By SHANNON O. WELLS
When the University Senate president is moved to quote punk rock icons as a call to positive action during a shared governance meeting, it may indicate the academic community is in uncharted — and potentially dangerous — waters.
At the Oct. 8 Faculty Assembly meeting, President Kris Kanthak invoked the words and philosophies of punk/alternative rock pioneers Henry Rollins and Joe Strummer when discussing what she called a “threat to academic inquiry” at Pitt and “all U.S. universities” regarding the Trump administration’s proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.
“I remain grateful to be a part of this warm and welcoming intellectual community, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the latest threat to academic inquiry, both here at Pitt and at universities nationwide,” she said of the “inaccurately named” Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. “The proposal that recently came out of Washington, D.C., seeks to tie federal research dollars not to the quality of the inquiry they are meant to fund, but rather to how closely universities hew to a specific set of ideological preferences.”
The proposed compact would give schools preferred access to federal funds in exchange for agreeing to demands, as reported by several media outlets.
The White House has asked nine U.S. universities to sign an agreement pledging to uphold the Trump administration’s higher education priorities to get preferred access to federal funding, CBS News reported. The demands are outlined in a 10-point, nine-page document that asks schools to freeze their tuition rate for five years, ban the use of sex and gender as factors in their admissions process, and cap their international student numbers, among other requirements.
Signatories also must commit to “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” according to the memo, the CBS report said.
A letter outlining the 10-point plan and a copy of the agreement were sent to the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California (USC), University of Texas, University of Virginia (UVA) and Vanderbilt University on Oct. 1.
It gave the institutions until Oct. 20 to respond with feedback and up to Nov. 21 to sign the compact.
Right away, faculty senates from at least two of the schools — Virginia and Arizona — overwhelmingly voted to oppose the compact. As of Oct. 24, seven of the universities — Arizona, Dartmouth, MIT, Penn, Brown, USC and UVA — had publicly rejected the compact, according to various media sources.
Vanderbilt’s chancellor on Oct. 20 said the school had “been asked to provide feedback and comments as part of an ongoing dialogue” rather than giving the White House a final decision on the compact, but he signaled the demands were at odds with the university’s principles. UT Austin was the only school that appeared open to the compact.
The “so-called compact,” Kanthak noted, “is vague and includes a number of demands, but the most concerning dictate surrounds vaguely constructed limits on academic freedom. It goes without saying that attacks on academic freedom are anti-intellectual, un-American and cowardly. Researchers need to be guided by where the facts take them, not by the ill-defined whims of a small group of people in Washington, D.C.
“The effect of this particular compact will be determined by lawyers,” she said, “and ultimately, by the voters.”
Acknowledging there’s currently “no imminent threat to academic freedom here at Pitt,” Kanthak added that “we wouldn’t be academics if the presence of this new threat didn’t touch off a healthy dose of navel gazing and gut checking. Academic inquiry requires us to be open to new information and to new perspectives.”
Citing some essential facts established “because of intellectual inquiry,” she noted that planet Earth is round; redlining, a discriminatory practice where financial services are withheld from neighborhoods with significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities, “happens”; and boy seahorses can get pregnant and give birth.
“These facts and others can be upsetting or uncomfortable to some. For me, part of truth seeking is being willing to sit with people who find the results of academic inquiry to be unsettling but are willing to meet their discomfort with bravery,” she said. “I think the (academic community) in general, could be more welcoming to people of goodwill whose core views are challenged by what we’re learning here.
“Honestly, that’s just how academic freedom works.”
Acknowledging that if academic-based efforts to be inclusive make others feel excluded, then academics “ought to be curious about that.”
“Intellectual curiosity is never bad, and it never means our core principles are at risk,” Kanthak said. “At the same time, though, those who feel discomfort at ideas that are new to them have an obligation to toughen up. We ought to follow the evidence, follow the line of inquiry, even if where it ends up makes us feel uncomfortable.
“Trying to force academic inquiry to stay away from places you personally are scared to go,” she added, “is anti-intellectual.”
She called the idea of governments trying to force academic inquiry to stay away from certain facts “chilling,” regardless of where one stands ideologically.
“I want to be clear: Thinking that our politicians, our community leaders, or even some administrator at the University of Pittsburgh is going to ride in and save us, has always been sadly mistaken. It’s now dangerously mistaken. We don’t yet know what will happen with this particular compact or even what will be coming next,” she added. “But we choose how this community reacts.”
Kanthak said she refuses to be “cynical in the face of cynicism. And I will never stop trying to build community with people who are truly, honestly curious.”
The Senate Council president concluded her thoughts on the proposed compact by sharing a quote displayed in her Pitt office from Henry Rollins, a musician and writer who was front man for the punk-rock band Black Flag in the early 1980s.
“I don’t usually use the whole quote because it talks smack about voting, and you should totally go vote,” Kanthak clarified, “but here’s the totality of what Henry Rollins said: ‘This is not the time to be dismayed. This is punk rock time. This is what (leader of British band The Clash) Joe Strummer trained you for. It is now time to go. You’re a good person. That means more now than ever,’” Rollins said.
“‘Because as a voter, you throw your penny and you throw it in the sea, and that’s all a vote is. It’s like nothing. You don’t even hear it fall. … But you can be thunderous in your own life. And being cool to the eight people around you, it rubs off. Goodness is viral.’”
Pitt monitoring the situation
At the Oct. 16 Senate Council meeting, Provost Joe McCarthy, who filled in for Chancellor Joan Gabel, noted that the compact lays out a “’set of operating principles in exchange for preferential access to federal funds.’”
“I want to highlight the fact that Pitt was not one of the nine universities to whom the memo was directly sent,” McCarthy said. “We are, of course, reviewing the memo, monitoring this developing situation, and we will keep the University community apprised as appropriate.”
Sources have reported that the Trump administration has broadened its controversial compact beyond the initial list of nine elite institutions to include all colleges and universities nationwide. Already, the chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, Andrew D. Martin, has announced that the university will not sign the Trump administration’s proposed higher education compact. In an email sent to faculty on Oct. 22, Martin wrote that WashU will not sign the compact “or any document that undermines our mission or our core values, perhaps highest among these our commitment to academic freedom, access, free expression, and research integrity.”
Gabel, in an earlier interview with the University Times, said that the national higher education associations that Pitt is involved in are also reviewing the White House memo, “and we're absolutely a part of that national conversation.”
At the Pitt town hall on Oct. 22, Gabel said that the Association of American Universities (AAU) has issued a strong statement opposing the compact. Gabel sits on the board of the AAU, which represents the top research schools in the country.
The statement says in part: “We have significant concerns … about any compact or policy that could damage, compromise, or depart from our nation’s competitive, merit-based system of research grant funding. That system has been the foundation for American leadership in science and innovation for decades. Since World War II, the special partnership among the federal government, industry, and research universities has fueled tremendous growth in our economy, educated the next generation of the highly skilled American workforce, contributed to the health of our people, and made our nation safer and more secure.
“American higher education became the envy of the world because of the independence of our colleges and universities and their commitment to the pursuit of academic and research excellence within the bounds of the law and free from political influence. Federal support for higher education must never be tied to ideological alignment with any administration.”
Shannon Wells is a University Times reporter. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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