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Scott Gac
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: The email from faculty in our would-be 51st state up north confirmed what I’d been suspecting for months: though I’d been selected as the finalist for a Fulbright chair at a Canadian university, the U.S. Department of State refused to approve my file.
It wasn’t a shock—race is at the center of my research. And I know that I am not alone in this Fulbright conundrum. But it was a gut punch. As a faculty member at a liberal arts institution, my access to external support is far more limited than that of colleagues at research institutions. When I am able to look past the personal sting, however, it’s easy to see the move as part of a broader effort—in the form of economic sanctions and ideological surveillance—to shape the expression of ideas and values in American higher education.
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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.
