Reject the Compact Petition
President Price
The Trump administration is trying to blackmail Duke to let him and his unqualified bureaucrats run our schools. They want to dictate what schools teach, who they admit and hire, what researchers study, and who's able to be safe at Duke.
We are up against billionaires bent on kidnapping our neighbors, stripping our rights, and squeezing every drop of money they can out of us to fatten their own wallets. We need to be united and loud in our opposition to this assault on education, and demand that Duke University commit to upholding freedom of speech and to protecting its students and workers.
Petition by
Sponsored by
To:
President Price
From:
[Your Name]
We are the students, workers and alumni that keep our universities running. We are writing you to urge you to pledge to reject the Trump administration's "Loyalty Oath" compact. Trump wants his administration to decide who can safely attend our schools, what can be taught, and what can be said on campus. If adopted, the compact would force Duke University to adopt strict limits on international student enrollment, share sensitive student information with the Trump admin, threaten affinity spaces, and take action against "institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” In return, he's dangling the vague promise of federal funding preference.
Trump's attacks on our universities is an attempt to consolidate power through the capture of universities. This compact directly undermines our right to academic freedom and goes against every democratic principle our country and our school should uphold. We reject the Trump administration’s attempt to cajole universities into compliance through explicit bribery. Extorting Duke to comply with ideological demands and quell freedom of speech is not only anti-democratic; it threatens our ability to teach and study freely, and thus the very bedrock of academia in the United States of America.
This isn't just about our individual institution. Universities have long been a beacon of democracy and free speech in this country. Trump wants to extinguish that flame. He wants to force our schools to bend the knee and set a precedent for schools and other institutions around the country. He wants to use our compliance as a green light to force universities across the country into similar agreements. As a university leader with the power to accept or deny Trump's offer, you have an urgent responsibility to stand up against this overreach and be a leader for democracy and freedom in this country. It's not just the integrity of our institutions that are at risk, but the very soul of this country.
Our message is simple: Which side are you on? Do not fold, do not sign, do not trade away our fundamental rights for false promises.