Hi everyone,
The Trump administration put together a set of very common sense guidelines for universities to sign onto after years of schools being havens for antisemitism, civil rights violations, and cancellations of conservative students and faculty. But these schools, which have engaged in vile practices, refused to sign on to the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.
So what do they have a problem with? As usual, media, pundits, and school administrators cherry-picked the language they don't like and are harping on that. They say that the Compact opposes academic freedom, citing: "such policies also shall recognize that academic freedom is not absolute..."
Sure, that sounds really bad—but only when taken entirely out of context. It's worth reading the whole 10-page document instead of the absurd headlines coming out. Here's what it really says:
"Given the importance of academic freedom to the marketplace of ideas, signatories shall adopt a policy protecting academic freedom in classrooms, teaching, research, and scholarship. Such policies also shall recognize that academic freedom is not absolute, and universities shall adopt policies that prevent discriminatory, threatening, harassing, or other behaviors that abridge the rights of other members of the university community."
One can envision a time, oh maybe about 10 minutes ago, when universities would gladly sign on to a policy that prevents "discriminatory, threatening, harassing, or other behaviors that abridge the rights of other members of the university community." But now that Trump said it, now that it applies to people who hold conservative views, these schools are suddenly opposed to it.
These are schools that gladly put conservative, pro-life students in "free speech zones," designated parts of campus for minority students only and force white people out, encourage canceling people over MAGA hats, tolerate calls for violence against Jews, but they do not want to stop doing that. They don't want to be bastions of free thought and open discourse. They want to be biased, money-launderers for foreign money, inflate tuition for majors that result in no real-life earnings, and eradicate women's rights on campus.
Sounds super progressive. It's easy to stand on your principles when you obfuscate what they are and creatively contextualize your opponents' statements.