The term “constitutional crisis” isn’t well defined. In 2009, law professors Jack Balkin of Yale and Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas interpreted it as a period when government institutions are in obvious conflict. John Yoo — a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley — told CNN he has “no clear definition of a constitutional crisis.”
We’re community college students. Seemingly no more capable than any other at describing the subject, in no possession of law degrees and likely less familiar with the federal government than we presume.
We’re considered fixtures on higher education’s lowest rung. When we hear talk about recent attacks on academia, two-year schools are typically missing from the conversation. Our only qualification in defining a constitutional crisis, as community college students, is living here — in America.
And, importantly, our eyes.
We saw President Donald Trump appoint loyalists to Congress: former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, previous WWE co-runner Linda McMahon and repeated roadkill harvester Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The new FBI Director, Kash Patel, wrote the 2022 children’s book “The Plot Against the King” — about Trump.
We saw Congress kneel.
We saw the president suppress free speech when he barred the Associated Press’ coverage, sued CBS and threatened media regulation. All while regulatory measures for corporations and billionaires ease. We saw federal agencies flag words like gender, race and diversity.
We saw the world’s richest man head up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Which, it should be mentioned, is an advisory body and not a government department. We saw Elon Musk and DOGE’s effectual attempts to cut tens of thousands of federal jobs and several agencies.
We saw Trump attempt to end birthright citizenship and invoke a wartime law — the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — to deport some 250 Venezualans to El Salvadore without trial. We saw the president defy a federal judge’s order and delegitimize the judicial branch in the process.
We saw the political imprisonment of Mahmoud Khalil in the misrepresented name of anti-semitism — after Musk’s post-inauguration Nazi salute.
In all of this, and through the Trump administration’s intentional obfuscation, we see something. Something that affects us all, even if we don’t all feel it yet. Whatever its precise definition, we see a crisis — of rights, of checks and balances — of constitutional proportions.
