A Letter from Five College Leaders to the U.S. Department of Education

Reed D. Rubinstein 
Acting General Counsel 
U.S. Department of Education 
400 Maryland Avenue, S.W. 
Room 6E300 
Washington, D.C. 20202 
Reed.Rubinstein@ed.gov

September 25, 2019 

Dear Acting General Counsel Rubinstein, 

As the chief executive and academic officers of the institutions in the Five College Consortium in Massachusetts—Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst—we write in response to your August 29, 2019, letter to Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill regarding the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies. 

As you know, academic freedom and freedom of inquiry are the foundations of American higher education. They are essential for the development of knowledge in a democratic society and critical to the scholarly and teaching missions of our institutions.  

On the basis of these foundational principles, we object strongly to the U.S. Department of Education’s effort to censure the curriculum of Middle East studies courses offered by Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. By threatening to withhold federal funding, the Department of Education is setting a dangerous precedent, one that puts academic freedom at risk.  

Restricting freedom of inquiry contravenes the letter and spirit of the U.S. Department of Education’s own code. We urge you to uphold the principles of academic freedom on which this country has long depended for its rich and important history of scholarly excellence and societal advances.