An Open Letter from Alumni to University Presidents and Trustees
With Bloomberg News reporting that the federal government is now attempting to extort all American universities by coercing them to join its so-called "Compact,” we are calling on you to stand up for academic freedom and resist government intrusion in higher education.
Independence and freedom from political interference have made American universities global beacons in innovation, research, and scholarship. They are cornerstones of our democracy. Academic freedom, along with the bedrock constitutional freedoms of speech, association, expression, and inquiry, form the foundation of American higher education and democracy.
The "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" offers preference and insider access to federal funds in exchange for your “voluntary” agreement to sweeping limitations on what and who can be taught, hired, supported, and expressed on campus. A well-known chapter of the authoritarian playbook is the undermining and takeover of educational institutions. The government’s "Compact" is the latest in a series of assaults, made without reason or basis, on the very purpose, values and integrity of higher education.
We, the undersigned alumni of your institutions, implore you to join together and collectively resist this widescale and unlawful intrusion into your operations and governance. We ask you to embody and stand up for academic freedom and your core mission and values, and to protect the educational livelihood of your students, faculty and staff – whose varied experience, scholarship and perspectives are vital to the learning process and strength of higher education.
Whatever benefits you might receive out of entering into the Compact would be vastly outweighed by how destructive your participation would be for your campus community - and higher education more broadly. We urge you to be the united front line that rejects this latest onslaught and ensures the freedom and survival of higher education in America.
This is a time for courage, not capitulation. Do not sign on to the Compact.
