The University of Southern California rejected Thursday the Trump administration’s offer to join its Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, becoming the latest elite college to stiff-arm the agreement aimed at combating left-wing groupthink in academia.
USC Interim President Beong-Soo Kim said in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon that the university has already embraced many of the compact’s provisions, including institutional neutrality and promoting “civil discourse across the ideological spectrum.”
Even so, he said, “We are concerned that even though the Compact would be voluntary, tying research benefits to it would, over time, undermine the same values of free inquiry and academic excellence that the Compact seeks to promote.
“Other countries whose governments lack America’s commitment to freedom and democracy have shown how academic excellence can suffer when shifting external priorities tilt the research playing field away from free, meritocratic competition,” Mr. Kim said in his Thursday letter.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom had previously urged the university to “do the right thing” and decline the administration’s offer.
Mr. Kim said in a note to his campus that “I appreciate the various points of view shared with me by many members of our community,” which include faculty groups, labor unions and student organizations that denounced the compact.
“Although USC has declined to join the proposed Compact, we look forward to contributing our perspectives, insights, and Trojan values to an important national conversation about the future of higher education,” he said.
