⚡ Resistance at 82: How One UA Professor Refuses to Be Muzzled, Dr. Downing Stands Up for Native Students and Faculty | BUCKMASTER
Dr. Ted Downing's explosive testimony on university censorship and cultural violence
Based on the Buckmaster Show for 6/16/25, a daily radio show in Tucson, AZ, interviewing local newsmakers. Analysis and opinions are my own.
"Out of 500 universities and colleges, it ranked dead last. 500" - Dr. Ted Downing, on the University of Vermont's student experience ranking before their president came to Arizona
😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
👧🏾✊🏾👦🏾
Universities 🎓 are supposed to help students learn and succeed 📚, but the University of Arizona now has 103 vice presidents making huge salaries 💰 while students struggle with debt 💸. They're also shutting down support centers where minority students could find community 🤝, which mirrors historical policies that tried to erase Native American culture 🪶.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration wants to sell off protected lands like national monuments 🏞️ and cut funding to national parks so badly that 350 out of 433 parks might close 🚫. Two brave professors 👩🏫🧑🏫 are speaking out against these changes, even though they could get in trouble ⚠️, because they believe education and public lands should serve people, not corporations 🏢.
🗝️ Takeaways
🎯 The University of Arizona employs 103 vice presidents, including one earning $517,000 annually for "summit conductor affairs."
🚫 Cultural centers for marginalized students are being eliminated in favor of an unnamed "multicultural center."
⚖️ Office of Legal Counsel green-lights potential elimination of national monuments like Bears Ears and Ironwood Forest
💰 Trump's budget proposal cuts $900 million from the National Park Service, threatening 350 of 433 park units
👥 Young Indigenous park employees terminated via email on Valentine's Day as part of a mass federal firing
🗣️ 82-year-old professor defies university restrictions on political speech: "Try to put a muzzle on this old horse."
🏛️ The Trump administration's legal opinion overturned legal precedent protecting monuments for 90 years
📊 332 million Americans visited national parks last year, yet the administration proposes massive cuts
Desert Heat and Institutional Betrayal: When University Bloat Meets Public Land Plunder
Órale, hermanos y hermanas, another scorching Monday in the Sonoran Desert brought us another blazing episode of truth-telling on the Buckmaster Show. While the mercury hit dangerous levels outside, the temperature inside the studio was equally intense as two academic warriors delivered devastating testimony about the systematic dismantling of our most cherished institutions.
On June 16th, host Bill Buckmaster welcomed Dr. Ted Downing, a 56-year veteran of the University of Arizona faculty, and Dr. Bill Doelle, President Emeritus of Archaeology Southwest. Both men painted a disturbing portrait of how corporate-style mismanagement and Trump-era policies are gutting higher education and threatening our public lands. Because apparently, in late-stage capitalism, even universities and national parks aren't safe from the vultures.
The Great Vice Presidential Gold Rush: 103 Reasons Why Higher Ed is Broken
Dr. Downing, speaking with the authority of someone who's survived more university presidents than most people have jobs, dropped a bombshell that should make every student loan borrower's blood boil.
The University of Arizona now employs 103 vice presidents. Not department heads, not deans—vice presidents. Each with salaries that would make a Fortune 500 executive weep with envy.
"Okay, if you go to azluminaria.com, you can count them there, which has a list. Yeah, but it's about 103," Downing revealed, his voice carrying the weariness of someone who's watched an institution lose its soul to spreadsheet thinking.
Let that marinate for a moment while you're calculating how many years it'll take to pay off your student loans.
The administrative titles read like a corporate satire sketch: Vice President for Marketing and Analytics, Vice President for Presidential Events and University Ceremonies, Vice President for Board and Donor Relations. But the crown jewel of bureaucratic excess?
"The vice president for Summit Conductor Affairs at the university gets $517,000," Downing disclosed, his tone suggesting he still couldn't quite believe it himself.
Half a million dollars. For conducting summits. While adjunct professors—you know, the people who actually teach students—qualify for food stamps.
The Cultural Cleansing Campaign: Boarding Schools Redux
But the financial hemorrhaging pales compared to the cultural violence being perpetrated on campus. The university administration has decided to shutter nearly all cultural centers—spaces where disabled students, LGBTQ+ communities, Black, Hispanic, and Asian students found belonging and support.
Their replacement? Some nebulous "multicultural center" without even a name yet.
