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Eboo Patel
Persuasion
Excerpt: In 2020, Steven Wilson, former education adviser to the governor of Massachusetts, was condemned as racist and fired from his job for writing an essay on the educational philosophy underlying the network of charter schools he founded.
What exactly did Wilson do wrong? According to The New York Times, some younger staff at the Ascend schools considered his essay “racially traumatizing,” likely because it directly criticized the progressive educator Tema Okun’s profoundly destructive idea—as expressed in her popular 1999 workbook on “Dismantling racism”—that linear thinking, objectivity and respect for good writing are features of “white supremacy culture.”
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For the good of the Nation, university leadership must seize this occasion to drive essential reforms—a process some began by adopting positions of institutional neutrality and improving policies related to campus protests. Before the end of 2026, I call on every postsecondary institution to describe to the American public your commitments to rigorous teaching, pathbreaking research, and national service—commitments that make our universities a bedrock institution of the American republic.
Now the administration is back with Compact 2.0, formally titled "A National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards." It includes some rhetorical flourishes intended to make it seem less threatening to teaching, learning and research. But make no mistake: It once again asks colleges and universities to align themselves with a far-right agenda at the expense of students’ education and the public’s well-being.
