Say No to Trump’s “Loyalty Oath” Compact!
University of Cincinnati President Neville Pinto and the Board of Trustees
Leaders at UC and across the country are facing federal interference that undermines the mission of higher education. Institutions of higher learning in the United States have been offered Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which seeks to control teaching and research through preferential consideration for federal grants, based not on merit, but on political compliance. It purports to promote academic excellence, but instead shackles the independence, creativity, and pursuit of truth that has enabled our University to provide enormous benefits to students, communities, and society as a whole.
Many universities that were originally offered the compact rejected it, and Trump stated that the invitation to participate in this compact was extended to all institutions. The University of Cincinnati must reject any "loyalty oath" compact.
With your signature here, you are standing up for the core values that make the University of Cincinnati strong: academic freedom, democratic governance, public service, and institutional integrity. Your voice joins a growing coalition of UC faculty, staff, students, alumni, and parents committed to ensuring that universities remain places of open debate, shared governance, and public service. These are the foundations not just of higher education, but of democracy itself.
Petition by
Sponsored by
To:
University of Cincinnati President Neville Pinto and the Board of Trustees
From:
[Your Name]
UC has a proud tradition of academic freedom and institutional independence; we therefore urge the University of Cincinnati to uphold its core values by refusing the so-called "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" and any similar political interference.
The compact endangers the future of higher education by:
- limiting academic freedom and threatening punitive action against units and universities that critique conservative ideas;
- requiring standardized tests for admission, in spite of serious doubts about their fairness to students of color and those of lesser economic means;
- hindering the University’s research mission by placing a 15% cap on international student admissions and screening international students for “hostility” toward the U.S.; and
–prohibiting faculty from engaging in public action or speech about political events unless they directly affect the institution.
The University of Cincinnati’s strategic vision is “to ensure academic excellence and to set forth an innovation agenda that pushes limits and creates spaces for people to connect, imagine, and discover with the goal of creating a lasting positive impact on our community, nation, and world.” In order to live out this mission, we as a University must stand firmly on the side of intellectual autonomy, the foundational principle of institutions of higher learning.
The federal interference represented in this compact constitutes extortion. It undermines not only longstanding faculty rights, but also the mission of UC to educate, research, and serve society without ideological restriction.
We call upon University of Cincinnati President Neville Pinto and the Board of Trustees to choose integrity and reject the Compact for Academic “Excellence” in Higher Education, and to communicate this decision to the entire university community and the public. We also call on UC to reject any similar proposal compromising the mission, values, and independence of the University.