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James Bacon
The Jefferson Council
Excerpt: “Conservative students at the University of Virginia,” a fourth-year student once confided to me, “know who all the conservative professors are. … All seven of them.”
That was only a slight exaggeration. Through my work with the Jefferson Council I have identified a dozen faculty members openly identifying as conservative and/or libertarian out of roughly 1,700 faculty members. I have met three or four more not yet willing to come out of hiding.
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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.
