Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down

Now, those who work at the Department of Education should probably know that every major, nonreligious, and state college and university in the United States has had policies protecting academic freedom since the 1950s, when state and federal leaders frequently purged faculties of professors who studied or proclaimed positions that ran counter to the mainstream values of the time. Academic freedom policies came from faculties, not the government. Governments are the enemies of academic freedom, not their protectors. This current administration is the greatest threat to academic freedom and scientific research since the ebb of McCarthyism. And this compact is just more evidence that it wants to dictate what we teach, what we research, what drugs we develop, and how we express ourselves.

However, the document is chock full of reasonable-sounding proclamations, all of which are already embedded in academic governance and culture.

“Signatories commit to rigorous, good faith, empirical assessment of a broad spectrum of viewpoints among faculty, students, and staff at all levels and to sharing the results of such assessments with the public; and to seek such a broad spectrum of viewpoints not just in the university as a whole, but within every field, department, school, and teaching unit,” the document reads. Now, that sounds pretty good. And it is. It is, in fact, what every major university strives for and mostly achieves.