UMass Faculty Senate Adopts Mutual Defense Compact
Photo: istock
The Faculty Senate passed, at their April 10 meeting, a Resolution To Establish Mutual Academic Defense Compacts In Defense Of Academic Freedom, Free Expression, Institutional Integrity, And The Research Enterprise. The resolution calls on UMass Amherst Chancellor Javier Reyes and UMass system President Marty Meehan to help establish both the “Public and Land Grant University Mutual Academic Defense Compact” and the “Massachusetts Higher Education Mutual Academic Defense Compact,” which ask that institutions “commit meaningful support — financial, legal, organizational and/ or strategic — to a shared distributed defense infrastructure designed to respond immediately and collectively to attacks by the governmental actors on any member institution.” The resolution notes that the 250 universities that could be part of the compact represent more than a million faculty and staff and around 6.6 million undergraduate and graduate students.
UMass released the following statement on April 14 in response to the resolution:
“We are grateful for the faculty’s engagement on these issues and efforts to preserve the mission of higher education at-large. We are reviewing the resolution. UMass has stood alongside its partners across the UMass system, the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, the Five College Consortium, and more in advancing and defending the shared principles that shape our institutions. We are working closely with the UMass system, the governor, the attorney general, and legislators at both the state and federal level to ensure that we remain true to our mission and that our legacy as a global campus lives on.”
UMass is among 60 schools under federal investigation over alleged violations “relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination.” In the last two weeks, 13 international students at UMass were among the more than 1,000 students from across more than 150 colleges and universities whose visas were revoked by the State Department.
The resolution was promoted by the Stand Together Coalition, a group of UMass faculty who have been circulating since early March, a national letter calling for mutual defense among the 60 campuses targeted by Trump. Read their letter here.
Read more:
UMass Faculty Calls on Land Grant Universities to Join in Fight Against Trump Administration; McGovern, AG Also Weigh In (Daily Hampshire Gazette)
Three Faculty Senates Band Together ro Stand Up To Trump (Chronicle of Higher Education)
US Universities Unite To Defend Academic Freedom After Trump’s Attacks (The Guardian)
Day of Action on 150 Campuses Across US Will Target Trump’s Attack on Higher Education (Common Dreams)
To Resist Trump’s Academic Purge, Campuses Must Unite (Truthout)
Inside Trump’s Pressure Campaign on US Universities (New York Times)