Public Statements

Higher education embraces a set of enduring principles and makes corresponding promises to students, communities, and the nation. These commitments form the basis of the compact between higher education and the nation.

The administration has continued to seek ways to impose its own ideologically driven vision for higher education through unilateral executive action and the coercive use of public funding.

Speaking with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education, leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies call for constructive engagement.

The Trump administration’s actions target a vital agency that, although relatively small and chronically underfunded, has for the past sixty years made the humanities accessible to all Americans and supported cutting-edge research and scholarship.

The American Association of Colleges and Universities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Phi Beta Kappa Society affirm our support for free inquiry and expression at the Smithsonian Institution

As college and university leaders continue to grapple with the challenges posed by the ongoing campus protests, those challenges are being compounded and widened by unprecedented political interference in higher education.

AAC&U is deeply concerned and saddened by the recent outbreak of violence in Israel and Gaza and by the resulting loss of life. We express our sympathy for all those now caught up in the escalating conflict.

Today’s decision by the US Supreme Court to prohibit the use of race as a factor in college admissions constitutes a major setback for higher education and for our democracy.