Silencing ChangeMakers with Smears – Cloaking Inequity
Once upon a time, America assassinated its changemakers with bullets.
They killed Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr.—leaders who dared to call the nation to a higher moral ground. But physical violence has a cost. It leaves martyrs and monuments.
So today’s power structure has evolved. In the age of media saturation and high-speed misinformation, character assassination has become the preferred method to silence those who dare to lead with courage.
This isn’t new. They tried it with MLK, planting rumors and weaponizing surveillance. But now, with the amplification power of social media, a whisper becomes a headline before breakfast. Truth takes a backseat to virality.
Look at Claudine Gay.
The first Black woman president of Harvard University. Brilliant. Historic. Qualified. And yet, in the face of politically motivated scrutiny, a coordinated effort turned academic citations into scandal. Plagiarism became the pretext, but the real crime was being a changemaker—being a Black woman with institutional power.
She wasn’t ousted because she lacked merit. She was pushed out because she represented change.
The campaign wasn’t about footnotes—it was about fear. Fear of what her presence symbolized: the future of leadership no longer centered in only whiteness or maleness or complacency.
This isn’t isolated.
In Kentucky, former Education Commissioner Dr. Jason Glass stood up for the rights of students—especially LGBTQ+ youth—and paid the price. When he refused to be a pawn in culture wars, he was politically attacked.
Across sectors, the pattern holds. Speak up. Act boldly. Get targeted.
Meanwhile, if you play it safe, the system protects you. Figures like Santa Ono (University of Michigan) or Edward Montgomery (Western Michigan University) have navigated turbulent waters by staying mostly quiet on controversial issues. Stability is rewarded—but at the cost of moral clarity. When silence and so-called neutrality become the currency of survival, our institutions risk becoming complicit in the very injustices they were created to challenge. In moments that demand courage, neutrality is not wisdom—it’s surrender.
Then there are the bold changemakers: Christopher Eisgruber at Princeton and Alan Garber at Harvard. They’ve stood up for academic freedom in the face of federal overreach, refusing to let higher education be dictated by authoritarian demands. But their time will come. The same forces that came for Claudine Gay will come for them too—because courage in leadership is a threat to the status quo.
This is the modern assassination.
It leaves no body, but it buries careers. It erodes reputations with accusations and innuendo. And it works—unless we tell the truth. Unless we, the people who know these leaders, stand up and defend them. Not just after they’re gone. But in real time, when it matters most.
That’s why we must be prepared—not just to defend leaders like Eisgruber and Garber, but to pre-board them with the kind of organized support that anticipates the smears before they arrive. The personal attacks, “investigations” and character assassinations are not just possible—they are inevitable for those who lead with courage.
Our communities must rally around these changemakers. Not after they’ve been taken down—but in real time, with unapologetic backing and loud, public affirmation. That support must be a prerequisite, a precondition built into how we hire and evaluate leadership. If we want transformation, we must choose leaders with a pedigree of courage, not a résumé of compliance.
Because when we settle for safe hands, we risk what we’ve seen unfold at places like Columbia University—complacency in the face of injustice, and leadership that folds under pressure.
Courage must be the new credential. And if we don’t defend those who wield it, we’ll send a clear and problematic message to the next generation of leaders.
Because the goal isn’t just to remove individuals. It’s to send a message to everyone else:
“Stay quiet. Or you’re next.”