MIT Free Speech Alliance Conference Anticipates Government “Compact” with Universities

October 4, 2025

The MIT Free Speech Alliance (MFSA) held its third annual conference on September 25, 2025. One session, “Government’s Role in the Reform of Higher Education,” centered on whether universities can reform themselves independently or whether the government must intervene. That session has been rendered all the more timely by the  “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” which the federal government  just sent to nine universities, including MIT.

 

Advocating the case for self-reform at the MFSA conference, John Tomasi, President of Heterodox Academy, and Jeffrey Flier, Professor and former Dean of Harvard Medical School, presented arguments based on the Heterodox Academy’s position paper, Open Inquiry U.

 

On the other side, the Manhattan Institute’s  Manhattan Statement on Higher Education argues that universities are incapable of internal reform and need federal intervention.  Co-signed by 42 academics and public intellectuals, the Statement was defended at the conference by two of those co-signers, Peter Wood, President of the National Association of Scholars, and Omar Sultan Haque, Department Associate in Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

 

Despite disagreeing on this issue, Professors Flier and Haque are both members of  Harvard’s Council on Academic Freedom, with Flier currently serving as its president.

 

A video recording of this MFSA conference session can be watched below and on MFSA’s YouTube channel, along with the rest of the MFSA conference sessions.

 

 

Just six days after MFSA’s conference, the federal government sent its Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education to nine U.S. universities, including MIT. The Compact offers signatory universities preferential access to federal grants and other incentives.

 

The Compact directly mirrors the policies championed by the Manhattan Statement. The MFSA conference panel discussion was especially timely as it directly addressed the very question now at the forefront of national higher education policy.

 

“The MIT Free Speech Alliance has consistently advocated for reforms at MIT that would restore its traditional culture of open discourse, support for diverse viewpoints, and academic freedom for the entire community,” said Wayne Stargardt, MFSA President. “The government Compact requires many of the same free speech reforms we have long called for the Institute to undertake independently. The debate at our conference underscored both the advantages and the risks of having these reforms imposed by government mandate.”

 

Many of the compact’s provisions concern areas that are outside MFSA’s mission. Several provisions, however, directly concern free speech and academic freedom, and MFSA will offer additional commentary in a future analysis.