On major questions of university governance, a 99.3% majority vote of the faculty means nothing to the people who are actually in charge. This is a fact all of us need to take much more seriously.

The legal, media, and academic institutions capitulating to an authoritarian ordering payments for favorable treatment are damning themselves to irrelevance. They are destroying their institutions. They will be — and should be — shunned for failing in their most basic purposes for existing.

More cowardly bending of the knee from another US institution who should be showing that they would win in court against a government seemingly made up of the worst “lawyers” in the country.

“Is it possible that some institutions have avoided the ire of the federal government by preemptively undermining academic freedom? Perhaps. But if so, these practices are already doing the work that the compact would have done. They are not protecting scholarship but sacrificing it.”

“Awesome display of conviction MSU. “If I wasn’t explicitly invited, I wouldn’t explicitly decline to participate.” www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

University of Miami folks: if you want to encourage the president and provost not to have the university sign on to the extortion scheme known as the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, please sign this open letter (anonymously if you prefer).

Surprise, surprise… 🙄

"Vanderbilt is failing in its moral responsibility to push back against rising authoritarianism and political coercion." My effort to convince Vanderbilt (and all universities) to take a stand for the rule of law, the Constitution, and our democracy. www.tennessean.com/story/opinio...

Syracuse University says no to Trump’s “compact.” share.google/vLwXXDhhfPwx...

We invite all University of Miami faculty, students, staff, and alumni, to join our letter. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

www.aaup.org/sites/defaul... “The compact is a step in the wrong direction,” the statement reads. “The dictates set by it are harmful for higher education and our entire nation, no matter your politics.”

W/ @genevievelakier.bsky.social, the @aaup.org today released a letter to the Offices of the General Counsel at US colleges & universities. We detail why the Compact violates the Constitution & urge that no one signs it. www.aaup.org/sites/defaul...

Q: but what if a full Epstein investigation also takes down Bill Clinton????? A:

www.amnestyusa.org/press-releas... “It is gravely concerning that the Trump admin is demanding universities surrender their right to freedom of thought, expression & discourse. This compact threatens to dismantle the foundations of higher education and unravel the social fabric of university life.”

Columbia University historians: The death threats incited by Turning Point USA are not just an attack on anti-fascist scholar Professor Mark Bray and his family but also on academic freedom in general, and, as such, it has implications for all faculty. www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2025...

“We defeated the compact at Penn, we defeated it at Brown, MIT, and USC. Now they’ve extended it to every university in the country; that’s because they’re losing” —Todd Wolfson proftwolf.bsky.social

BOOM! After over a thousand students, faculty, & workers gathered on campus to demand a rejection of Trump’s bribe, UVA SAYS NO LOYALTY OATH! ✊🏼✊🏿✊🏻✊🏾 M.I.T. ☑️ BROWN ☑️ PENN ☑️ USC☑️ UVA ☑️ This is People Power in Action. #DefendHigherEd

"Are we cowardly Lions who cower in front of a false prophet or in the face of a blustering, empty wizard in Washington who is trying to destroy our autonomous universities?" www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2025...

Over 100 Brown U students & 20 faculty members gathered outside the campus today to demand that the university reject Trump’s loyalty oath compact. Professors & students taped their mouths shut to symbolize the compact’s threat to free speech, #academicfreedom & diversity of thought. #DefendHigherEd

Radical hope.

So, at the very least, we all need to be joining or starting an AAUP chapter: www.aaup.org/chapters/fin...

569 Dartmouth faculty members have signed a petition urging College President Sian Leah Beilock not to sign the Trump administration’s “Compact”

www.aaup.org/seven-theses... "...if viewpoint diversity means committing oneself to a robust debate about truth and values, then the movement should be open to responding to and refuting the following theses challenging its premises and fundamental arguments."

Absolutely love to see it. Where you at alumni? bsky.app/profile/karl...

Trump is calling the destruction of academic freedom his "Great Reform Agenda in Higher Ed." One political party breaking and then remaking higher ed. along its preferred ideological lines is not "reform," it's authoritarianism. Say No to the Compact.

Join Together and Reject Trump's Loyalty Oath for Higher Ed-Penn, USC, Vanderbilt, University of Virginia, University of Arizona, UT-Austin, MIT, Brown & Dartmouth. @aaup.org @aaup-penn.bsky.social @utaustinaaup.bsky.social @aaupbrownchapter.bsky.social

stanforddaily.com/2025/10/12/f... we must refuse

Reject Trump's "Loyalty Oath" Compacts actionnetwork.org/petitions/un...

- put down the damn AI.

Penn historian Ben Nathans with an op-ed in our campus newspaper: "No self-respecting university that values its autonomy and the integrity of its teaching and research should sign the compact."

VIDEO: Listen to Ph.D. candidate Caitlin Brabble Rose explain why government programs like a grant she got from the National Science Foundation are essential for the next generation of scientists and innovators. #HigherEdBenefitsEveryone @aaup.org @afthighered.bsky.social

Hard endorse!

Of course it’s a trap. “They would reward campuses that toe the party line and punish those that cherish their independence,” a statement from AAUP and AFT says. “In doing so, it would commit the very viewpoint discrimination it claims to redress.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

Well, well, well www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/u...

Universities considering capitulating to the Trump “conditions” should use this real world example to understand they will simply be destroying their own institution. bsky.app/profile/nich...

UNC Chapel Hill has reinstated Prof. Dwayne Dixon. Rather than conduct a threat assessment of a faculty member based on spurious accusations, UNC should conduct an assessment of its own administration's threat to First Amendment rights and academic freedom. @aaup.org www.wral.com/news/local/u...

UC’s Academic Council calls on the Office of the President & the UC Board of Regents to unequivocally reject governmental demands that compromise institutional autonomy and #academicfreedom. This is the way. #DefendHigherEd

UVA is one of nine schools to receive Trump's letter offering "preferred" funding status in exchange for, well, their souls and their dignity. Interim President Mahoney: under no circumstances can you accept this corrupt bargain.

Of course it’s a trap. “They would reward campuses that toe the party line and punish those that cherish their independence,” a statement from AAUP and AFT says. “In doing so, it would commit the very viewpoint discrimination it claims to redress.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

That's the only way to play this. The only form of resistance that can work to this kind of authoritarian power-grab is resistance where universities all refuse to voluntarily give up autonomy over what they teach, write, and allow their students and faculty to say. Then fight in court, one by one.

(Trump imposes martial law on a conquered nation, speaking from the smoking ruins of a Planned Parenthood while drinking Diet Coke out of a liberal professor's skull) Schumer: We look forward to sending the president our ideas for a tax rebate on home security systems and debating them at length.

Man, it would be great to have an opposition party in DC right now.

“Land acknowledgments are not statements on behalf of an issue or cause. Acknowledging the historical and contemporary realities of the university on Indigenous land is not an activist act. It’s a factual statement.”

SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in a college applicant's file is blatantly unconstitutional ALSO SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in targeting whom to detain and deport is cool cool cool

@aaupumiami.bsky.social Hey, AAUPMiami! Check out this Forbes article on our national movement to defend higher education and join us at standtogetherhighered.org www.forbes.com/sites/michae...

If we are going to beat back Trump admin's attack on higher ed & remake our sector to be even better, we need many more faculty like Terence Tao who make the hard decision to put career advancement on the back burner & commit to organizing & fighting for higher ed. Join @aaup.org & get organizing.