Courage is Contageous
Honoring Harvard, the Smithsonian, an Irritable Métis, and Pope Francis
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
- James Madison
Hello from Idaho on the day after Easter, 2025. Wow.
This glorious past weekend, I completely disconnected from the troubles of the world to spend time on long drives to kids’ lacrosse games, spring skiing for the closing day at Grand Targhee, and celebrating Easter surrounded by friends and family. But alas, the world keeps spinning in on me.
Looking back on the start of this Substack, I never intended it to be so political. I wanted it filled with delicious recipes, adventures, and poetry. But as I write my book True Nature: Bringing Dignity Down to Earth, I can’t look away. Everything that’s happening in these chaotic times is an attack on Dignity. I can’t resist attempting to make sense of it by synthesizing the news and spinning back out to the world every bit of good I can muster.
Not only are we all reacting to the first 100 days of the Trump administration, but we’re also looking ahead to the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord, which mark the beginning of the American Revolution. I’m finding that among my friends and family, everyone has an issue that is most important to them, and many view it through the lens of what it means to be American.
For my brother-in-law, the son of a Jewish Judge who immigrated after narrowly surviving the Holocaust thanks to Kindertransport, due process is what’s keeping him up at night. For my 22-year-old daughter, it’s the “disappearance of people;” for my 16-year-old son, environmental deregulation and ignoring climate change are top of mind. For me, it’s words (knowledge, book banning, free speech), wildlife (public lands), and women (body autonomy and equity). It’s the sheer breadth of these and other issues that are inspiring record-setting protests and rallies, many bringing out first-timers, such as the April 14th historic gathering in Nampa, Idaho, for AOC and Bernie.
Courage is Contagious … and so is KNOWLEDGE
Driving to the grocery store down a two-lane road in rural Idaho, the news last week about Harvard standing up to the Trump Administration left me shouting at my car radio: “F*ck yeah, let's go!”
It was on this same stretch of road that the surprising news, five years ago, of Liz Cheney’s outspoken opposition to the January 6 Capitol riots, a remarkable act of political courage, brought enough tears to my eyes that I pulled over and wept.
The first thing I did upon hearing the news was donate $100, a sum four times my usual random, reactive giving to any bold cause making a principled stand. A drop in the hat, I know, but a show of solidarity for Harvard’s unprecedented defiance in refusing to comply with sweeping demands from the Trump administration that would have fundamentally altered its governance, academic freedom, and independence. It sounds like many others are doing the same. Harvard’s refusal, even at the risk of losing billions in federal funding, will be hailed as a watershed moment for institutional autonomy and the defense of core democratic values. Both Cheney’s and Harvard’s actions represent rare, bold rejections of political pressure.
I’ve read a lot of opinions about Harvard and why the Trump Administration did this; Harvard is no angel in this fight, but the Administration's claim that the funding being withheld for antisemitism is laughable. The politics of money, power, and status are being wielded as a cudgel to force Harvard to ensure that inclusive, diverse, creative, and free-thinking is stifled because, in my opinion, the result is an evolution in thought that challenges that very same money, status, and power.
Thanks to lucky genetics, hard work, and, yes, whiteness, my ancestors and I have a long history with “elite” universities Harvard and Stanford. Not only did both of my parents attend Harvard, but so did my dad’s brother and father, as well as President John Adams, our most esteemed distant relative (my dad’s mother was a descendant of the Adams family). With no money to pay for college, my dad and his brother hitchhiked once and drove an old car the second time from Boston to Alaska during the summers to work in the most grueling conditions in mining camps, using the money they earned to cover tuition.
Like many, I admit to having a strange mix of pride and shame when I think of these schools. Pride comes from the recognition of achievement, effort, and the prestige associated with these universities—a sense of efficacy and accomplishment that is deeply ingrained in our development and socialization. Shame from the fear of being judged as arrogant, privileged, or out of touch, especially in social contexts where elite credentials might trigger resentment or assumptions about my character or background. Nowhere is this more prevalent than here in our politically toxic Teton Valley.
Admitting your affiliation can thus feel like both claiming a hard-won identity and exposing yourself to scrutiny, making the pride and shame feel oddly intertwined. Walking through the Stanford Quad for my daughter’s graduation last spring, surrounded by students representing an incredible degree of diversity in terms of race, culture, and gender identity, these feelings evaporated into sheer exuberance. Everyone I spoke with was brimming with ambition, hope, and the courage to make a positive change in the world.
I attribute my ability to see and challenge the hypocrisy of money, status, and power to my education at Stanford. If that’s a result of “improper ideology,” I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
And then came attacks on the Smithsonian:
What a mess. The conservative opinion writer, David Brooks, calls out what’s happening in the knowledge wars in his opinion piece I Should Have Seen This Coming:
“But although Trump may have campaigned as a MAGA populist, leveraging this working-class resentment to gain power, he governs as a Palm Beach elitist. Trump and Elon Musk are billionaires who went to the University of Pennsylvania. J. D. Vance went to Yale Law School. Pete Hegseth went to Princeton and Harvard. Vivek Ramaswamy went to Yale and Harvard. Stephen Miller went to Duke. Ted Cruz went to Princeton and Harvard. Many of Musk’s DOGE workers, according to The New York Times, come from elite institutions—Harvard, Princeton, Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, Wharton. These are the Vineyard Vines nihilists, the spiritual descendants of the elite bad boys at the Dartmouth Review.
This political movement is not populists versus elitists. It is, as I’ve written before, like a civil war in a prep school where the sleazy rich kids are taking on the pretentious rich kids.” —David Brooks
Courage is Contagious … and so is DIVERSITY
Bringing an assault on knowledge and artists closer to home,
, a member of the Montana’s 2025 current Poet Laureate, reports in his latest Substack newsletter, , that he received an email from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that all grants supporting programing were cancelled effective immediately, including Montana Conversations, Speakers in the Schools and Poet Laureate programs.I met La Tray at the Jackson Hole Writers’ Conference a few years ago. He was assigned to critique my first manuscript on Dignity. With grace and compassion, he helped turn my piece inside out. His poetry and perspectives on discovering his Indigenous roots, which he only explored as an adult after growing up in Western Montana, have had a profound influence on me.
La Tray has been on book tour telling the story of finding his identity in his newly released book, Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home. Now an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, he explains that métis is French for “mixed blood” and is used historically to describe the people from the Red River Valley on either side of the Canadian-US border who are descendants of French, English, and Scottish fur trappers and Indigenous women—mostly Ojibwee and Cree, and soem Assiniboine.
La Tray’s intrepid research reveals “this relationship between European and Indigenous people created a unique dichotomy of mutual need.” He found that assimilation was not Indigenous people blending in with their settler conquerors, but, instead, the first Europeans needed to assimilate into an Indigenous way of life to stay alive in the harsh and unfamiliar environment. Trading goods and cultures led to a blending of the best of both worlds, creating a unique community characterized by a joyful mix of dress, dance, art, and enterprise. Until, that is, after the Civil War when Indians and “half-breeds” were seen as distateful and because of racist attitudes, Indigenous Métis would claim to be white if they could get away with it.
La Tray is a perfect example of manifesting Dignity by rediscovering his ancestry and connection to nature and, through his writing, inspiring others to see beauty in diversity and find their authenticity. La Tray calls the freezing of NEH funding what it is, an “assault on everyday people by people who were born into wealth and privilege.”
To me, it’s just another attempt to stifle the creativity and diversity of thinking that will constantly challenge oppressive, corrupt systems of superiority, sameness, and scarcity.
Courage is Contagious … and so is COMPASSION
Upon awaking this morning, we learned of Pope Francis’ passing, and stories abound of how different he was from the current US administration that claims Christianity as their moral compass. A steadfast supporter of Dignity, Pope Francis spoke up for LGBTQ, Trans, and migrant rights, was committed to exposing the corruption and sexual crimes attributed to the church, and blamed consumerist greed" and "selfish hearts" for the climate crisis, arguing that modern societies prioritize profit over future generations. He boldly criticised the “unfettered pursuit of money,” labelling it “the dung of the devil,” asked for forgiveness for the Catholic Church’s role in the treatment of native Americans during the “so-called conquest of America.
The spirit of Pope Francis is surely noting the “hypocrisy of those who praise him in death while ignoring his teachings in life.”
“Change can occur only through the transformation of ‘our hearts, our lifestyles.’”
“In the same way that a river gives life to all kinds of animal and plant life, a synodal church must give life by sowing justice and peace in every place it reaches,” … so that “that our common home will teem with life once again.”
— Pope Francis
Thinking about Pope Francis reminds me of a conversation between David French, a lifelong evangelical, and Jonathan Rauch, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and an atheist, exploring the potential for American Democracy if Christianity lived up to its values. This story, What if Our Democracy Can’t Survive Without Christianity?, turned on its head what I’ve always resisted as a solution to our inability to reconcile our morals and values with business and government:
“What really needs to happen to get our country on a better track is for Christianity not to become more secular or more liberal, but to become more like itself, to become more truly Christian … the three fundamentals of Christianity map very well onto the three fundamentals of Madisonian liberalism. And one of those is don’t be afraid. No. 2 is be like Jesus. Imitate Jesus. And No. 3 is forgive each other. And those things are very much like how you run a constitutional republic …
“You have to believe in traits like the basic dignity and equality and humanity of everyone, even the people you oppose.” —Jonathan Rauch
Last night, our mixed family of Jews and spirited agnostics celebrated both Easter and the last day of Passover with deviled eggs, spicy queso cheese dip, spiral ham, scalloped potatoes, fresh roasted asparagus, and Charoset (a traditional Jewish dish served during Passover made with a sweet mixture of apples, nuts, wine, and spices, symbolizing the mortar used by the Israelites when they were enslaved in Egypt).
In the spirit of honoring these celebrations of spring, rebirth, and human resilience, in our secular version of “grace,” I read this from the closing words written by Lyla June Johnstone for Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Settlers Toward Truth, Healing, and Repair by Hilary Giovale.
“I believe the greatest trick to befall humankind is that we are separate, that we are at odds, that there isn’t enough, that one much be above, that there is a below …
We sucumb to angst and division. We are tricked into thinking that it makes any sense for one part of Creation to be more important than another. We are ticked into enslaving one another when we could be dancing together. We are tricked into cutting each other down when we could enjoy the ecstasy of rising togethetr in synergy. Who goes to a dinner party demanding to enslave other dinner guests? What a buzzkill.
This place [Planet Earth] is for abundance, for party, for community, for joy, for kinship. Who trades all this in for fleeting taste of domination? Only those who are tricked will do this.” —Lyla June Johnstone
Thank you for reading, my friends, and for refusing to be tricked, having the courage to stand up for whatever you hold dear, and for your curiosity in finding and celebrating common ground.
Take care of yourself, rest and rejuvenate whenever possible, surrounded by nature whenever you can. We’ve got a long way to go.
ONWARD!
If you need some peace, this song, a tribute to Pope Francis for A Man of His Words, written by Patti Smith and Tony Shanahan, is lovely:
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I sure appreciate the fact that you have the ability, Sue, to capture many of my feelings in a well thought out and written piece. My thoughts just seem to be a jumbled mess in my head of anger, frustration, and discouragement without any clear path. Thank you for this clarity.