CSWE Joins ACE in Opposition to the Compact for Academic Excellence

CSWE has joined the American Council of Higher Education (ACE) and other higher education associations in signing a joint statement opposing the Trump Administration’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence.” Read the text of the joint statement below:

The Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education opens with the assertion that “American higher education is the envy of the world and represents a key strategic benefit for our Nation.” We wholeheartedly agree. Yet we are deeply concerned that the compact’s prescriptions threaten to undermine the very qualities that make our system exceptional.

The conditions it outlines run counter to the interests of institutions, students, scholars, and the nation itself. It would impose unprecedented litmus tests on colleges and universities as a condition for receiving ill-defined “federal benefits” related to funding and grants.

That is why our associations, which span the breadth of the American higher education community and the full spectrum of colleges and universities nationwide, are unified in our opposition to the compact.

The compact offers nothing less than government control of a university’s basic and necessary freedoms—the freedoms to decide who we teach, what we teach, and who teaches—as outlined by Justice Frankfurter seventy-five years ago. The compact is just the kind of excessive federal overreach and regulation, to the detriment of state and local input and control, that this administration says it is against.

Now more than ever, we must unite to protect the values and principles that have made American higher education the global standard. This compact would not achieve those goals. Rather, it would hamper the ability of colleges and universities to innovate and make advancements that contribute to our nation’s economic well-being and security. It would hinder, not safeguard, freedom of expression for all points of view, and it will not assist in expanding social and economic mobility for all of our students.

To be clear, we agree that higher education has room for improvement and we strive to do more to spur student success and support the discovery-based research that fuels our new industries. We want to do this in collaboration with policymakers and industry, but undue government control is not the way for higher education to deliver on all of its promise. The compact is a step in the wrong direction. The dictates set by it are harmful for higher education and our entire nation, no matter your politics. We urge the administration to reverse course and withdraw the compact.