DeSantis should know better than to threaten vital federal workers with violence | Opinion

I am a longtime professor of public management at the Harvard Kennedy School and have worked twice over my 45 years of teaching, for six years, in federal government agencies on improving government management.

I like to keep partisan politics out of my writing, but don’t make a secret of being a moderate Democrat — I was a political appointee in the Clinton administration. I even wrote a few nice things about Trump early in his term.

I have been a champion for our career civil service for many years. As I always say when introducing myself to my Harvard executive education students, there is no group in American society for whom the gap between what they are accomplishing and what most people think they are accomplishing is greater than for the senior federal civil service.

When I was a federal employee, I had the privilege of personally working with feds who were smart, dedicated and committed to the public good. I had colleagues who came to work on weekends and holidays when there was work to be done. The many discussions and disagreements I heard within the government about what course of action the government should take pretty much always were argued in terms of what policy was in the public interest.

For that reason, I was appalled that Gov. Ron DeSantis said that he would “start slitting throats” of civil servants “on Day One” if he were to become president.

This is a brutal and hateful statement. Rhetoric about “slitting throats” of any political opponents has no legitimate place in our society. And it has absolutely no place in discussions of people who have chosen to work for government — in other words, work for all of us — as a career. I do not criticize DeSantis because he is a Republican, I criticize him because this statement is directed at people crucial to our democracy.

I saw a response on to DeSantis’ statement from an old friend, whom I met many years ago when he was a student in an executive education program at the Kennedy School, with 23 years’ experience in the Air Force followed by 13 years at FEMA. He’s now retired and living in New Hampshire and currently serves pro bono as the emergency management director of his 4,500-person town.

My friend wrote of DeSantis, “He’s repugnant. And that’s the nicest statement I can utter about him. Military men and women are federal workers. FEMA folks assisting his state are also federal workers. So are members of the Army Corps of Engineers, who [keep] Florida livable. So are U.S. public health workers that are keeping Florida from being the infectious disease Ground Zero in the Americas.”

I thank and honor my old friend for his statement. I urge everyone, particularly Floridians, to speak up for the value of public servants. This is not partisan work. Any chance traditional Republicans such as George W. Bush or Mitt Romney would be willing to join the criticism?

Steve Kelman is the Albert J. Weatherhead III and Richard W. Weatherhead professor of public management at the Harvard Kennedy School.