Theodor Liebmann presents on some relevant information regarding the second Trump Administration.

Students from the Freedman Social Justice Fellowship are using a series of informative talks to combat Hofstra University students’ anxieties regarding President Donald Trump’s executive orders. These orders have consistently tested the bounds of the constitution.

Second-year law student and member of the Freedman Social Justice Fellowship, Joseph Kovar Jr. described these talks as “emergency meetings” designed to educate Hofstra students.

“The reason we’re holding these ‘brown bag lunches,’ as we call it, is because we feel there’s, believe it or not, not enough discussion going on,” Kovar said. “People are kind of running around. You read headlines, or hear headlines, and there’s a lot of confusion, a lot of fear.”  

So far, the fellowship program has hosted multiple discussions at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law about what is happening within the United States legal system. These discussions include Professor James Sample’s talk on administrative agencies and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and, most recently, Professor Theodor Liebmann’s talk on President Trump’s relationship with the judiciary branch.

“A lot of students are uneducated,” said the Dean of Students Chermele Christy. “We need to focus on how this impacts you, but not only does it impact you, how that impacts your family. We are now trying to be more in the forefront of educating our students.” 

On Thursday, March 6, Liebmann began his discussion on the conflict between the Trump administration and the courts by explaining that in just 45 days Trump has signed 76 executive orders in the Oval Office. The judicial branch is blocking several of those signed orders and the Trump administration has responded by threatening to impeach two judges.

Judge John Bates was placed on that list for advocating that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should keep information about youth risk behaviors and contraceptives on their webpage. Judge Paul Engelmayer is also under threat of impeachment for suggesting that government officials should receive training to access the Department of Treasury after DOGE employees were accessing personal and secure information without clearances. In all of American history, only 15 federal judges have been impeached and just eight have been convicted. Unlike this slew of desired impeachments, those judges committed acts like abuses of power and bribery.

There have only been two incidents of judicial defiance in the past. President Andrew Jackson forcefully removed Cherokee people from Georgia, despite disapproval from the courts. President Abraham Lincoln also defied the court when he suspended the writ of habeas corpus during Ex Parte Merryman, a significant U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with civil liberties during the Civil War. It specifically addressed habeas corpus (the right of an individual to not be detained unlawfully) and the limits of presidential power.

“The pushback of the Trump administration over the judiciary is not a political issue, but a constitutional democracy issue,” Liebmann said.

For instance, Trump signed an executive order his first day in office stating that a child born within the U.S. is not a citizen if their mother or father was born outside of the country or has a temporary visa. This directly contradicts Amendment XIV, Section I of the Constitution which states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

As an executive order is passed through Congress, the judicial branch can deny, veto or accept an order by reviewing its constitutionality and deciding how to proceed with the bill. In the case of birthright citizenship, the judicial branch vetoed the bill for being unconstitutional. 

 Liebmann noted that a small group of Republicans in the House of Representatives have created a list of judges – an “impeachathon” – of who they want to impeach for going against the President’s executive orders. A judge’s impeachment follows the same process as a presidential impeachment. The “impeachathon” has no constitutional support, according to Liebmann.

“The Doctors for America thing is alarming – taking away information from our doctors to do testing and research on HIV and contraception,” said sophomore journalism and dance double major Janet Conklin. “This work has to be honest and taking it off the CDC and FDA websites is like lying.”

As explained in Leibmann’s lecture, the current impeachment process can be considered judicial defiance. Still, judges are required to follow the court order and not retaliate. 

“Failure to follow a court order would result in civil contempt of jail time fines,” Leibmann said. “There can also be suspension or disbarment of lawyers if they fail to recognize a court order.”

For Conklin, Leibmann thoroughly explained why students and voters need to be educated, especially with the current administration. 

“It was shocking to me when Leibmann was saying the White House posted ‘Long Live the King,’” Conklin said. “It seems like an immature response to American anxieties.”

Leibmann also touched upon how Trump posted on X, “He who saves his country does not violate any law” on Feb. 15. This quote originates from Napoleon Bonaparte who is known for implementing slavery and brutal punishments as a form of leadership. 

“As someone who went to the talk and knows the history, that’s a crazy take,” Conklin said.

During the conversation, Liebmann compared Trump’s executive order to remove access to transgender health care information to George Orwell’s “1984” and the room responded with a spatter of nervous laughter. Despite the joke, many students have expressed discomfort about the new president.

“Anxiety is on a level I have never seen,” Christy said. 

Second-year law student Alexa Dantona explained how she generally feels when trying to get informed about the rapid-fire news coming out of the Trump Administration.

“I kind of shut down; I’m very discouraged and it hurts me to see this,” Dantona said. “I’m trying to balance between staying informed and not being so emotionally tolled by everything that I might not agree with.”

Students expressed that Liebmann’s talk achieved its goal of reducing student anxiety through knowledge.

“[I’m in a] constant state of being alarmed,” Dantona said. “Learning more about this stuff helps decrease the anxiety, but there is always more; you can’t not be anxious about it.” 

Staying involved and teaching others about these current issues are ways in which students can calm their anxieties.

“I think it opened my eyes to a broader view as to what is going on,” Conklin said. “It makes things clearer to me, as someone who is not involved in political things. We all need to be educated. It helped tell me that there are things I can do as a college student.”

Conklin mentioned that as a student journalist, she must be willing to learn both sides of the argument, whether she votes left or right.

Leibmann closed the conversation with information on what students can do if they found the discussion unsettling regarding the swiftly passed executive orders and the dismissal of judges. While emphasizing the importance of being a public citizen, he encouraged students to stay informed on current issues and make their voice heard. He displayed various resources after the talk, including 5calls.org, which makes it easy for citizens to contact their representatives and express their grievances.

“If you believe that we are moving away from our constitutional democracy right now and you want to slow it down, be a grain of sand and get with some other grains of sand,” Liebmann said.