Letter to the Editor: Our College is in Danger

Universities have always been arenas for debate and disagreement. What they have never faced is a federal government attempting to dictate their ideas, priorities, and curriculum — a threat that now looms over America’s liberal arts colleges. The Trump administration is threatening to alter the entire nature of one of the nation’s jewels: A system of higher education, based on a liberal arts curriculum, that is otherwise unrivaled in the world. For more than a century, the American liberal arts college, like Amherst College, has been a place where knowledge is pursued for its own sake, where students are trained to think critically, and where disagreement is understood as productive rather than dangerous. Universities have always been sites of ideological dispute and social struggle, yet they have long been protected by norms of institutional autonomy that allowed academic communities to determine their own priorities without fear of political interference.

Recent threats include the rescission of billions of dollars in research funds (Harvard University has forestalled this with the help of Crimson Courage), a tax on university endowments, though somewhat moot for Amherst at this point, a limitation on the admission of foreign students and H-1B visa, restrictions on course content, the appointment of internal monitors to ensure adherence to government demands, and the submission of names of minorities to federal authorities, particularly Jewish students at University of Pennsylvania. A nascent strategy to decertify the nation’s accrediting bodies would nullify the accreditation of universities and colleges and—incidentally— invalidate any student credit for course work successfully completed. Most egregious of all, the “Compact for Excellence in Higher Education,” which comes with the bribe of lavish federal funding. Each of these measures, taken alone, could be framed as fiscal oversight or political accountability. Taken together, they constitute something far more troubling: A regime of conditional support designed to discipline institutions that resist ideological conformity. Financial leverage has become the primary mechanism through which academic independence is curtailed.

This measure requires the adoption of merit-based and race-neutral admissions, institutional “neutrality” on political issues (whatever that is deemed to be), the promotion of “free speech” (that is, right-wing views) and a freeze on tuition rates. The rhetorical appeal of these requirements is deliberate. Merit, neutrality, or free speech all sound rightful in the abstract. Yet history has shown that governments define these terms selectively. “Merit” privileges the already privileged; “neutrality” becomes silence in the face of injustice; “free speech” becomes protection for some viewpoints while others are constrained.

The attempt to get rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at colleges and universities, announced last February in a presidential “Dear Colleagues” letter, has fortunately hit a wall with a judicial ruling. But there is no guarantee it won't be revived in another form, and the issue may still alter the decisions of school administrators who don’t wish to get sidewise with the feds. Universities do not operate in a vacuum. Even unenforced or legally stalled directives shape behavior. The mere possibility of retaliation can lead institutions to self-censor, scale back initiatives, or abandon commitments that have long defined their missions.

No matter when you attended Amherst College — or if you are a student now — we all share a commitment to Amherst’s traditions of intellectual freedom, open inquiry, and informed discourse. These traditions are practices embedded in classroom dialogue, shared governance, and student-led debate, all of which depend on an institutional tolerance for dissent and controversy. Without the freedom to engage challenging ideas openly, the liberal arts cease to function as training grounds for democratic citizenship — one of its main focuses.

Due to threats from the Trump administration, these traditions are now at risk of being destroyed. This is not hyperbole. When course content is monitored, admissions criteria politicized, and faculty independence subordinated to federal oversight, the liberal arts model itself is hollowed out. We’ve seen this country’s greatest institutions of higher learning attacked, bullied and blackmailed by a President and a Vice President who have little respect for institutions of higher education. Such attacks reflect a broader political strategy: Delegitimizing independent centers of knowledge production in favor of centralized authority. Most infamously, Vice President Vance said, “universities do not pursue knowledge and truth. They pursue deceit and lies …We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.” This language is not incidental. It frames universities as adversaries rather than stewards of public education, thereby justifying extraordinary measures of control in the name of reform.

That concern has already taken form. More than 60 Amherst alumni have joined  community-wide group, Mammoth Resolve, who are willing to help defend the college should it be attacked by the administration, while the faculty has adopted a resolution citing “ongoing threats to democracy,” including pressures on university independence. These efforts are attempts to think collectively about how a liberal arts college can preserve its core commitments under external constraint. Both initiatives rest on the same premise: Academic freedom and democratic governance are mutually dependent. Institutions constrained in their thinking cannot educate citizens equipped to sustain a democratic polity. We urge Amherst alumni to join this effort—to take part in these conversations and to stand publicly for the principles that make liberal arts education, and democracy itself, possible.

Alumni often think our roles are to donate money and wax nostalgically. Not so. In moments of institutional crisis, nostalgia is inadequate. What is required instead is active engagement and, where necessary, public dissent.  Each constituency connected to Amherst possesses forms of expertise that can be deployed in defense of the College’s autonomy. Collective action, rather than isolated concern, is what gives such efforts force. Alumni lawyers must be ready to file amicus briefs; those with political experience should mobilize their connections; and those with social media skills need to speak out.

As the beneficiaries of an Amherst education, prepare to protect and defend this college and what it stands for. This is not merely about Amherst. It is about whether institutions devoted to critical inquiry can survive an era of politicized oversight.

Let’s unite to defend Amherst from attacks by the Trump administration. Sign up for Mammoth Resolve. 

Tito Craige ‘70 (founder of the Farmworker School in North Carolina)

Alan Webber ‘70 (two-term Mayor of Santa Fe, New Mexico)

Peter Dorman ‘70 (former President of the American University of Beirut)