Salzburg Global Fellow Mohamed Sidibay connects lessons from Sierra Leone to the "unraveling of moral commitments" across law firms, universities, and corporations in the U.S.
This article was written by Salzburg Global Fellow Mohamed Sidibay, who attended "International Law Fellows Network | Safeguarding Democracy and the Rule of Law: The Crucial Role of Rising International Lawyers" from March 27 to 30, 2025.
I was born in Sierra Leone, in a country where the law collapsed in public view. Before I turned ten, I had seen teachers disappear, courtrooms go silent, and justice repurposed as justification for terror. I became a child soldier not by choice, but because the institutions that were supposed to protect me had already chosen to protect themselves.
Today, I am a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at a white-shoe firm in the United States. I sit in boardrooms where risk is calculated, strategy reviewed, and language polished to avoid liability. It is a different kind of battlefield. But the instincts feel familiar. I have learned to recognize the tremor in an institution that has begun to retreat from its principles.
This time, it is not militias or coups. It is the quiet, preemptive unraveling of moral commitments. Law firms, universities, and corporations are not just under pressure. They are bending before it arrives.
Consider the legal world. Some of the country’s most powerful firms have pledged tens of millions of dollars in free legal work to an administration known for its hostility to civil rights. At the same time, they are scaling back internal diversity efforts. Language once used to assert equity is now being rewritten to center merit. Memos circulate, explaining that the firm’s values remain unchanged, even as the policies are reversed.
These are not adjustments. They are advance concessions.
Universities are making similar calculations. One of the nation’s most elite institutions, when faced with the threat of losing federal funding, placed its Middle Eastern studies department under enhanced internal oversight to satisfy federal demands. In Florida and Texas, public universities have been ordered to dismantle DEI programs and recast hiring policies. Private schools, sensing the shift, have chosen to go quiet. Offices are renamed. Syllabi are reviewed. Words like justice and liberation are replaced with terms less likely to trigger political inquiry.
The corporate sector has followed suit. Companies that once pledged themselves to racial equity now speak in safer terms. “Diversity” has become “belonging.” Equity teams are folded into compliance departments. Internal communications emphasize neutrality and unity. External language is stripped of political risk.
This is not ideological whiplash. It is institutional self-preservation. A single subpoena, a lawsuit, or a Senate hearing is now enough to trigger rebranding, restructuring, and retreat.
What links these responses is not strategy. It is survival instinct. But once principles are rewritten for convenience, they rarely recover their shape.
I have seen what happens when the people in power decide that staying safe is more important than staying right. In Sierra Leone, it began with hesitation. Then compromise. Then complicity. Schools that avoided politics became tools of propaganda. Courts that stayed neutral became voids where no one could be heard. Institutions that once protected the public slowly narrowed their purpose until they protected only themselves.
That same narrowing is now underway here. Law firms that declared Black Lives Matter are now silent as state governments purge DEI. Universities that once championed dissent now seek federal clearance before teaching politically sensitive topics. Companies that celebrated equity in 2020 have erased the term by 2025.
The moral architecture of these institutions is not failing. It is being dismantled by their own hands.
And yet, the threat they fear is not force. It is attention. A headline. A hearing. A question from the wrong person in power. These are not acts of repression. They are signals. And they are working.
I understand the impulse. I am inside these institutions. I know how quickly a value can become a vulnerability. I have seen the statements soften in draft form — not mine to write, but close enough to understand the fear behind them.
But fear is a currency. Once you begin trading in it, the price only rises.
Some believe this is temporary. They say that after the next election, things will reset. But institutions that learn to bend rarely forget how. Eventually, the next generation inherits not the mission, but the pattern.
A republic cannot function on precedent alone. It depends on people and institutions who remember what they are for.
When silence becomes the preferred posture of the powerful, it tells us something about the future they are preparing for. Not one in which justice is defended. But one in which justice is negotiated and often denied.
I know what it looks like when the law becomes a performance, and justice a privilege granted by proximity to power. That line should be unthinkable in a democracy. But I no longer say it with irony.
The United States still has choices. But only if it remembers that silence is already a choice, and it is costing us everything.
Mohamed Sidibay is a Sierra Leone–born American lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions at a global law firm. Growing up amid conflict, he discovered the transformative power of education, igniting a commitment to advancing the rule of law. He merges a thriving corporate practice with pro bono advocacy, championing press freedom, youth empowerment, and conflict resolution. A frequent speaker at international forums, Mohamed highlights how fair governance and accountability foster social stability. His journey — from West Africa to advising multinational clients — reflects his belief that equitable legal frameworks create opportunities for all. By uniting corporate insights with a passion for human rights, he promotes inclusive justice as a cornerstone of enduring peace.
This article is part of our Annual Spotlight: “Centering Africa." Across our sessions and events in 2025, Salzburg Global is highlighting the central role that the African continent will play in global development now and in the next decades. As demographic trends across much of the world project a future of older and less productive economies, the African continent stands out for its growing youth population, dynamism and innovation. In reimagining an international system that better responds to the needs of the 21st century, it is our hope that Salzburg Global can play a small but meaningful role in centering African ideas, innovations, and perspectives in global forums like ours.
Learn more about the International Law Fellows Network and the Lloyd N. Cutler Center for the Rule of Law.
