A Political Moment In Time

story by Gunner Stuns, photos by Brenden Fuller, design by Alex Littman, additional reporting by Brandon Mattesich, Charlotte Zombo, Jackson Lawer & Kyley Glenn

Education. Immigration. Civil rights. Bodily autonomy. Democracy. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are just a few of the issues called into question and controversy following the second presidential ascendancy of Donald Trump, who took office Jan. 20. Since then, it has been around three months by the time of writing and more specifically, 100 days have passed, marking a milestone in Trump’s second term. 

For many students, this may have been their first time voting or even simply when they first began paying attention to politics, making it a critical moment for them, CWU as an institution and for the future of our nation at large. From executive orders to policies foreign and domestic, here is a look into how CWU is responding to the Trump Administration and an overview of the president’s actions during his first 100 days in office. 

The CWU Community Reacts:

PULSE took to various areas around campus to interview CWU students who were comfortable sharing their thoughts on Trump’s administration following his first 100 days in office and how they would evaluate his performance as president thus far. Students were granted anonymity due to fear of exclusion or persecution from their peers and were not asked to share their identity. 

“I feel like he’s implementing all these policies, that he’s reversing hundreds and hundreds of years of hard work and I think it’s totally unfair to minority groups especially,” says one anonymous student. They also mention disapproving of Trump’s “maturity level, stating that they feel his words are not professional and that they reflect poorly on the United States in the eyes of the rest of the world. 

A student who was willing to share that they’d taken economics classes also has a view to share, especially given the tariffs the Trump Administration has imposed. “Tariffs are supposed to be used in beneficial ways to protect the economy, make more government revenue or to localize our own resources,” says the student. “To put such a sudden shift percentage wise, especially on China, which is one of our biggest trade partners, I think was a very stupid move because it now creates a trade war and that’s what China has done, putting a 125% tax on American imports. Tariffs are good to some extent, but I feel that this one was uncalled for.”

Noting that while they understand Trump is a divisive figure, one anonymous student has a more charitable view of the sitting president. “I think he’s really honest with what he’s saying and everything,” they say. “And it makes sense about the immigrants, it makes sense on what he’s saying about if you’re good at a job, it doesn’t matter if you’re black, it doesn’t matter if you’re brown. If you’re good at it, you take it.”

Another student says they feel that Trump’s policies are selfish and do not reflect the views of the United States and its citizens. “I think he’s been very focused on his personal opinions and his views and he’s not looking at the country as a whole, when he’s supposed to be representative of the country,” this student says. The student sitting beside them also added that they think, “A lot of his actions come from lashing out instead of actually coming up with solutions.”

*PULSE sent 3 reporters out to interview students across campus. Students were offered anonymity to express their political views and all took it. 

CWU students are not the only members of the Ellensburg community speaking their mind on the Trump Administration. In April 2025, Ellensburg joined several other cities across the United States in the “Hands Off” protest, which was held in response to many of the policies created and enacted by the White House since Trump took office. As stated on handsoff2025.com, “Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. They're taking everything they can get their hands on, and daring the world to stop them. On Saturday, April 5th, we're taking to the streets nationwide to fight back with a clear message: Hands off!” These concerns range from a variety of issues, including the new administration’s attitude towards cancer research, the veterans administration, consumer protection, wildfire fighting, Medicaid and Medicare, as well as aggression towards Canada and Greenland. 

One of the key speakers at the rally in Ellensburg was Dr. Jean Marie Linhart, a professor of mathematics at CWU, who said during her speech, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and women too, for that matter, that we, the people, are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” 

DEI, Harvard and CWU

One of Trump's actions that has a direct impact on CWU and other universities across the nation has to do with how the president plans to handle federal funding for private education. Under Trump, the Department Of Education (DEO) issued a “Dear Colleague Letter” (DCL) to universities across the nation Feb. 14, warning them that they may lose federal funding should they continue to perpetuate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practices. This was seen in action in April 2025, when the Trump Administration sent Harvard University a list of demands to comply with or risk the loss of its federal funding. These demands included a dismantling of Harvard’s DEI programs and new policies regarding student discipline for supposed “criminal activity” and “illegal violence.” 

In response, Harvard has issued a news release stating that it will directly oppose the White House’s demands, including statements regarding the precedent of funding and the way universities provide for the United States, including innovations in the fields of medicine, engineering and science. “For the government to retreat from these partnerships now risks not only the health and well-being of millions of individuals but also the economic security and vitality of our nation,” said Harvard’s news release. 

The release also detailed the various ways in which it believes the Trump Administration’s demands to be unconstitutional, including threats to the First Amendment and personal privacy. “They [The Department of Education] include requirements to 'audit’ the viewpoints of our student body, faculty, staff, and to ‘reduc[e] the power’ of certain students, faculty, and administrators targeted because of their ideological views. We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement. The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

Since then, the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) released a statement of its own on the matter. “Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.”

At the time of writing, CWU has responded to these changes in educational policy at the federal level by way of compliance since the initial letter from the DOE was issued. As noted in The Daily Record’s April 9 edition, “Central Washington University is removing words such as ‘equity,’ ‘belonging’ and ‘diversity’ from its mission statements after being threatened with federal funding loss by the U.S. Department of Education.” 

CWU President, Jim Wohlpart, has sent out several mass emails to university staff and students in the past four months, some of them regarding policy changes due to decisions made at the state and federal level. On the topic of DOE’s issued letter, he noted that Washington state has long prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in public education. “While we remain confident that CWU’s programs comply with state and federal anti-discrimination laws, we agreed that this DCL was an opportunity for us to reflect on and consider how we can evolve our work in order to live more fully into the heart and spirit of our vision,” Wohlpart wrote in a March 3 email. 

