trump’s likely impact in civil rights and civil liberties, defense and foreign relations, and the functioning of federal agencies such as the US Department of Justice, among other areas.
Trump’s policy changes will be far-reaching and will shatter many norms of democratic governance, they predicted. Among the many specific measures the speakers deemed probable were litigation against educational institutions that have diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs; the mass deportations of immigrants that Trump promised during his campaign; and the use of federal law enforcement against political opponents.
“I think it’s wrong to underestimate the likelihood that President Trump will make good on some aspect of using the Justice Department to go after his perceived political enemies, because he did it before,” said Goodman, co-editor in chief of Just Security. “There are multiple examples I've collected and…written about, in which he specifically went after political opponents and got criminal investigations up and running through the use of his power.”
The group also considered how Trump administration policies might be countered. Archer, who is president of the American Civil Liberties Union, pointed to protections that exist in some states and local jurisdictions. “More of our conversations should be about how in this moment are we building a firewall to protect civil rights and civil liberties using state law, using local laws, embodying our values in state and local laws,” she said.
Gupta, who served as US associate attorney general in the Biden administration, agreed that action at the state and local level is likely to be important for those opposing Trump’s agenda. She noted that more than a quarter of current active federal judges are Trump appointees, with many more likely to be seated soon.
“Sometimes at law school we train ourselves to think of a particular set of tools as being the biggest priority for preserving social justice and protecting democracy and civil rights,” Gupta said. “And I just think that … law school educators need to think about how we expand that, and that for the next four years, it is going to take a much broader set of tools than simply litigation and the [federal] courts simply because of the state of those courts.”
Both Archer and Gupta suggested that, beyond the short-term challenges of the Trump administration, bigger issues of inequality and injustice remain to be addressed. “My charge back to you all is to think long term, to think creatively, to think expansively,” Archer said. “…You should be thinking about this as an invitation to use everything that you have learned in this building to do better, to be more creative, to move farther than we have been able to do in the past.”
Selected quotes from the NYU Law Forum on Trump’s second term:
Ryan Goodman: “One [concern] is use of the Insurrection Act to get the military to suppress civil unrest in our country and use of the military, including detention facilities, to engage in massive deportation of people inside the United States… And that the Insurrection Act could be used with immigration powers to go after not just people who are inside the United States without documentation, but also those who are lawfully present. In fact, they’d be the easiest targets because they’re documented and the US government knows where they are.” (video 32:27)
Vanita Gupta: “I would anticipate that Day One all of President Biden's or almost all of his executive orders are going to be rescinded, and President Trump will reestablish the executive orders from his first term. [And] I’m sure his transition team is working on a whole new set of executive orders that will be announced in the first day, in the first weeks. Those will be probably aligned with all of the policy priorities that one can anticipate—undermining environmental protections, policing reform, voting rights reforms. President Biden had to accomplish much of his agenda through executive orders because Congress was not enacting laws. That same would apply for all of the executive orders to ensure federal law protections post-Dobbs on reproductive freedom and reproductive health care access.” (video 24:02)
Deborah Archer: “On the regulatory side, I think a second Trump administration will refuse to enforce civil rights regulations on behalf of historically marginalized groups. But they’ll also take actions to weaken protections in housing and education, in health care, and again, in the category that I would call community equity. He’s promised to increase his attacks on so-called divisive concepts, and so I think we would see federal funding withdrawn from schools that have curricula or books or classes that address race and racism, gender and sexuality.” (video 14:15)
Watch video of the NYU Law Forum on the second Trump administration:
Posted November 15, 2024