Editor’s note: With the November 3 US congressional midterm elections a month away, JURIST is publishing this open letter from Gary J. Simson, a constitutional law scholar and two-time law school dean who has taught for more than 50 years. Writing directly to college, university, and law students, Simson argues that the federal executive branch poses the greatest threat to Americans’ constitutional freedoms in his lifetime — and that students, as earlier generations did, must help lead the response. JURIST welcomes commentary from all perspectives on the questions he raises.

Dear Students,

I’m writing to discuss with you the threat that the federal government—and the executive branch in particular—poses to our most basic freedoms.  If you’re not alarmed about that threat, you should be, but I’ll tell you some things you can and should do to help defeat it. Above all, don’t despair, and never let yourself think that you’re only one person, so it doesn’t really matter what you do.

The United States has a great tradition of college and university students at the forefront of challenging the government when it is failing to meet its obligations to the American people. It’s your turn to embrace that tradition now.

Before saying more, let me emphasize that there’s nothing partisan about what I’ve got to say. Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, or independent, a liberal or a conservative, you should be able to agree that the Trump administration poses a grave danger to the well-being of the people of the United States. The fact that the administration repeatedly disrespects the rule of law, democratic government, and other core constitutional values doesn’t make support for them partisan.

In January, we saw up close on our television screens federal law enforcement officers in Minneapolis acting as if the rule of law didn’t apply to them. ICE agents beat and arrested peaceful protesters, broke into people’s homes, and stopped and forced people out of their cars.  As far as those federal officers were concerned, the First Amendment’s freedoms of speech and assembly, the Fourth Amendment’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of procedural fairness were nonexistent.

Most frightening of all, though, is that ICE’s lawless and reckless assault on Minnesotans’ constitutional freedoms is only the tip of the iceberg of the nationwide assault on people’s constitutional rights that this administration launched in January 2025. We’re facing the greatest threat to our fundamental freedoms in my lifetime and perhaps ever. It’s such an enormous threat because it’s coming from the most powerful force by far in this country—the Government of the United States.

This administration came into office with a detailed roadmap, “Project 2025,” for turning back the clock on every bit of progress women and minorities have achieved in the past 75 years.  Running roughshod over the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause and the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws, it has targeted law firms, businesses, and universities for punishment for assigning any importance to racial or gender diversity.

Taking their cue from foreign dictatorships, the president and his administration have used defamation lawsuits, denial of access to press conferences, and other tyrannical means to make the First Amendment’s freedom of the press an empty promise. Sponsoring a National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise, and Thanksgiving and other religious events, the administration has done its utmost, notwithstanding the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, to marginalize religious minorities and fan the flames of Christian nationalism.

In enforcing its immigration policies, the administration has contemptuously ignored the longtime understanding that even someone not legally in this country comes within the protection of the Fifth Amendment’s command that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” And scaling new heights of lawlessness, it has acted as if that command is inapplicable to anyone whom it even suspects of being in this country illegally.

The administration seems to believe that if it relentlessly attacks our freedoms, we’ll eventually grow weary of resisting and just give in.  But if college and university students across the country step up and help lead the way, the American people will prove we’re much better than that.

My generation, which marched in the 1960s for civil rights and against the Vietnam War, has shown up in force at protests against this administration, but we need a lot more people there who look like you. You are the future of this country, and the administration needs to see that you’re not with them. Your youth and energy and spirit are downright intimidating to them.

Many years ago, the Supreme Court called voting “a fundamental political right, because preservative of all rights,” but college and university students have lagged behind in exercising that precious right. Get out and vote for federal, state, and local candidates who, whatever their party, stand for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.  Show that you understand how very valuable your right to vote is.

The upcoming midterm elections are monumentally important. Since the last election, Congress has acted like anything but an independent branch of government.  It has miserably failed to provide the check on the executive branch that the Framers of the Constitution intended it to provide.

Our elected representatives who have assisted or acquiesced in the administration’s assault on people’s freedoms have proven they don’t deserve your vote.  Cast your ballot for candidates who, whatever their party, do deserve it. And don’t stop there: Go door-to-door and make phone calls for them.  Publish letters to the editor supporting them in your hometown newspaper.

The administration has given us good reason to fear that it will do its utmost to keep people from voting who seem unlikely to vote its way. Sign up to be a poll-watcher to help ensure that the voting process is free of intimidation and eminently fair.

There are many pro-democracy organizations, but they can’t afford to hire all the people they need. Volunteer today to work for one.  Unlike your elders, you probably have the kind of social media skills that the organizations sorely need. Even if not, you can be a huge help in other ways.

I sit on the board of a national nonprofit that has gotten an initiative underway to create a national network of campus pro-democracy chapters.  Speak with your fellow students on campus about forming one. From personal experience I can tell you for sure there’s untapped enthusiasm for such chapters. One of the first was quickly formed by the undergraduates at my home school.

Tell your friends at schools across the country what you’re doing to fight back against the assault on our freedoms and what they could be doing too.  And speak to your parents and relatives, especially those you think will disagree with you, about what’s going on in this country.  Candid, but respectful, dialogue can go a long way.

As a law professor, I’d be remiss not to emphasize the special responsibility that the law students among you have to call out, and challenge, this administration’s excesses. Lawyers have a distinctive role in our system. Lawyers understand how legal institutions are supposed to work and can recognize when the people running them are abusing their authority.  If you’re a law student, your willingness to step forward now to help defeat the threat posed by a federal government vastly exceeding its lawful authority can’t help but profoundly affect the kind of lawyer you ultimately become and your ability to effectively take on a lawyer’s important role.

I’d like to end with some verses from a prayer that, though clearly Jewish, has a great deal to say to people today regardless of their religion. Written several decades ago by Rabbi Avraham Holtz, the prayer is a variation on a centuries-old prayer, the Al Chet, that is recited several times during the services on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. In the traditional Al Chet, which means “for the sin,” the Jewish community asks God’s forgiveness for a long list of sins — many described in words (such as “a glance of the eye” or “running to do evil”) that attest to the prayer’s ancient origins.  Rabbi Holtz’s alternate version is obviously substantially shorter and more contemporary in phrasing. It’s also obviously written with a 20th-century phenomenon—the Holocaust—foremost in mind.  Much like the traditional Al Chet, however, it has a timelessness to it that makes its message resonate loudly today and, no doubt, for many years to come:

We have sinned against You, and them, by refusing to hear. . . .

We have sinned against You, and them, by hesitating. . . .

We have sinned against You, and them, by being overcautious.

We have sinned against You, and them, by not using our power. . . .

We have sinned against You, and them, by despairing.

We have sinned against You, and them, by being patient. . . .

We have sinned against You, and them, by appeasement. . . .

We have sinned against You, and them, by complacency. . . .

For all these sins, forgiving God, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.

Sincerely,

Gary Simson

Gary J. Simson holds the Macon Chair in Law at Mercer University School of Law, is professor emeritus of law at Cornell Law School, and is a member of the board of directors of Lawyers Defending American Democracy.