Wohlpart added in another email from May 1 that the Vision, Mission, Values Committee met and shared feedback from the CWU community regarding a desire for more action-oriented focus to their work. As an example of how they could continue to serve the community in a satisfying way, Wohlpart cited previously implemented projects that served the purpose of action. Wohlpart wrote, “The retention project that we implemented, which did not have a specific DEI focus, offered all students opportunities to be more engaged and connected; the results of that project demonstrate that we can improve the success of all students and, at the same time, close achievement gaps for vulnerable populations.”

It should be noted that in the Faculty Senate meeting minutes from April 9, a motion was carried to remove “All references to Antiracism, Diversity, and Inclusivity (ADI) standing committee from the Senate Bylaws, including removal of the ADI Committee membership criteria.” This means that the ADI committee would be dissolved from the Faculty Senate. The rationale given for this course of action was due to changes in Title VI enforcement and upon “strong recommendation” from CWU’s Assistant Attorney General.

Initial Receptions

President Trump made his intentions for the United States and the American people clear during his inaugural speech in January, stating, “My top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous and free.” The main topics addressed in his speech included how he intended to address topics such as deportation, immigration, energy, gender and tariffs at the national level. 

Some CWU students felt positively about the economic promises that Trump had made during his campaign. The Observer ran a story in its Jan. 23 edition titled “Trump, TikTok, and The Future of the US,” where one student admitted, “To be completely honest, I’m running out of money and I really just want to be able to afford my groceries. If Trump can fix that, that’s all I honestly care about.” 

One of the specific topics Trump highlighted during his initial days as president included social justice and minority rights, which he did not look on positively. “This week I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life,” Trump said on Jan. 20. The Observer reported that many CWU students were not enthusiastic about this position, with one student saying, “I don’t really have fear of being a student, I just have a fear of being a female in this country right now. More and more rights are being taken away… that’s what freaks me out.” Another perspective came from Senior IT Major Edyn Totten, who expressed concern regarding Trump’s policies on gender and how these sentiments would impact those around them. “The vast majority of my friend groups and people who I love very dearly are queer, trans, women or multiple of those things,” said Totten. “...I am not sure if everyone is old enough here to remember this,” Totten said. “There was a burning of a pride flag on campus a while back during the COVID era. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see something like that again.” 

At the time, all anyone could do was speculate how things would play out, with Trump set to hold the position of president until 2029. However, as the coming weeks turned to months, it became clear how Trump intended to roll out his policies and act as the leader of the United States. Not to mention, at the time of writing, there were public calls– whether serious or not– for him to run for a third term.  

Executive Orders & Exercise Of Power

During his tenure in office so far, Trump has made ample use of executive orders, which allow the sitting president to manage the operations of the federal government. According to an April 29 CBS news article, “Trump sets executive order record in his first 100 days,” Trump became the president to sign the highest number of executive orders in his first 100 days of office. “Mr. Trump has signed 142 executive orders so far, according to data from the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The previous record was held by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who issued 99 executive orders during his first 100 days in 1933, primarily to combat the Great Depression, according to the Roosevelt Institute,” the article summarized. 

Initial executive orders included taking action to end birthright citizenship, ending remote work policies, freezing federal hiring, pardoning Jan. 6 rioters and declaring two national emergencies; these emergencies regarded migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and energy supply. Since then, this list of orders has expanded to include tariffs on imported goods from trade partners, reforms on how American history is represented in education and federally recognizing transgender individuals only by the gender they were assigned at birth. “I think it’s very important to state that incredible things are happening in our country,” says Trump in a speech from Feb. 18. “I think we’ve made more progress in three weeks than they’ve made in four years, especially with respect to the reputation of our country and people are respecting us again as a country and as a powerful country and maybe a smart country.”

This use of executive orders has been met with criticism from both citizens,  government officials and international onlookers alike. According to a May 1 article from The Guardian, a federal judge deemed Trump’s actions against the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship “blatantly unconstitutional.” Alan Raul, board secretary of the Society for the Rule of Law and a lecturer at Harvard Law School, wrote a column on Trump’s use of executive orders to create legislation, which was published by The Washington Post on May 5. Raul, who served as legal counsel for both the Reagan and Bush administrations, wrote, “Today, however, we can all see how an unleashed president can wreak havoc on constitutional order and the rule of law.” Raul went on to write that he feels this exercise of executive orders undermines the other branches of government and its system of checks and balances. According to poll data published by Elon University, “47% of respondents believe President Trump’s executive orders have mostly gone too far, while 36% believe they have mostly been correct.”

Trump’s exercise of power and what he aims to accomplish with it also seems to closely resemble “Project 2025,” which is “A federal policy agenda and blueprint for a radical restructuring of the executive branch authored and published by former Trump administration officials in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding conservative think tank that opposes abortion and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ right, and racial equity” according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). 

James Goodwin, policy director at the Center for Progressive Reform, and his colleagues have monitored closely the changes made by the Trump Administration and the ways in which they resemble Project 2025. In an article titled “Project 2025 at 100 Days” published May 5 on the Center for Progressive Reform website, Goodwin included how some of the president’s high-profile actions have impacted people and communities. “These include Trump’s executive order directing the Department of Education to wind down the Title I funding program, which provides additional financial resources to low-income school districts across the country” wrote Goodwin. “They also include the administration’s sustained attacks on the transgender community, such as the executive order that purports to banish ‘gender ideology extremism’ from federal policy.”

As of May 1, WBAL, a Baltimore news source affiliated with NBC, reported that, “the administration has faced more than 120 lawsuits challenging the legality and implementation of these executive orders, with nine actions currently fully blocked by the courts.”