Faculty, staff and students should urge our administration and board to reject the so-called compact being offered by the Trump administration, which is but a thin veil for a loyalty oath to it. Such oaths were wrong in 1950s McCarthyism, equally so now in modern guise. The only loyalty oath we take is to the Constitution, not to any individual or administration. Universities are heirs to centuries-old norms that are even older than our nation. Principles of academic freedom, free inquiry and truth are not to be surrendered to any government’s carrots or sticks. We should stand with all other universities that have rejected such coercion and extortion.

During the Civil War, the federal government established land-grant universities as beneficial to society and nation. LSU was among them. The grant was not conditioned to partisan demands of the US administration in power. Similarly, after World War II, with science and technology seen as important for the country, including its national security, federal granting agencies were set up. The federal government alone can support certain areas of expensive research, not private non-profits or businesses. Along with the essential training of future generations, that combination of teaching and research was best housed in universities. That has served our society and the country well, its benefits even worldwide. US universities are among the shining jewels of human achievement.

Costs incurred by universities were charged as “direct” and “indirect” costs to taxpayer monies (they do not belong to any president) administered through federal agencies such as NSF, DOE, NIH. While these can be revisited, they cannot be the excuse for unilateral demands on university governance and policies. Even without a brazenly out-of-control government that abuses history, science, logic and truth itself and then wants its own corrupted Department of “Justice” to judge compliance, no government should interfere with the inner workings of a university. A responsible government would work with universities across the land for a mutually beneficial system, not make Mafia-style demands. Reject them unequivocally.

A. Ravi P. Rau is an alumni professor of physics at LSU.