Graphic by Betty Smart ‘26
By Paige Comeau ’26
Opinion Editor
On Monday, Jan. 20, Donald Trump began his official second term as President of the United States. Since then, according to the Federal Register, Trump has issued more than 45 executive orders, 36 during his first week alone, looking to rid the government of the so-called “woke” policies he and his administration campaigned against. Some of these orders include withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, the termination of government Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs and an order that aims to, according to NPR, “restor[e] biological truth to the federal government” through mandating “the federal government assert biological distinctions between men and women and refer to individuals by their ‘sex’ instead of their gender identity.”
As a gender-diverse women’s college that is home to people of many different races, ethnicities, sexualities, genders and origins, our community has been reasonably shaken by these dramatic actions and the hate they have inspired. As early as four days after the Inauguration, the Mount Holyoke College administration began contacting the wider community about the impact of Trump’s Executive Orders. In an email sent to the College community on Jan. 24, President Danielle R. Holley stated, “I assure you that the College leadership team is aware of and diligently monitoring all Executive Orders and proposed or filed legislation and court cases. Know that the College stands ready to take all necessary action … I commit to keeping you aware of the College’s strategies and plans in response to any specific actions stemming from the Executive Orders or any other legal action that directly affects us.”
Moreover, once the spring semester began, Holley and other administrative officials held a closed forum to discuss recent executive orders and the ways they may affect the College on Tuesday, Jan. 28. As previously reported by Mount Holyoke News, during an interview after the panel she once again stated that should any executive order have a direct impact on the community, the College administration will “absolutely let students know right away.”
“Trust us and let us take on these big challenges. There's nothing that individual students, faculty and staff can do at this point to help. We will do that,” Holley said in the interview. “We hope that the great work that we’re doing here at Mount Holyoke won’t be slowed down, and that our sense of community won’t be destroyed by people who don’t really have any right to even attempt to destroy it.”
Throughout these messages, it has been clear to me that the main objective of the College’s administration has been to assuage any panic community members may be feeling around the Trump administration’s recent actions. Nonetheless, I have felt vaguely disappointed in their response, as have other students I’ve spoken with. In the continuous usage of the phrase “directly affecting the College,” it feels as though the administration only cares about executive actions that will impact the College as an entity, particularly when they discuss funding, rather than the community that exists here.
Already, students, faculty and staff have been directly affected by the Trump administration’s executive orders. Immigrants, transgender people, people with uteruses, anyone with health issues and more who reside on this campus are already being impacted and attacked by Trump’s various orders. Broader than that, however, is the way that the hateful rhetoric promoted by the Trump administration can directly affect community members at any time. Hate speech and xenophobia are only going to occur more often and be increasingly normalized throughout this administration, the effects of which many MHC students, staff and faculty may already be dealing with. With this in mind, the College’s continuous rhetoric around waiting for an issue that “directly” affects us is disappointing and offensive at the very least.
This is not to say that I, or anyone else, expect the College to be able to enact any extraordinary resistance against Trump’s orders, particularly when many of them don’t have anything to do with higher education. That being said, it is unwise to push the effect this may have on students, faculty and staff to the side. To say that no issues have yet “directly” affected the community is a gross misjudgement of many problems faced by current community members. It feels the least the College can do is acknowledge this, rather than aim to decrease panic through total denial.
Quill Nishi-Leonard ’27 contributed fact-checking.