Universities must reject becoming mouthpieces for any government dogma | Opinion

Having bullied universities into paying fines and signing agreements to counter alleged rampant antisemitism on campuses under threat of cutting off federal research funding, now the U.S. Department of Education is offering a carrot (e.g., priority access to federal grants and looser restraints on overhead costs) to nine high profile universities if they agree to a “Compact for Excellence in Higher Education” that dictates certain administrative and academic changes aligned with the current administration’s agenda.

In reality, this carrot is only a mirage, because the document says, “Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those [below], if the institution decides to forego federal benefits.” There is no question this compact further diminishes university autonomy and could turn them into government mouthpieces.

In these times of highly polarized politics, some television channels and media outlets have already become partisan propaganda machines, and others deemed hostile to the government have been coerced into compromising their First Amendment duties. Now we are seeing an effort to turn universities into instruments of propaganda for government ideology in the name of fostering a free marketplace of ideas.

The compact acknowledges that “[T]ruth-seeking is a core function of institutions of higher education” but at the same time calls for “revising governance structures …to abolishing institutional units with purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” Every word in this excerpt is vague and requires a clear definition. In particular, does “belittling” include presenting evidence against conservative ideas like “racial discrimination doesn’t exist anymore,” “climate change is a hoax,” or “vaccines kill more people than they save”?

There are serious First Amendment and academic freedom issues here. The compact calls for “empirical assessment of a broad spectrum of viewpoints among faculty…not just in the university as a whole, but within every field….” If there are no climate change deniers in a physics or chemistry department, is that a violation of viewpoint diversity? Is the next step that these departments must hire climate change deniers?

The nine universities offered the compact were chosen because “they have a president who is a reformer or a board that has really indicated they are committed to a higher-quality education” according to administration officials. However, history will judge university leaders who cave to this new effort that further erodes our democracy harshly.

As a former college leader, let me clearly state that many well-intentioned policies and practices at universities have gone too far in trying to achieve social justice. Yes, others will say they haven’t gone far enough. Let me also acknowledge that some of the problems named in the compact (such as the lack of civil discourse, ensuring student safety during protests) need addressing. There is much soul-searching that is currently underway at universities. And there are normal government processes for challenging unlawful policies, including lawsuits, and Office of Civil Rights investigations with the opportunity for institutions to defend themselves. The Supreme Court’s banishment of race considerations in college admissions came about through such means.

Elements of the compact such as the requirement that “admission decisions shall be based upon…objective criteria” oversimplify the realities of admissions and other processes. For instance, the question of weighting standardized test score (which is required by the compact and is the measure of a student’s ability to answer a hundred questions in about two hours on a single Saturday) against high school GPA (a cumulative measure of four years of academic work), is not simple. With 50,000 applications for 5,000 seats, how do you decide whom to admit to ensure success in college, given the compact further requires that universities “shall refund tuition to students who drop out during the first academic term?” It is ironic that the administration that seems so obsessed with meritocracy has many cabinet members whose qualification for their positions are highly questionable.

The Education Department should approach any reform it wants to see at universities in good faith in a collaborative fashion. Threats, coercion, and imposition of majority party ideologies on universities threatens to dismantle American higher education which is “the envy of the world and represents a key strategic benefit for our Nation” as the introduction to the compact itself acknowledges.

Dr. Kumble R. Subbaswamy, a Lexington resident, is a former Provost of the University of Kentucky and former Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is a Senior Advisor to the non-profit, non-partisan Stand Together for Higher Ed (standtogetherhighered.org), a free membership organization for higher ed faculty and staff across the country.