Latest news with #HamlineUniversity
Axios
12-05-2025
- General
- Axios
New Minnesota law unleashes help for volunteer service dog trainers
A new state law aims to clear the way for more Minnesotans to step up to train service dogs. Why it matters: These crucial canine companions make a major difference for people with disabilities. The big picture: Groups that train service dogs say one of their biggest challenges is finding volunteers who are willing and able to take on the work of raising and socializing the animals. One barrier, Can Do Canines executive director Jeff Johnson says, was that laws protecting people with service dogs from housing discrimination didn't apply to the trainers. How it works: The bipawtisan legislation, signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz Thursday, limits landlords and HOAs from placing restrictions or extra charges on residents who are training an animal through an accredited organization. The new law applies to both volunteers and paid trainers. What they're saying: Johnson, a former Hennepin County commissioner and gubernatorial candidate, told reporters that the nonprofit has encountered eight to 10 situations in recent years in which people who wanted to help were unable to because of residential rules. "My guess is there are a lot more people out there who would never have brought it up," he said. "This will help." The bottom line: Lydia Roseth, a student at Hamline University, says she has been able to take on more academically and socially since receiving her service dog, Flint, from Can Do Canines in February.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump says he's 'not joking' about a possible 3rd term. The Constitution bars it, scholars say
President Donald Trump has often mused, even joked, about seeking a third term, but over the weekend he made his strongest and most serious comments yet on a move that constitutional scholars ABC News spoke with call virtually impossible. "I'm not joking," he told NBC News "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker in a phone interview on Sunday, before adding it was "far too early to think about it." "There are methods which you could do it," Trump said, including a scenario in which Vice President JD Vance ran at the top of the 2028 ticket with Trump as his running mate, only for Trump to assume the Oval Office after the election. MORE: Is the Trump administration's conflict with judges a constitutional crisis? What to know Legal and election experts told ABC News any attempt to win another four years as president would be an unprecedented breach of the Constitution. "Trump may not want to rule out a third term but the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution does," said David Schultz, a professor at Hamline University and an expert in constitutional law. The amendment states, in part: "No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice." It was ratified in 1951, years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with the two-term tradition set by George Washington and secured a third term as World War II was breaking out. "It would be completely unprecedented for a president to openly defy the dictates of the 22nd Amendment and, even more so, to attempt to run or serve again as president," said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional expert at the University of North Carolina. "The threats and insinuations no doubt thrill his base, but there is no constitutional basis for the current president to try to serve as president after two elected terms," Gerhardt said. The only way legal way for Trump to be able to run for a third term, experts said, would be to amend the Constitution -- an incredibly unlikely outcome as it would take two-thirds of both the House and Senate, or two-thirds of the states agreeing to call a constitutional convention. Then, any change would require three-fourths of the states to sign on for ratification. "This statement by Trump was brilliant in terms of capturing and diverting attention," said Schultz. "His supporters love it and his detractors will rage over it. In the process, no one will talk about the price of eggs, tariffs and a shaky stock market." As for Trump's claim that one of the "methods" could be to run as Vance's vice president and then be passed the baton, experts point to the 12th Amendment from 1804 as a barrier. "The 12th Amendment states that anyone who is ineligible to be president is also deemed to be illegible to serve as vice president," said Barry Burden, the director of the Elections Research Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison. "This means that Trump could not serve as vice president, which is the post he would need for the Vance scheme to be executed." Steve Bannon, a fierce Trump ally, has also floated what he's called alternatives to allow Trump to run in 2028. Bannon, in remarks at the New York Young Republican Club gala in December, has argued that he could run again as Trump's two terms in office were not consecutive. "Since it doesn't actually say consecutive, I don't know, maybe we do it again in '28? Are you guys down for that? Trump '28?" Bannon said. Schultz said that argument doesn't have a sound legal basis. "The overall limit of serving as president for ten years is both textual proof on the bar to run for a third term and an indication of the intent of the congressional drafters that they did not want anyone serving for more than two terms," Schultz said. He added that measure "was put into place to allow for a situation where a president dies more than halfway into a term and the vice president succeeds that person. The Constitution thereby allows for the vice president to serve out the remaining term and then serve two more terms, for a total of ten years." Trump has already tested the bounds of the Constitution governing presidential power several times in the first months of his second term. Several Democrats viewed his comments on Sunday as another escalation against the rule of law. