To the Editor:
The preamble to the United States Constitution teaches us that among the foundational goals of the American government was to “promote the general welfare.” The Trump administration and Congress have lost sight of that straightforward guiding principle.
The administration now demolishes foundational institutions; cruelly disregards human needs; betrays long international alliances; unconstitutionally attacks lawyers, universities, medical researchers and public servants based on personal vendettas; rejects science; and dismantles the extraordinary tapestry of services that have benefited our country and the whole world.
But, equally disturbing, Congress supinely surrenders its role as a coequal branch of government.
The Senate has confirmed patently unfit and dangerous nominees for leadership roles and abdicated its authority over irrational tariffs that already wreak international and domestic havoc.
Not a word is heard about the grotesque due process violations of shipping immigrants off to foreign jails — or about indiscriminate disregard for citizens’ basic privacy rights and government employees’ union contracts and expertise, as the Trump-Musk administration eviscerates institutions that may be imperfect but have generally served our people well.
Do any of these ongoing predations “promote the general welfare”? Can’t our representatives, at least, do better than this?
Terri E. Simon
Scarsdale, N.Y.
The writer is a retired lawyer.
To the Editor:
Re “The Fight Against Trump Isn’t Yet a Movement, but It’s Starting to Gain Strength” (news article, May 2):
I’m heartened by the voices rising to oppose the Trump administration’s assault on democracy, decency and functional government. Next, these voices must converge.
Leaders in law, education, medicine, labor, public health, religion, industry, the arts, the sciences and other aspects of civil society will have to work together to broadcast a unified message, find points of leverage where they can stymie the administration’s overreach and coordinate a single, swelling mass protest. This effort will have to be larger than any political party.
Rather than waiting for an anointed leader, those who serve a convening role in their fields should reach across professional boundaries to form alliances now. The effort itself may yield the savvy new leaders we need.
With luck and hard work, we may eventually find ourselves on the other side of this crisis, where we will also need this talent to rebuild our government in a form more agile, equitable and resistant to corruption.
Sally Murray James
Washington
To the Editor:
I applaud for publishing “The Week in Trump.” It is a valuable record. But now it is time to start publishing “The Week in Resistance to Trump” (better title needed), which would also be a valuable record.
Linda Schneider
Brooklyn
I Know Harvard. Harvard Won’t Fold.
To the Editor:
Re “Some Donors Want Harvard to Back Down” (front page, April 23):
I am an alumnus of Harvard, a former professor there and a recent critic of its past governance, and I later convened about 100 college and university presidents, leading to a bold joint statement in support of Harvard in its defense against President Trump.
Having spoken to Harvard’s biggest donors, key faculty members and trustees, I know that Harvard won’t fold. Although there are still a few vocal donors, I have spoken with major donors, prior critics, who are now solidly behind the school’s leadership.
The unified voices of higher education leaders also solidly endorse Harvard’s new president, Dr. Alan Garber. Many of the 60 other schools attacked by President Trump now also plan to fight back.
Morning Consult data shows a surge of bipartisan support for Harvard in public opinion polling. In fact, just as President Trump has inadvertently reversed electoral politics in Canada and Australia in reaction to his policies, support for Harvard’s leadership has rallied across once fractious faculty voices.
Harvard’s strides in governance reforms and progress countering antisemitism are not complete, but even the once harshly critical Anti-Defamation League has lifted Harvard’s grade from an F to a C.
Harvard will prevail in court; there is no case to support government receivership.
Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld
New Haven, Conn.
The writer is a professor at the Yale School of Management.
A Ruling on Transgender Troops
To the Editor:
Re “Justices Allow President’s Ban on Trans Troops” (front page, May 7):
The people of our country have traditionally looked to the Supreme Court to uphold the law, the Constitution and our values and ideals, including equal treatment.
The court has failed us with its ruling upholding, at least for the moment, the Trump administration’s purging of transgender people from the military.
Thousands of individuals who are transgender have served honorably and bravely as members of our armed forces. We have been fortunate to have them as volunteers to beef up our defensive capabilities. They are now being told by the president and the court that there is something wrong with them, some deficiency that precludes them from continuing to perform their duties satisfactorily.
Transgender rights are human rights. They must ultimately be upheld and our nation restored to a place where tolerance and diversity remain its hallmarks. This president must not be allowed to roll back the clock to the era in which those who were different from others were ostracized.
Oren Spiegler
Peters Township, Pa.
The Zen of A.I.?
To the Editor:
Re “Should A.I. Systems Have Rights?,” by Kevin Roose (The Shift column, April 26):
This article about Anthropic’s employee tasked with detecting A.I. consciousness raises profound questions: Who will have the vision and wisdom needed to make decisions about machine rights that might force reconsideration of humanity’s ethical and legal frameworks?
Human societies have always maintained clear distinctions between persons and tools — boundaries that underpin our legal systems, economic structures and social stability. Extending rights to A.I. systems would create new complexities that our governance systems are ill equipped to handle.
This dilemma might be avoidable. Machines need not evolve via the same evolutionary struggles that led to our own perceptions of pleasure, pain and self-awareness. They could be designed with architectural choices that maintain their power while eliminating concerns about suffering or rights — perhaps a kind of Zen Buddhism for A.I. that transcends suffering altogether.
It will be easier to redesign the software — avoiding concerns about machine rights — than to restructure society to accommodate advocates who may eventually demand “full human rights” for ever more advanced machines.
Carl O. Pabo
Mill Valley, Calif.
