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On Oct. 1, the Wall Street Journal  that the White House is asking colleges to sign an agreement to secure preferential treatment for government funding. FIREis working to obtain the full agreement, but initial reporting already indicates it raises threats to free speech and academic freedom.

The following statement can be attributed to Tyler Coward, FIRElead counsel for government affairs.

Freedom thrives when the people, not bureaucrats, decide which ideas are worthy of discussion, debate, or support. 

As FIREhas long argued, campus reform is necessary. But overreaching government coercion that tries to end-run around the First Amendment to impose an official orthodoxy is unacceptable. And the White House’s new Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education raises red flags.

The compact includes troubling language, such as calling on institutions to eliminate departments deemed to “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” Let’s be clear: Speech that offends or criticizes political views is not violence. Conflating words with violence undermines both free speech and efforts to combat real threats.

The compact also requires university employees to refrain from “actions or speech related to politics.” If the language merely barred high-ranking employees from engaging in partisan political activity on behalf of the university, it would reflect existing and generally permissible IRS restrictions. But the compact’s reported wording goes further by suggesting a blanket prohibition on all staff engaging in political speech. For public institutions, that is deeply problematic. Public university faculty have the First Amendment right to speak about politics in their teaching and scholarship. Outside of their official duties, faculty and non-faculty university employees retain full First Amendment rights to speak off-the-clock as private citizens on matters of public concern. Banning them from doing so would be flatly unconstitutional.

A government that can reward colleges and universities for speech it favors today can punish them for speech it dislikes tomorrow. That’s not reform. That’s government-funded orthodoxy.