A post-election panel held on Tuesday at the Bill Bordy Theater discussed how Donald Trump’s second presidency could impact reproductive rights, immigration, and foreign policy.
Students gathered to hear from three Marlboro Institute panelists, who talked about how some communities could become especially vulnerable to Trump’s plans to restructure federal bureaucracy and challenge existing laws.
Nancy J. Lyons, senior executive in residence of Marlboro Institute, spoke about reproductive rights, highlighting the right to privacy following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, a landmark case that ruled state abortions as unconstitutional.
“The right to privacy that not only has implications for abortion, but it has implications for contraception, gay marriage, and consensual sexual activity in your own home,” Lyons said.
A Republican-controlled Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) may also restrict access to abortion medication and contraceptives, Lyons said. Drugs could potentially be re-classified as “dangerously controlled substances” and the Comstock Act, a century-old “zombie law” that originally banned pornography, could be used to restrict medication through mail.
Lyons also referenced the recent rise of “Your body, my choice,” a misogynistic term popularized by white supremacist Nick Fuentes, that has been used on social media to attack women following election day results.
According to the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, there had been a 4,600% increase in mentions of the terms “your body, my choice,” and “get back in the kitchen,” within 24 hours on X, previously known as Twitter.
Immigration was also a focal point for Trump, with him promising plans for mass deportation and a closed border, appointing “border czar” Tom Homan, former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Sunday night, to join his second administration to oversee border control.
Mneesha Gellman, associate professor of political science at the Marlboro Institute, says mass deportation would cost about $88 billion to $300 billion each year, requiring a large amount of manpower from state and local governments to carry out deportations. Building a wall, a proposal since Trump’s first presidential term, would not only be expensive, but ineffective, and infringe on traditional land rights and facilitate human trafficking, according to Gellman.
Gellman also highlighted Trump’s controversial pledge to end birthright citizenship as part of his policy proposal.
Birthright citizenship, outlined in the Constitution’s 14th amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The amendment would have to be repealed by constitutional amendment or could be undone by an act of Congress.
“Undoing birthright citizenship does not actually undo the underlying causes of why people migrate. It just reinforces a certain kind of class hierarchy in the U.S., continuing to prevent people from accessing benefits of citizenship based on the status of their parents, again, by so many other characteristics, something that babies can’t control,” Gellman said.
Alireza Raisa, an affiliated faculty member and research fellow at Northeastern University, addressed Trump’s stance on global climate change initiatives and economic security.
Without U.S. involvement, Raisa says that global temperatures could reach 3.6 celsius by 2100, after Trump had announced to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement back in 2017. The agreement was re-joined when President Joe Biden came into office four years later. According to Raisa, 21% of greenhouse gas reductions come from the U.S.
Raisa also said that Trump could affect U.S. ties with China with 10–20% tariff plans and raise tensions between China and Taiwan.
Although Trump has made promises of “peace,” for Ukraine and “ending the war,” in the Middle East, he also nominated Florida Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State, who is known for his interventionist views on foreign policy.
Still, Raisa says that it is unlikely for the Trump Administration to restructure federal departments and bureaucracy in terms of foreign policy.
“This is kind of a paradox for Trump, because [he] tries to show that there are deep states, ‘they’re against me’ and eliminate the barriers in bureaucracy. But in practice he’s relying on the most interventionist foreign policies from the bureaucracy and Congress,” Raisa said.
In answering how Emerson students can respond, Lyons says that people should “double down” on supporting people who are far more vulnerable than others.
“You’re here learning and that is really important because you need to know what comes next,” Lyons said. “So you need to stay in the know, and that way, we can make decisions for ourselves and our loved ones to protect health and safety.”
Gellman also echoed Lyon’s comments, calling students to contact local, state and federal representatives to voice their concerns and volunteer to support migrants in their communities.
“I try to encourage everyone to be an upstander rather than a bystander,” Gellman said.
Trump won 312 electoral votes and all seven battleground states, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris, who received 226. The Republican Party has also gained majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, bringing Republican control to both the White House and Congress.
