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Nolan L. Cabrera
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: This is a call to my dear faculty friends and colleagues in higher education institutions. In the first months of the new presidential administration, and indeed since the election, many have been searching for answers. I have been in more meetings, gatherings and brain dump sessions than I can count, all focused on the same existential question: What does this all mean?
I am not calling for us to be lacking in strategy or unaware of our contexts. However, I am extremely concerned that a number of my fellow academics are engaging in pre-emptive self-censorship.
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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.
