EDITORS' CORNER
Professors were among the throngs on Saturday taking part in the No Kings demonstrations held across the nation to protest the Trump administration.
It is estimated that millions of people took part in the rallies that peppered the country, with some likening the movement to the conservative Tea Party protests in 2009.
Various reports estimated 3,000 different protests took place in larger cities and smaller communities, drawing people from all walks of life, including scholars.
Richard Stillson, a psychologist who teaches human sexuality at Trinity College, told the CT Mirror the queer community has suffered due to Trump administration policies blocking sex-change surgeries on minors and trans athletes in women’s sports, as well as preventing sex changes on passports.
“ People are petrified. Afraid to travel, afraid to come out of their cocoons, out of their places where they’re feeling the safest, just because they don’t know how they’ll be received and what repercussions they’ll be,” Stillson said.
An assistant professor of women’s and gender studies at Indiana University South Bend, Darryl Heller, called the “racism and patriarchy and overt white supremacy of this administration” profound, the South Bend Tribune reported.
Sean Eudaily, a professor of political philosophy and Constitutional studies at the University of Montana-Western, spoke to the crowd as a concerned citizen, arguing for power to the people.
“We were the first state to systematically regulate the influence of corporate money in politics. We were the first state to send a woman to Congress, Jeannette Rankin,” Eudaily said, the Daily Montanan reported.
“If you let the politicians write the constitution, the people will be sidelined. So that’s not how we do it.”
Saturday’s demonstrations marked the third time the No Kings protests have taken place since Trump took office for his second term, and it has been billed as the largest of the three so far, with estimated attendances of over 8 million.
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