I Planned a Lecture About Freedom. Then Trump’s D.E.I. Police Intervened.

Opinion|My Brush With Trump’s Thought Police

The email arrived in early February from the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, carrying a blunt message. It informed the organizers of a Danish lecture series — one I was soon scheduled to speak at — that the final portion of American funding would be released only after they signed a statement essentially saying they were in compliance with a U.S. executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion.

It was a head-spinning turn of events; under President Joe Biden, attention to D.E.I. issues had been a requirement for receiving the grant. Unwittingly, Denmark seemed to have been swept into America’s culture wars.

Before the organizers at the University of Southern Denmark could respond, the U.S. State Department sent an even blunter message: The grant was “being terminated for the convenience of the U.S. government.” It concluded by thanking the Danes “for your partnering with the Department of State and God Bless America.”

Some partnership!

The stakes here were relatively small. The lecture series was respected, but not overly prominent, and the savings amounted to a minuscule $10,000. Sometimes, though, a small story reveals a great deal — in this case, about the priorities and obsessions of the Trump administration.

First, the two notices suggested there might have been no communication between the State Department and the embassy in Copenhagen — an apparent lack of coordination that we’re likely to see more of as the administration hollows out the government. A recent New York Times/Siena College survey noted that two-thirds of Americans thought the word “chaotic” “described President Trump’s second term in office well.

Second, the cutoff of funding was followed nearly two weeks later by another message to the university. (I viewed copies of all the emails.) It said that a recent court hearing prevented the State Department from holding up congressionally appropriated foreign aid funds and ordered it to make the financing available. It further ordered the department to “provide written notice of this order” to recipients of grants. Notifying the Danish university was as far as the administration went in complying with the court. The remaining funds haven’t been released yet, organizers say — typical of the Trump administration’s defiance of the courts.