In response to Matthew Allaire’s ‘27 “The Case for Institutional Neutrality,” Yamalí Rodas Figueroa ’26 published “Institutional neutrality is undemocratic.” I would like to commend Figueroa for taking a stance against labeling calls for justice as “controversial.” We can — and should — demand more than adherence to the status quo from our institutions. To imply that human rights are somehow negotiable is to suggest that they are retractable.
I would like to extend this notion beyond institutions, however, and apply it also to the student body as a whole. We must be present for each other. Right now many feel alone and betrayed — alienated by those around them. Now, more than ever, we owe it to each other to not offer any leniency to incursions upon our rights.
I want to preface the following scathing critique of neutrality by emphasizing that, like many of you, there are people who are important to my life who happen to be Trump voters; I was not raised in a blue state or by a blue family. As I have matured, I have had to recognize the possibility that those I love may hold beliefs that perpetuate hate. I understand not all of us have the privilege to simply cut people from our lives, and the decision to do so is never an easy one.
While it is not the central issue of this piece, I believe that the attitude of neutrality has brought us to a difficult juncture wherein the Democratic Party has attempted to skew towards centrist (and often right-leaning) values while the GOP only has to resist change–the great unifier of the right wing. By abandoning entire coalitions — most notably Arab Americans and the rural working class — the Harris campaign surrendered to vague, hollow centrism.
Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz’s attempts to advocate for “bread-and-butter” policies that would support the working class fell on deaf ears among the campaign staff. Other more explicitly left-leaning policies were quite successful in this election. Missouri, for instance, was won by Trump by a significant swing, while a pro-choice ballot measure was simultaneously successful. To argue that Harris was somehow too far left is preposterous and a direct result of these calls for nebulous neutrality.
As many a Macalester philosophy student may recall, Michel Foucault once spoke of biopower: the idea that those in power decide who must live and who must die. When Trump and his allies tell you outright that they wish to abolish abortion rights and carry out mass deportations of our neighbors, they are being brazen about how they wish to control our bodies and lives. They are spelling out exactly who they are; believe them. They are not shy: their beliefs are overtly expressed because we enable them to do so. They certainly are not exercising neutrality. We must not offer respect to those who give us none.
By maintaining neutrality above all else, you communicate to your peers that it is socially acceptable to hold such hateful beliefs. Make no mistake: the GOP is banking on you allowing them to continue to dominate the conversation. Neutrality is the self-regulating, self-disciplining mechanism through which calls for change are stigmatized and fascism is placated. Within a society dedicated to upholding a sense of neutrality, the status quo will continuously shift towards hate.
There is, of course, the knee-jerk American instinct to, perhaps to uphold some semblance of “free speech,” allow all voices to be heard and genuinely considered, protecting anyone from being admonished for their beliefs. However, if you have the free speech to say that I should die from an unviable ectopic pregnancy, I have the free speech to say that you are cruel. If you believe that my trans friends and neighbors should be legislated out of their right to exist freely and happily, then I am comfortable in saying that you should be ashamed. You cannot “hear both sides” when one side’s argument is predicated on violence, hatred, and prejudice. This is non-negotiable. To have the privilege to not need to care about these issues does not exempt you from your duty to display care for your fellow human.
Many of us have been routinely shamed into frustrated compliance. It is high time for shame to be deservedly redirected back toward those who have utilized it to marginalize, otherize, and subjugate.
The observable effects of neutrality and allowing hate to proliferate are already abundantly clear. LGBTQIA+ suicide hotlines have received an inundation of calls in the wake of the election. Black Americans across the nation have been bombarded with abhorrent, racist, targeted text messages from anonymous numbers telling them that they have been “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.” Trump’s pantheon of yes-men have already begun touting the phrase “your body, my choice,” in response to the abortion activist movement.
By refusing to call fascism what it is, moderates tell the world that they see hate as tolerable.
On Monday, November 11th, I attended the Peace/Anti-War Counter-Memory and Ongoing Struggle from Vietnam to Palestine event at the Weyerhaeuser Chapel. Despite the impact of the panel’s lived experiences, hate tangibly and viscerally derailed the event when an audience member (who is not part of the Macalester community but was present with the Veterans for Peace group) levied a vicious string of anti-semitic remarks against one of the panelists. After an intense exchange, he was removed from the building.
Open or constructive dialogue involving hateful actors is not only impossible but harmful as it provides them a platform from which they may spread their hate. We owe it to each other to combat hate, leaning into the discomfort of standing for what is just despite the heavy burden it carries.
I believe that many of us chose Macalester because of its activist-inclined student population. As we reconsider the trust we place in each other, I hope that I can continue to count on the Macalester student body to ruthlessly fight for what is right. In doing so, we are not being radical nor controversial; we are merely exhibiting common human decency. If we allow ourselves and our institution to hide under the banner of neutrality, we risk being complicit in further cultivating a community where only the loudest, most fascistic voice is heard, harming our society as a whole.
