Brown must reject Trump’s so-called “Compact for Academic Excellence”

After bowing to governmental pressure this summer, Brown was one of nine schools invited this week to participate in the Trump Administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which offers federal funding preference and insider access in exchange for “voluntary” agreement to sweeping limitations on what and who can be taught, hired, supported, and expressed on campus. This “compact” is an even more egregious assault on academic freedom and free speech at Brown, which President Paxson must unequivocally reject.

(You can read the full compact here and a NYT summary here.)

President Paxson has told us she would never let the federal government dictate the content of Brown’s curriculum, the topics that students or faculty can study, or who can be admitted or employed at Brown. This proposed “compact” would do all of these things. It is a quintessentially authoritarian offer: government funding in exchange for Brown’s institutional soul. Please join us in telling President Paxson she must say no.