There is a clear and present danger to American democracy: Donald Trump’s populist authoritarianism. This is no secret, and yet many in higher education would prefer not to talk about it. Instead, we find ourselves wondering if elite school presidents should resign.

It is not a matter of supporting a political party or issue. We in higher ed must stand up for the values that make free inquiry and teaching possible. We must defeat a movement that has already promised to seize control of how we study, conduct research, and teach. This is no time to seek refuge in doctrines of neutrality. Such doctrines led to the kind of flaccid, lawyerly responses we heard from Ivy League presidents testifying in front of Congress last week. “That depends,” is not an answer you want from someone whose job it is to protect students confronted with calls for their annihilation.

Disengagement, not protest, is the norm.

Recently there has been a spate of articles about whether leaders in higher ed should speak out about atrocities or war crimes that, however distant, are having an impact on campuses. Some college presidents may be relieved to be told that they should stick to their core responsibilities (raising money) and avoid controversy. The abysmal performance of the presidents at a Congressional hearing will certainly encourage other leaders to keep their heads down.

While commentators rail against high education’s efforts at inclusion and the cultivation of so-called woke ideologies, students are increasingly choosing to focus their studies in fields more quantitative than value-laden. Disengagement, not protest, is the norm. Even some humanists urge their colleagues to stick to disinterested scholarship and preserve the “contemplative mood.” According to the author of an ill-timed recent NYT op-ed, this will somehow make those in the Humanities especially “irresistible.”

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We must resist this kind of intellectual isolationism – from presidents and from their institutions generally.

We must refuse the privileges of “internal exile” in the........

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