Fearing Trump, universities restrict academic freedom

How to avoid federal ire? Undermine research and teaching preemptively

- LAURA ISABEL SERNA GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

MIT WAS AMONG the universities to reject the Trump administration's bid to limit instruction.

(SCOTT EISEN Getty Images)

EVEN OUT OF the nine universities that the Trump administration invited to offer feedback on the so-called Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education have politely declined to sign on. At its core, the compact offers preferential treatment in exchange for institutional support for President Trump’s political agenda. This collective rejection was good news.

However, in some of the letters declining the compact, much ink was spilled to reassure the Trump administration that universities were already complying with many of the proposed changes without even being asked!

These practices chill academic freedom, limiting in deed if not in policy what faculty can study, teach and say within and outside of the classroom by creating an environment in which certain words, concepts and projects become unthinkable because they are unsayable. While the compact would have formalized institutions’ agreement to police the research, teaching and speech of professors (and students), it is evident that this sort of policing is already happening.