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Ashley T. Rubin
Chronicle of Higher Education
The recent report on the state of scholarship in the humanities and humanistic social sciences has renewed the debate over the internal politicization of academe. As one of its authors (speaking only for myself), I find the report relatively tepid. It offers the middle-of-the-road finding that, while there are reasons to be concerned, the baldest criticisms of the sector are unwarranted. Responses have ranged from slurring the project as McCarthyistic to finding it insufficiently hostile to the fields it examines.
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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.
