Dear Colleagues,
I would like to share some thoughts about the compact proposed by the federal government to MIT and certain other universities although I am on sabbatical and don’t check my mail regularly. I understand that urgent discussions are underway about how to respond and I hope that these thoughts help to arrive at a wise decision.
1. The compact poses an existential threat to higher education as a whole and in particular, to academic freedom, free expression, and autonomy. Instead of engaging with the merits and demerits of specific elements of this compact, I urge MIT leadership to reject the very concept of the compact as an existential threat and an attempted extortion.
2. No university worth its name can accept a mafia-style demand for compliance with government-dictated teaching and research under threat of financial penalty. The compact may in fact lead to more extortionate demands which may be a slippery slope towards even more government control of education.
3. Imposing a political litmus test to promote conservative – or liberal – views undermines free speech and chills dissent at a time of deep divisions when people need to be able to freely express themselves, not punished.
4. Restrictions on admission and policing gender identity undermines inclusion and diversity and flattens a campus into a monochrome of dull compliance.
5. There are serious legal and procedural violations with this compact including violations of Title VI (national origin discrimination), vague standards that are inherently arbitrary and thus unconstitutional, and a gross violation of free speech and right to education legal standards under international human rights law which are binding on all actors including universities like MIT.
I would urge that MIT openly reject this attempt to extort it. I would propose in fact that MIT lead and form a “counter-compact” of academic freedom with all universities that can resist the ongoing and (anticipated) future assaults on higher education in the US. That’s the surest way to preserve the excellence that MIT has achieved so far.
Balakrishnan Rajagopal is UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing
