NEWS BRIEFS: Who Thought We’d Ever See the Day When “Extortion” Would Refer to the U.S. Government?

The day is now. The time is Trump. A dangerous development has been the extraordinary and unprecedented effort by the federal government under the second Trump admin­istration to compel universities and colleges to sign so-called compliance agreements, under which institutions are obligated to accept a laundry list of imposed conditions and policies—and sometimes pay a hefty ransom—in order to qualify for essential federal funding, including for existing and future research contracts, with no demonstrable connec­tion to the government’s expressed concerns. In these agreements, institutional autonomy is sacrificed to authoritarian state power through extortion.” Read more from the American Association of University Professors.

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