Dr. Downing, whose PhD in cultural anthropology from Stanford gives him the credentials to call out this academic malpractice, didn't mince words: "There was a time when we moved all the Native Americans' children into boarding schools... This is an assimilation policy. That's exactly what's happening from the Trump administration."
Because nothing says "higher education" like resurrecting the same assimilationist policies that tried to "kill the Indian, save the man."
The assault on Indigenous voices at the university runs even deeper. When Buckmaster brought up listener concerns about Native American faculty calling for the removal of a vice provost over the firing of a NASA director, Dr. Downing revealed the systematic silencing happening behind closed doors.
"The Native American tribes, over 20 of them here in Arizona, they have a strong voice at the university, they did so as to what happened. And the university has decided, it appears at this point, to essentially ignore those voices and to go its own way on Native Affairs," Downing explained, his voice carrying the weight of institutional betrayal.
The university's response to Indigenous concerns? Appointing someone who the Native American faculty doesn't consider culturally competent.
"They have appointed a person that some of the Native American faculty do not consider culturally literate. And they're asking for her removal," Downing noted.
Let that sink in: an institution that claims to value diversity appoints someone to oversee Native Affairs who the actual Native faculty believe lacks cultural literacy. It's like hiring someone who's never seen water to run your swimming program.
Dr. Downing's analysis cuts to the bone: "But certainly, with an assimilation policy operating right now, live, and they understand completely, there are elderly people right now that were taken to boarding schools, they know what we're talking about right now."
This isn't abstract policy critique—it's lived trauma being repeated in real time. When elderly tribal members who survived the boarding school era recognize the same patterns in today's university policies, we should all take note. These elders didn't endure cultural genocide just to watch their grandchildren face it again in college.
As an Indigenous scholar watching this unfold, the parallels are chilling. The systematic elimination of spaces where marginalized communities can maintain their cultural connections isn't diversity management—it's cultural erasure with a corporate PowerPoint presentation.
"What is, by the way, what's wrong with disabled people getting together?" Downing asked, his frustration palpable. The question cuts to the heart of the matter: When did providing support for marginalized students become a controversial issue?
The answer lies in the Trump administration's broader assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. They can't stand the thought that students might find community outside the white, heteronormative, abled-bodied default they're desperately trying to preserve.
Monuments Under Siege: Legal Laundering for Land Grabbers
Dr. Doelle brought equally devastating news from the public lands front. The Office of Legal Counsel—Trump's in-house legal opinion shop at the Department of Justice—recently issued a 50-page opinion essentially green-lighting the destruction of national monuments established under the Antiquities Act.
"So early in this second term, they've asked the Office of Legal Counsel, can we do it? And basically the short answer is that they came back saying, yes, indeed, you can," Doelle explained, describing how 90 years of legal precedent protecting these sacred and ecologically critical spaces just got bulldozed by Trump's legal team.
Nothing says "America First" like selling off America's most treasured landscapes to the highest bidder.
The targets are predictable: Bears Ears National Monument in Utah (which Trump already butchered once), and closer to home, our own Ironwood Forest National Monument west of Tucson. "For Ironwood, it's probably the opportunity for a little bit more copper extraction out there, mineral extraction, that puts the Ironwood Forest on, well, you know, a chopping block," Doelle noted.
Because apparently, the only monuments this administration respects are Confederate statues.
The Park Service Purge: Democracy's Crown Jewels on the Auction Block
The assault on monuments is just the appetizer. The main course is a systematic gutting of the National Park Service that would make robber barons blush.
"Trump's recommended budget was taking 900 million away from the Park Service," Doelle revealed, describing cuts so severe they could force the closure or transfer of parks across the nation.
When Buckmaster pressed for specifics, the numbers were staggering: "The original estimate was 350? 350 of 433." That's roughly 80% of our national parks, monuments, and historic sites potentially on the chopping block.
332 million Americans visited national parks last year, but sure, let's shut them down because a few mining executives need new yachts.
The human cost became personal when Doelle described working with a young Tohono O'odham Nation member who'd excelled in the Park Service's Next Generation program for three years, only to receive a Valentine's Day termination email as part of Trump's mass firing of probationary federal employees.
Nothing says "Make America Great Again" like destroying Indigenous career paths on the most romantic day of the year.
The Resistance Remembers: Institutional Memory as Revolutionary Act
What makes both Dr. Downing's and Dr. Doelle's testimonies so powerful is their institutional memory. These aren't outside agitators or partisan operatives—they're respected scholars who have dedicated their lives to public service and have watched these institutions evolve over decades.
