Dartmouth’s declaration of independence from the Trump administration is a welcome affirmation of institutional integrity as well as a timely reminder that academic freedom, like other varieties, isn’t free. In the words of the current movie title, it’s one battle after another.
The college last week joined six other leading universities in declining to sign on to the administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” in which nine schools were invited to adopt President Trump’s wish list of ideological priorities in return for preferential access to federal funds.
Sian Leah Beilock, Dartmouth’s president, got it right when she informed the community of her decision to reject the proposal: “I do not believe that a compact — with any administration — is the right approach to achieve academic excellence, as it would compromise our academic freedom, our ability to govern ourselves, and the principle that federal research funds should be awarded to the best, most promising ideas.”
Given that Beilock has heretofore adopted a non-confrontational stance toward the White House’s educational initiatives, we infer that the breathtaking scale of the proposed compact’s interference in academic life led her and the trustees to the conclusion that enough was enough. Or maybe to the realization that with Trump, enough is never enough, and that the compact’s strictures on admissions, student discipline, gender and women’s sports, international student enrollment and other internal matters would likely be followed by more of the same, only worse.
A notable impetus for Beilock’s decision was provided via a petition signed by 500 faculty members and graduate students, and by a faculty teach-in that made clear just how high the stakes were. That’s as it should be. The faculty is the beating heart and soul of any institution of higher education worthy of the name.
Significantly, members of the sciences faculty, who presumably had the most to gain from preferential access to federal research money, were outspoken in opposition. As our colleague Marion Umpleby reported, Brad Ducharme, professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences, noted that, “The scientific community operates on norms of fairness, merit and impartiality, and when universities cut political deals for funding advantages, they violate those core values.”
While the faculty may have been largely united in opposition to the compact, Sean Westwood, a professor of government who also supported Beilock’s decision, made an important additional point to The Boston Globe. “The perception — and too often the reality — that universities have become echo chambers where only certain perspectives are welcomed has damaged academia’s credibility as a space for open inquiry,” he wrote in an email to the paper. “We must acknowledge these failures honestly rather than reflexively defending the status quo or attributing all criticism to anti-intellectual sentiment.”
To whatever extent universities have become echo chambers and thus have shaken public faith in higher education, no one should be surprised that Trump, with his unerring eye for identifying vulnerability, has chosen this line of attack. Fortunately, universities have the means and opportunity to remedy the situation without government intrusion.
In this context, though, we cannot help but savor the irony of one provision of the compact, which asks colleges to transform or abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle or even spark violence against conservative ideas.”
No one has done more violence to conservative ideas than Donald Trump, if what is meant by conservative ideas are the traditional ones of free markets, free trade, free speech and freedom from government intrusion. From imposing tariffs to the government taking financial stakes in key industries, from punishing dissidents for exercising their free speech rights to deploying ICE stormtroopers, the president is wholly unmoored from anything that approaches authentic conservatism. He is radical to the core.
Dartmouth and the other universities can expect that the compact is only the first round of a 12-round heavyweight fight that will provide a stern test of their institutional will and commitment to their values. Patricia Stuelke, an associate professor of English who serves on the executive committee of Dartmouth’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, sounded an appropriately cautious note after Beilock’s announcement: “We are grateful for the victory, but we know the threats to the integrity and autonomy of higher education continue,” she told the Globe. “I think all of us recognize this is an ongoing long-term struggle.”