“We’ll miss seminaries when they’re gone.” So read the title of a NYT editorial piece about universities in general, but which applies to seminaries, as well. Noting the cancellation of a Rutgers conference on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the wake of President Trump’s recent executive order against DEI efforts, a chill entered my world as leader of BST. As you may know, BST was created in 1871 by the very same Christian American Baptist leaders that established our country’s most famous HBCUs, Spelman, Morehouse, and Virginia Union. The promise of the president to abolish the Department of Education and his recent executive order after laying off half of its workforce threatens the federal financial aid of about a third of BST students. The detention and possible deportation of Columbia University international graduate student Mahmoud Kalil, holding a green card, sends a threatening message to our own international student body as well. We have had to educate ourselves in case ICE comes to our door targeting asylum seekers or merely to scare staff, students, or faculty immigrants here legally. BST has become a potential target to the degree that our Jesus-centered core values of equity, inclusion, and intercultural leadership have become problematic in the current political landscape.