Dr. Downing's defiance in the face of university restrictions on political speech embodies the spirit we need:
"Well, I'll tell you, at 82 years old, try to put a muzzle on this old horse. I can't run the Preakness, but I'll tell you one thing. I can still speak with my First Amendment right."
Because sometimes the most patriotic thing you can do is refuse to shut up when your government tells you to.
His willingness to risk his position to call out administrative overreach and cultural violence demonstrates that resistance isn't just about street protests—it's about institutional insiders refusing to normalize the abnormal.
What This Means for You
If you're a student or parent facing crushing educational debt, understand that your money isn't going to education—it's funding a bloated administrative class that wouldn't know academic excellence if it bit them in their overpaid backsides.
If you're someone who finds solace in our public lands, who takes your kids camping in national forests, who hikes desert trails to reconnect with something larger than capitalism's constant demands, they're coming for those spaces too.
If you're a member of any marginalized community, the message is clear: your spaces, your support systems, your very existence are considered a threat to their vision of a homogenized America.
But here's what they don't understand: we've survived worse, and we'll survive this too.
How to Fight Back
Support Legal Challenges: Organizations like Archaeology Southwest are already preparing lawsuits to protect public lands. Donate to environmental law groups challenging these policies in court.
Contact Your Representatives: Dr. Doelle specifically urged listeners to "reach out to your Senators" about park funding, since "it's now the Senators who have the ability to modify the kind of path forward for the Park Service."
Document and Expose: Follow Dr. Downing's example of speaking truth to power. Share these stories, amplify these voices, and refuse to let institutional violence happen in silence.
Visit and Defend: "Visit them. When you're out there, tell the staff, Thanks," Dr. Doelle advised about national parks. Make these spaces part of your life so they become harder to eliminate.
Semillas de Esperanza
Despite the institutional betrayal and political violence, reasons for hope persist. The federal court that reversed Trump's mass firing of park employees demonstrates that legal resistance is effective. Dr. Downing's courage in speaking out despite threats shows that principled resistance endures within institutions.
The 332 million Americans who visited national parks last year represent a constituency too large to ignore.
Most importantly, voices like Dr. Downing and Dr. Doelle remind us that institutional memory and moral clarity can survive even the darkest political moments. Their testimony isn't just documentation—it's a roadmap for resistance.
In this desert of institutional decay, we must be the monsoon that brings renewal.
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What Do You Think?
How can we build broader coalitions to protect both educational institutions and public lands from corporate influence and exploitation?
What role should Indigenous voices and perspectives play in defending these spaces, given the historical parallels Dr. Downing identified?
Share your thoughts, experiences, and ideas for resistance in the comments below. We're stronger when we strategize together.
Quotes
"The vice president for summit conductor affairs at the university gets $517,000" - Dr. Ted Downing, revealing administrative excess at University of Arizona
"Well, I'll tell you, at 82 years old, try to put a muzzle on this old horse" - Dr. Ted Downing, defying university restrictions on political speech
"There was a time when we moved all the Native Americans' children into boarding schools... This is a simulation policy directly" - Dr. Ted Downing, comparing cultural center closures to historical assimilation policies
"The original estimate was 350? 350 of 433" - Dr. Bill Doelle, on how many national parks could be eliminated under Trump's budget
"Trump's recommended budget was taking 900 million away from the Park Service" - Dr. Bill Doelle, on proposed cuts to National Park Service
"Out of 500 universities and colleges, it ranked dead last. 500" - Dr. Ted Downing, on University of Vermont's student experience ranking before their president came to Arizona
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This is an excellent and important piece for several reasons. Of course, the Trumpistas want to turn everything over to the private sector (and also privatize everything: post office, education, et al.). Moreover, this is a remarkably racist administration, and one that simply considers the non-white cultures "inferior" (with all the appropriate echoes of Nazi Germany!). Our Indigenous Peoples will be under tremendous assault, and we must wish them the best. We must also applaud Professors Doelle and Downing for their courageous actions.
<< The University of Arizona employs 103 vice presidents, including one earning $517,000 annually for "summit conductor affairs." >>
Isn't it amazing? The US has ONE vice president; UA has 103. For many years I served as adjunct faculty at a community college that had around 6,000 enrolled students and six vice presidents (all drawing six-figure salaries) at a time when it was ruthlessly exploiting the adjuncts who taught over 60 percent of the courses. [If you believe 666 is the "Mark of the Beast," please feel free to draw inferences!] However, we see the trends echoed nationally: increasing income disparity as the rich get richer (even in academia).