Statement of Hillsdale College Alumni on Dr. Larry Arnn’s

Work on the Trump Administration’s “1776 Project”

Posted on January 19, 2021

We are alumni of Hillsdale College. We were dismayed when President Larry Arnn endorsed Donald Trump during the 2016 Republican primaries. Despite helming a college with the aim of “Forging Character Since 1844,” Dr. Arnn failed the greatest—and easiest—character judgment test of our time by endorsing an amoral, dishonest, narcissistic, reality TV star for president.

We were horrified when Dr. Arnn again endorsed Trump in 2020—after Charlottesville, the Mueller Report documenting ten instances of obstruction of justice, the Ukraine shakedown and resulting impeachment, the nepotism and self-dealing, the daily lies, the crude and violent rhetoric, the barbaric family-separation policy, the refugee children put in cages, the politicization of the justice department, the gassing of peaceful protestors to make way for a photo op with a Bible, and so on.

After endorsing Trump, Dr. Arnn was initially under consideration for Secretary of Education, a cabinet position which instead went to million-dollar campaign donor and public-education enemy Betsy DeVos. Then, in September 2020, Arnn was appointed by Trump to chair the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission, with the aim of creating a counter-narrative to the New York Times’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning “1619 Project” examining the legacy of slavery and racism in America.

Dr. Arnn’s Commission worked before and after the November 2020 presidential election, at the same time Trump was spreading lies about “mail-in voter fraud” and other unfounded accusations to explain his loss. The Commission concluded and released its “1776 Report” days after Trump incited a violent insurrection, ordering a mob of armed supporters (some bearing neo-Nazi and Confederate paraphernalia) to march on the capitol and “fight like hell,” resulting in the desecration of the capitol and multiple deaths and injuries.

This was the context in which the 1776 Report was launched: the greatest threat to the Constitution and America’s representative democracy in our lifetimes. Even if the contents of the report were accurate and edifying, Dr. Arnn should have resigned in protest from his role in the Trump administration. How can one release a document about the principles of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution at the behest of a president whose actions show he cares not a whit about them? A man who lost the popular vote twice (the second time by over 7 million votes), and who would destroy democracy to hold onto power?  

The contents of the 1776 Report are not accurate and edifying. It presents a whitewashed version of American history that, for starters, entirely ignores the existence of—and atrocities committed against—the indigenous inhabitants of this land. The Report paints all the Founding Fathers (including those who owned slaves) as abolitionists at heart, repeats falsehoods about George Washington releasing all his slaves before his death, and downplays the horrors of chattel slavery by saying “the institution of slavery has been more the rule than the exception throughout human history.”  

The report declares Progressives to be enemies of America’s founding principles, ignoring the Progressives’ struggles and victories for women’s rights, worker’s rights, children’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. It falsely claims that Progressives champion “group rights” that are anathema to the Declaration’s statement that “all men are created equal.”

It claims that “Fascism died in 1945” and is no longer a threat, ignoring the rise of white supremacy, fascism, and domestic terrorism in the 21st Century. The report also ignores the fascistic, authoritarian threat of Trump himself, who throughout his four years in office stoked white-identity grievances and placed himself above the rule of law.

The report suggests that the Civil Rights movement accomplished all it needed to accomplish by 1964, and then devolved into extremism and anti-white activism. There is no mention of the effects of “redlining” and economic discrimination, systemic injustice in law enforcement, police brutality, or the suppression of voters of color up to the present day.

Though the Biden-Harris administration dissolved the 1776 Commission and deleted its report from the Web, it will not be forgotten. With its criticism of most universities as “hotbeds of anti-Americanism,” it will, no doubt, be used as a marketing brochure for Hillsdale College.

As Hillsdale alumni, we are issuing this statement to publicly repudiate the 1776 Report and lament the disgrace brought upon our alma mater by President Arnn’s work with and endorsement of the Trump administration.

SIGNED

Steve Benrubi, class of 1988
Cameron Conant, class of 1999

George Daranyi, class of 1980; JD, Southern Methodist University

Joseph Dohm, class of 2007

Danielle Dooley, class of 2012

Suzanne Dudley, class of 2007

Katherine Flowers, class of 2004; JD, University of Alabama

Katherine Flynn, class of 2011

Elizabeth Freitas, class of 1999

Jane Halpert, class of 1999; PhD, Fordham University

Nancy Hankel, class of 2009; EdD, UCLA

Alisa Harris, class of 2007; MBA, Boston University

Cheryl Heitzman, class of 2005; MAS, Illinois Tech; DVM, North Carolina State

Jonathan Hoyt, class of 2004

Sarah Hempel Irani, class of 2000

Kristen Irwin, class of 2001; MA, PhD, University of California at San Diego

Michelle French Kennedy, class of 2009; MSW LSW

Nathan Loizeaux, class of 2004

Trinity McFadden, class of 2006

Kristen Childs McGee, class of 2004

Sarah Petrie, class of 2009

Adam Prizio, class of 2002

Joe Seaver, class of 2006

Will Smiley, class of 2005; JD, Yale; PhD, Cantab.

Wendy Stolyarov, class of 2009

Jean Talsma, class of 2007; DO

Brandon Thornton, class of 2004

Sam Torode, class of 1998

Jay Urban, class of 2007; MBA, Indiana University

Lydia Wassink, class of 2015; PhD, Michigan State University

Gregory Wolfe, class of 1980;  MA, University of Oxford; PhD (Hon.),
Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology

(If you are a Hillsdale College alumnus and would like to sign this statement,

please e-mail sam.torode@gmail.com)