Trump and Bird are bullies alike

Rick Morain

It’s called “collective punishment” when an entire group or community is sanctioned for an act of one member, or a few of them. It’s a form of bullying. The punished group generally has no connection with the perpetrator other than living in the same area, with no control over the perpetrator’s acts.

In international relations, collective punishment is forbidden in times of both war and peace. It still occurs, however, all too often when a powerful nation or group is in a position to take revenge on the constituents of a weaker one.

And it’s not limited to international relations. For instance:

Last Friday President Trump’s U.S. Department of Education announced it is withholding all federal education funds from the schools of Maine. The reason: Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has refused to obey a Trump executive order that bans transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports.

There is, apparently, one instance of a transgender person active in school sports in the state of Maine.

Trump interprets federal Title IX rules to require such a ban. Mills firmly disagrees. The dispute is headed to federal court. But rather than wait until the courts decide the dispute, Trump has moved to halt federal education funds to Maine schools.

That’s collective punishment. The children of Maine have nothing to do with Gov. Mills’ challenge to Trump’s executive order. But his intention is to deprive them of the federal education benefits that all other American students receive.

The courts will decide whether Mills or Trump is correct about Title IX. That’s not the point here. The point is that punishing Maine’s children before a verdict is rendered is bullying, pure and simple. It’s in keeping with Trump’s approach to governing.

Another example of collective punishment, this one at the state level: Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird’s intent to withhold all state funding from Winneshiek County in northeast Iowa because of a Facebook post.

In February, Winneshiek County Sheriff Dan Marx posted his concern about possible violations of individual constitutional rights through improper implementation by U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement in detention of alleged illegal immigrants. Marx has followed court orders regarding ICE detentions, but his Facebook post warned about possible conflicts between ICE detentions and individual constitutional rights, including identification errors and incorrect immigration classifications.

A 2018 Iowa law prohibits “discouragement” of immigration enforcement in Iowa. Attorney General Bird claimed that Marx’s Facebook post violated that law, and she dictated a Facebook retraction and apology that she ordered Marx to post. He refused to do so, and as a result, Bird and Governor Reynolds sued to withhold state funding from Winneshiek County.

As with the dispute between Trump and the state of Maine, the courts will eventually decide the dispute between Attorney General Bird and Winneshiek County Sheriff Marx. That’s as it should be.

But that’s not the point here. The point is that the entire population of Winneshiek County, not just Marx or the sheriff’s office, would be deprived entirely of state funds into which they have paid their sales and income taxes. That’s collective punishment.

Both Trump’s executive order on transgender participation in sports and Bird’s interpretation of Iowa’s law on discouragement of immigration enforcement are open to legal challenge. That’s what Gov. Mills and Sheriff Marx are doing, and those questions will be settled by the courts.

In the meantime, Trump and Bird should stop picking on the citizens of Maine and Winneshiek County.

Rick Morain is a reporter and columnist with the Jefferson Herald.