The Trump administration has demanded that nine of the nation’s top universities sign the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” the government’s binding 10-point agreement aimed at coercing this initial round of schools to fall into line with its political priorities. The message is clear: become a proactive partner in institutionalizing the president’s ideological agenda — or abandon any hope of receiving federal funding.
As the New York Times reports, “The compact would require colleges to freeze tuition for five years, cap the enrollment of international students and commit to strict definitions of gender. Among other steps, universities would also be required to change their governance structures to prohibit anything that would ‘punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.’” Such a “compact” would likely also promote the Trump administration’s discriminatory racist policies and its ongoing war on “diversity, equity and inclusion.”
An administration official indicates that all colleges and universities will probably be required eventually to sign this partisan agreement.
This ultimatum must be rebuffed, unequivocally.
Since January, Trump’s withering pressure campaign to get individual universities to cave in to his demands has mostly succeeded. Now, building on these wins, the administration appears ready to go big, entangling as many as 3,982 institutions of learning in its ideological dragnet designed to radically transform the very character of higher education in this country.
It’s now time to say, “This is unacceptable.” Full stop.
While it may be tempting to surrender to the administration’s demands — if only in the desperate hope that the pain and intolerable uncertainty of this challenging moment will go away — it is crucial that each institution reckons with the severe cost of acceding to the skewed vision driving this attack.
The sovereignty of higher education is key to training students to think critically, foster true creativity and nurture outside-the-box innovation. By trading its autonomy for an uneasy peace based on the administration’s draconian terms, each college or university will find itself saddled with an educational straitjacket which, from the outset, will undermine its ability to do its job.
This ultimatum is reminiscent of the choice that the Danish government faced at the height of World War II. In 1940 Hitler’s army occupied Denmark in six hours, and in the intervening years, though the Third Reich was ultimately in charge, the Danish government technically was still intact and ruling. In 1943, however, the Germans gave the country’s parliament an ultimatum: pass new laws (including imposing curfews and banning strikes, which had increasingly been used by the underground resistance movement to keep Danish industry from providing material support to Hitler’s war effort) or be dissolved. After debating the legislation for six hours, the parliamentarians realized that these were demands they could not say “yes” to. The prime minister and his cabinet resigned and the Germans imposed direct rule on the country, which increased their hold on the nation but also deepened and broadened the largely nonviolent resistance to the occupation — building national solidarity and resolve that frustrated the occupier’s war aims; organizing regularly-scheduled mass demonstrations; mobilizing to prevent the round up of nearly 7,000 Jews slated to be sent to death camps; and keeping most people safe and alive until the end of the war.
So, fast forward to today. How can Trump’s ultimatum be resisted?
Like the Danes in the Second World War, the key is creating people power flowing from solidarity and unity. Rather than a handful of institutions facing the ire of the administration, what’s needed is thousands of colleges and universities joining together in mutual aid and allyship. In short, forging a large and powerful bloc where, together, they can weather this storm; take a public stance; offer support when one or more institutions are under attack; mobilize legal, cultural and educational resources for one another; and invite their students, alumni and donors to be part of this effort to nonviolently confront this existential threat.
The Trump administration has adroitly applied the strategy of divide and conquer in its effort to illegitimately remake America’s institutions of higher learning. By banding together, colleges and universities would be able to organize its nonviolent power to challenge it.
In response to Trump’s “compact,” thousands of colleges and universities could form its own “pact” with a compelling name: a framing and alliance that the populace, political leaders, and the media could recognize as the clear opposition to the dangerous, authoritarian gambit of the administration’s determination to break one of the jewels of U.S. society.
The study of nonviolent movements that have successfully resisted dictatorships around the world helps us see that this higher education movement could powerfully derail the Trump juggernaut designed to upend the country’s institutions of higher learning.
This would be important for safeguarding the U.S. educational system. But such a success could have an even larger payoff.
It could inspire, empower and embolden other key sectors to form effective alliances for nonviolent resistance. Small businesses, the health care industry, unions, religious institutions, the media, artists, the film and television industries, large corporations affected negatively by the administration’s policies, government agencies and the thousands of laid off government workers — each of these segments of U.S. society could be roused to organize within their own sector and, in turn, join what could be called a “coalition of coalitions” to resist the far-reaching damage to U.S. society emanating from the Oval Office.
Such a deep and broad movement of nonviolent resistance is likely the best way to remove the “pillars of support” nonviolently which are keeping this rampaging damage up and running. Such an historic effort could take a page from the Danish resistance’s playbook that nonviolently and relentlessly non-cooperated with the Reich’s demands.
But until this happens, the Trump administration has just handed thousands of colleges and universities the perfect opening for leading us there. All it will take is an historic effort to make common cause together — stiffening each other’s spines to flatly reject this troubling ultimatum.
Campaign Nonviolence, a project of Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, is working for a new culture of nonviolence by connecting the issues to end war, poverty, racism and environmental destruction. We organize The Nonviolent Cities Project and the annual Campaign Nonviolence Week of Actions.
Waging Nonviolence partners with other organizations and publishes their work.
People should come check out Education and Democracy United (EDU). EDU already has over a dozen universities working together. Come join! EDU is a national civic network of students, faculty, staff, and allies organizing to defend higher education….and democracy itself. We build grassroots power within and across campuses and coordinate democratic action at scale. What We Do ->
***Tactical: synchronized actions, letters/resolutions, student-government support, forums. ***Protective: legal-literacy & know-your-rights resources; digital-security training. ***Visionary: democratic infrastructure, governance redesign, cross-role collaboration. ***Local + Networked: chapters set local priorities while fueling shared momentum. See: https://educationdemocracy.org