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin wrote on X: "This is what dictators do." In the past, Republicans have largely played off Trump's musings about a third term as a joke intended to rile his opposition. But just days after his inauguration, Republican hardliner Rep. Andy Ogles introduced a resolution calling for the extension of presidential term limits to allow Trump to seek another four years in the White House. MORE: No, Trump can't cancel the 2028 election. But he could still weaken democracy. "A crisis could arise if Trump runs for president or vice president in 2028," Burden said. "The Constitution prohibits serving in office but not running for office. If Republicans nominated him, they would be betting that they can violate the Constitution and somehow allow him to serve if he wins." If Trump attempted to run, it would be up to election officials and then ultimately the courts to decide. This played out in the 2024 campaign, when several states challenged his eligibility to seek the Republican presidential nomination under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment due to his actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The legal battle went to the Supreme Court, which ruled in Trump's favor. "If an ineligible person such as Trump is permitted to run knowing that he is not eligible to serve, it is a dangerous collision course in which the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law would be seriously tested," Burden said. James Sample, a constitutional law expert at Hofstra University, said Trump would lose in court should he attempt to run again. "Most of the Constitution is written in broad, textured, difficult to define terms. What is a speedy trial? What is cruel and unusual punishment? What is equal protection? How much process is due process? The 22nd Amendment, however, is black and white," Sample said. "But if you can succeed in turning questions that are that clear-cut into debates, then the overall goal of undermining the Constitution and undermining the rule of law and maximizing executive power is served even if you lose the particular battle," he continued. "This particular battle is not a winnable battle. He is not going to serve a third term, but merely by framing this as a debate, he will succeed in further eroding respect for the Constitution." Trump says he's 'not joking' about a possible 3rd term. The Constitution bars it, scholars say originally appeared on
Chicago Tribune
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Jonathan Zimmerman: The problems with DEI don't justify President Donald Trump's bigoted actions
Let's start with the easy part: The attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion by President Donald Trump's administration represent an enormous threat to freedom of speech in America. Federal agencies have been required to remove references to 'gender' and 'environmental justice' — alongside 'diversity' and 'inclusion' — from their documents. At the National Science Foundation, staffers have also scrubbed the words 'disability,' 'women' and 'minority' from research projects, lest they run afoul of the White House. That's what happens in authoritarian countries where citizens must say the correct words — and avoid the wrong ones — to get on the right side of their rulers. In a free society, that's unacceptable. Period. But so are some aspects of DEI, which have also been hostile to open expression. And you can't demand freedom with one hand when you're dampening it with the other. Consider the case of Hamline University art historian Erika López Prater, who was fired for behavior that the school's DEI leader called 'inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic.' Her crime? Showing images of the Prophet Muhammad to her online class. Prater gave students the opportunity to sign out of the class if they did not want to see the images. And she also provided a detailed rationale for sharing visual depictions of the prophet, noting that Muslims disagree with each other about the practice. 'I would like to remind you there is no one, monothetic Islamic culture,' she said. No matter. A student in the class complained that the images offended her sensibilities — 'as a Muslim and a Black person, I don't feel like I belong,' she wrote — and the school threw Prater under the bus. In an open letter, its president and DEI officer declared flatly that 'respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom.' We heard a similar argument from Tirien Steinbach, an associate dean for DEI at Stanford, where students heckled conservative federal Judge Kyle Duncan during a 2023 address. Noting that students felt harmed by Duncan's views on race and sexuality, Steinbach wondered aloud whether the benefits of free speech justified its costs. 'Is the juice worth the squeeze?' she asked. For universities, there's only one correct answer: yes. Our founding principle is that everyone gets their say, even when it hurts. But our DEI managers say otherwise: If speech hurts, you need to restrict it. Or, sometimes, they tell us what we should say. Witness mandatory diversity statements, another product of the DEI bureaucracy. When you apply for a job, you have to explain how your research and teaching will enhance diversity, equity and inclusion. That's what used to be called a loyalty oath, because it makes people affirm a set of ideas as a condition for employment. What if a candidate's diversity statement echoed some of the free-speech concerns in this column? We all know where their application would likely end up: in the trash. But none of these problems justifies the bigoted fulminations of Donald Trump, who has made DEI into an all-purpose bogeyman. Without any evidence, he suggested DEI caused the tragic aircraft accident in Washington by elevating unqualified air traffic controllers. He called his remarks 'common sense.' I call them racist. I also think there's a huge difference between a university official restricting speech and Trump prohibiting it. He's the president, after all, and — for now — his word is law. But we share a censorious spirit with him. He scrubs words from federal documents; we promulgate lists of microaggressions that students and faculty should avoid. I understand why 'You don't seem Black' could insult an African American or why some Asian American students might bridle at 'Asians are good at math.' But I don't understand why an institution ostensibly dedicated to free speech would establish an official index of tabooed phrases, especially when we lack solid evidence that the alleged targets of these terms consistently experience them as offensive or that repeated exposure to the words harms them. Again, language policing is many times worse when the president of the United States does it. So I was glad to see that the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education and several other organizations had filed a lawsuit claiming that Trump's anti-DEI orders violate the First Amendment of the Constitution. If you tell people what words they can or can't use, about DEI or anything else, you're preventing the free exchange at the heart of democracy. But we can't defend that ideal if we're undermining it at the same time. As Trump's attacks on DEI confirm, he doesn't really believe in free speech. Now we need to rededicate ourselves to it, by resisting the temptation to suppress it in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion. Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of 'Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools' and eight other books.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump and allies ramp up attacks on judges, courts as agenda hits legal roadblocks
