The Executive Board of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and the Executive Council of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, collectively representing tenure-track, non-tenure-track, and adjunct faculty; graduate workers; postdoctoral researchers; and Educational Opportunity Fund counselors, rejects the US Secretary of Education’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”
Accepting the compact—in effect a loyalty oath to the current presidential administration—would compromise the educational and scholarly mission of the university, prevent us from offering the best possible education to the students of New Jersey, negate our members’ and students’ constitutional rights and academic freedom, cede an unacceptable level of control to the federal government, and likely violates state and federal laws. We oppose this compact and urge President Tate, the Board of Governors, and the state legislators charged with oversight to likewise refuse to compromise the integrity of our university. We further call for cooperation and coordination between universities to resist this and other federal intrusions into our campuses, our students’ lives, and our scholarship.