This Letter was Delivered to President Beilock and the Trustees on October 18th
President Beilock and Members of the Board of Trustees
On behalf of 1,333 Dartmouth alumni from every class from 1963–2025, we present this petition urging Dartmouth College to reject the federal “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”
Since the government’s announcement of this Compact on October 1, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University, the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California have all publicly declined to sign on.
Dartmouth now faces the same choice. The College has defended its independence before—Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819), when Daniel Webster spoke for Dartmouth’s right to self-govern—and that principle remains just as vital today. The undersigned alumni join over half of Dartmouth faculty in urging you to stand with your peer institutions for academic integrity, self-governance, and the independence of the College on the Hill.
This is a moment for courage, leadership, and resolve against government overreach. We hope you will rise to that challenge.
Respectfully submitted,
1,333 Dartmouth Alumni
An Open Letter from Alumni to Defend Freedom and Constitutional Rights
To the Presidents and Trustees of the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Virginia:
Independence and freedom from political interference have made American universities global beacons in innovation, research, and scholarship. Academic freedom, along with the bedrock constitutional freedoms of speech, association, expression, and inquiry, form the foundation of American higher education and democracy.
The federal government’s announcement on October 1 of the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” offers preference and insider access to federal funds in exchange for your “voluntary” agreement to sweeping limitations on what and who can be taught, hired, supported, and expressed on campus. A well-known chapter of the authoritarian playbook is the undermining and takeover of educational institutions. The government’s “Compact” is the latest in a series of assaults, made without reason or basis, on the very purpose, values, and integrity of higher education.
We, the undersigned alumni of your institutions, implore you to join together and collectively resist this widescale and unlawful intrusion into your operations and governance. We ask you to embody and stand up for academic freedom and your core mission and values, and to protect the educational livelihood of your students, faculty, and staff—whose varied experience, scholarship, and perspectives are vital to the learning process and strength of higher education.
This is a time for courage, not capitulation. Do not sign on to the Compact.