As courts block parts of his agenda, President Donald Trump and his allies are ramping up criticism of judges and continuing to question judicial oversight of the executive branch. While he's said he would abide by their rulings -- but also appeal them -- he kept up the effort to undermine the authority of the courts on Wednesday, alleging in a social media post that a "highly political, activist judge" wanted to stop the work of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Musk's aggressive and controversial cost-cutting effort has faced several lawsuits, one resulting in his team being temporarily restricted from accessing the Treasury Department's vast federal payment system containing sensitive information of millions of Americans. MORE: Trump, Vance and Musk take aim at the courts as judges halt some of 2nd term agenda The court action prompted swift rebuke from Musk and Trump's team. Vice President JD Vance went so far as to suggest judges "aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power." "Maybe we have to look at the judges because I think that's a very serious violation," Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon alongside Musk, who defended his team's work. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt continued to blast the courts at Wednesday's press briefing, claiming "each injunction is an abuse of the rule of law and an attempt to thwart the will of the people." "We will comply with the law in the courts, but we will also continue to seek every legal remedy to ultimately overturn these radical injunctions and ensure President Trump's policies can be enacted," she said. The escalating clash between the new administration and the courts has some legal experts sounding the alarm, and is prompting fears of a potential constitutional crisis. "The entire premise of our constitutional system of limited government of checks and balances and separation of powers involves deference to judicial determinations of what the law says and complying with it. This goes back to the beginning of the republic," said David Schultz, a constitutional law professor at Hamline University. Ray Brescia, a professor at Albany Law School, called the theory being pushed by Trump allies that the executive branch should operate free of judicial checks "preposterous." "They are velociraptors testing the fence. They're looking for holes. They're looking for weaknesses. They're checking to see where they can push the envelope," Brescia said of the Trump administration. "I think for now, the system has largely held but we'll see as these cases get to the appellate courts, and ultimately, many of them are likely to go to the Supreme Court." MORE: Trump and the 'unitary executive': The presidential power theory driving his 2nd term Much of Trump and Musk's attempt to overhaul the federal government is being met with lawsuits, including the dismantling of USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as the buyout offer extended to tens of thousands of federal employees. The key question is how Trump and his officials will respond as the court challenges progress. In his first term, Trump amended his policies to comply with judicial rulings. One example was what Trump referred to as his "Muslim ban" restricting travel from several countries that have a majority Muslim population, which was rewritten several times before it passed muster with the Supreme Court. "We thought that administration was so shocking and bending the rules on executive authority and so on, but it turns out to have been nothing compared to this one where it is seriously being discussed and contemplated whether or not the executive branch has a duty to follow the courts," said Claire Finkelstein, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott asked Trump directly on Tuesday: "If a judge does block one of your policies, part of your agenda, will you abide by that ruling? Will you comply?" "Well, I always abide by the courts and then I'll have to appeal it. But then what he's done is he slowed down the momentum," the president responded. MORE: Some Republicans defend courts against Trump administration attacks If that were to ever change, however, it would be uncharted territory in the modern political era with no obvious recourse. Judges can push back if the administration refuses to comply but their power is limited, experts said. They could hold the administration in contempt, and either impose fines or in extreme cases direct the U.S. Marshals Service to take individuals into custody. There are complications, though. The U.S. Marshals Service falls under the Justice Department, which is unlikely to go after Trump officials. "Presidential refusal to comply with court orders undermines the very concept of constitutional order and limited government our country is supposed to respect and if Trump were to refuse to comply, then we have a constitutional problem," said Schultz. Trump and allies ramp up attacks on judges, courts as agenda hits legal roadblocks originally appeared on
CBS News
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
How Lunar New Year is being celebrated in Minnesota
MINNEAPOLIS — Communities across Minnesota and the world are marking the start of the Lunar New Year on Wednesday. This year, the Lunar New Year falls on Jan. 29, marking the Year of the Snake. The Lunar New Year is celebrated by many countries across Asia including China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Korea, Tibet and more. Many of these countries are represented in the Twin Cities. An iconic part of many Lunar New Year celebrations showcases a lion dance, which symbolizes good luck and fortune for the new year. The local group DTG Lions is well-known in the Twin Cities, made up of young talented performers working hard to keep the artistry alive and thriving. The group has several upcoming Lunar New Year performances in the Twin Cities, including at the University of Minnesota and Hamline University. The Korean American Association of Minnesota and JangmiArts Performance Group will hold its annual Seollal Lunar New Year celebration Feb. 1 from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. at White Bear Lake High School. The event, which also serves as a fundraiser, is filled with Korean traditional foods, activities, shopping and live performances. The Saturday Dumpling Company is celebrating the Chinese New Year by bringing back a special collaboration with local renowned chef Diane Mua for Hmong sausage dumplings. The popular eatery opened its first storefront location in Minneapolis last November.
