In her recent opinion column, “The dark history of land-grant universities” (Nov. 12), historian Margaret A. Nash misses the mark in a number of ways. While there is no question that our country has a dark past regarding its treatment of native peoples, land-grant colleges and universities, like our national parks, represent some of the better usage of land that had been taken by the federal government during the country’s expansion in the 19th century.
In an address at the University of Vermont on the 100th anniversary of the Land-Grant Act, Wilbur K. Jordan, president emeritus of Radcliffe College, noted that the act “was responsible for the early development of co-education in this country, the healthy democratization of education, and for the establishment of an equally healthy diversity in our whole structure of higher education.”
Since the act’s passage in 1862, land-grant colleges have evolved and become more inclusive. In a second Land-Grant College Act, in 1890, also authored by Justin Morrill of Strafford, provisions were made to require either attendance without regard to race separate “just” institutions of higher education. This led to the establishment of 11 black land-grant colleges, which provided much of the black leadership in our nation in the 20th century.
Even more germane, in 1994, funds were provided for 33 land-grant institutions to serve primarily Native American populations, providing academic and research programs and a culturally relevant curriculum.
As important as recognizing the flaws of the past and the scars that linger, we also need to acknowledge the progress that has been made. Land-grant colleges, the legacy of Justin Morrill and other progressive educators, have been and will continue to be at the forefront of positive change in our country and the world.
JOHN FREITAG
South Strafford
The writer served as president of the Strafford Historical Society and is a guide at the Justin Morrill Homestead.
One of the arguments most often mounted against the constitutionally authorized process of impeachment is that it is “trying to overturn the results of the 2016 election.” We should, it is maintained, wait for 2020 and, if we want to remove the president from office, we should do so at the ballot box.
There are two problems with this position. First, the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump will doubtless include the act of encouraging a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 election through bribery, extortion and other forms of coercion. The particular case in point will be Ukraine, but as my father would have said, “for every rat you see there are 20 you don’t.” And as the story of the Trump presidency unfolds, more foreign actors may be added to the list of those meddling in our elections to the benefit of Trump. So if, in fact, the 2020 election processes are in jeopardy, how can we trust that any result at the ballot box will reflect accurately the will of the people? Waiting for the results of the 2020 election while allowing the president to continue to encourage election interference makes very little sense.
The second difficulty is with the argument that the impeachment of the president “nullifies the results of 2016 election.” Of course it does. If I were hired for a job and was subsequently found to be embezzling from the company, firing me would certainly “nullify the results of the hiring process.” That’s the point.
Sometimes we make mistakes when we vote. Sometimes we don’t know all the facts when we vote. Sometimes the people for whom we have voted do things that are immoral, illegal or corrupt once in office. We are not stuck with them until the next election simply because we initially voted for them. These are precisely the kinds of circumstances that the Founders envisioned when they added impeachment to the list of responsibilities of our representatives in Congress.
SUSAN WHITE
Norwich
Climate and climate justice, not a tyrannical U.S. president, should be the defining issues of the 2020 election. The fact that Donald Trump and his advisers chose to ignore the climate emergency is of much greater importance to human survival than his misbehavior. Trump enjoys both popular support and that of the elites of our neoliberal economy. As such, the issues around climate change will never be addressed. That is why Trump must be defeated in 2020 and why his successor must not represent neoliberalism.
If we examine the excesses of our growth-dependent market economy, we find enormous waste in many forms — discarded food, unneeded trips, inappropriate land use — all driven by relentless and intrusive marketing. Our decrepit infrastructure suffers simultaneously from overcapacity and obsolescence, neither maintainable nor replaceable. Adding a lane to the freeway only invites more traffic and more maintenance. Waste, overconsumption and overcapacity are not attributes of social well-being. If we want what we don’t need or can’t use, we are suffering from social illness, not enjoying prosperity. The climate emergency requires us to ask ourselves, “What really matters?”
Replacing the existing fossil fuel and nuclear template with sustainable electric energy and transportation will not be easy. As fossil energy becomes more expensive with carbon taxation and regulation, oil companies will only be incentivized to produce more. Devices that use oil, such as the internal combustion engine, will have unpaid investments to redeem. The only conversion strategy possible will be to keep fossil fuels in the ground and buy out those stranded costs now.
Unregulated markets are devouring the land and its resources. A new economics will be needed before we can begin to bend the atmospheric carbon curve and reduce inequality — an economics that does not depend on debt and risk equity to produce wealth but rather on care for and equitable use of, our common inheritance, Earth. We must invent and implement a climate economics now, beginning with elimination of GDP as a metric for economic well-being.
CHARLES DePUY
Lebanon