The protests that delayed this year’s Harvard-Yale game were enough to break some news the weekend before Thanksgiving. Climate change is a big deal. And if the nation’s top schools with a combined endowment worth $70 billion did something about it, maybe higher ed could set an example for the country, if not the world.
But nothing seems to have come out of it.
Divestiture is always a point of contention. In the ‘70s after the Vietnam War, the move was to divest in funding South Africa. That all seems like a lot more doable and practical in retrospect. But climate change? Not when the world’s top climate denier is the president of the United States.
The reaction was predictable. The protests were bold gestures. But did it move any needles?
I didn’t expect Trump to react to the Harvard-Yale protestors but by last Wednesday, Trump was ready to listen to other protesting students: The pro-democracy students who put their bodies on the line in Hong Kong. If you haven’t been paying attention, the situation has been brewing for the last year and came to a head at Hong Kong Polytechnic University last week. The arrests are in the thousands and two protestors have died. Watch the news videos and see for yourself if police overreacted. Most believe they did.
Trump signing two bipartisan bills in the House and Senate is a show that gridlocked Washington can get something done. The bills promise sanctions to those accused of human rights abuses. Sounds good. But it also calls for an annual review of the U.S. Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, a policy that gives Hong Kong special status for U.S. technology that have dual consumer and military uses.
There’s some irony when Trump says he supports the pro-democracy students when at the same time says he’s all for China. Can you trust it?
