With Inauguration Day behind us and a second Trump administration formally underway, most observers believe that changes to federal higher education policy are on the horizon. Whether those changes will be consistent with HxA values or contrary to them is yet to be seen. HxA is taking action to encourage the incoming administration to align its policies with HxA’s values.

In my New Year’s message, I referred to 2025 as “a year of political action” and emphasized that HxA would be “focused on the dangers and opportunities of government power.” Chief among the priorities that I outlined was a cause that united our members across the political spectrum: the protection of academic freedom.

With that priority in mind, on January 20, 2025, I wrote to the Trump administration to share HxA’s advice on what it could do to promote open inquiry, allow professors to do their jobs, and protect the special place of universities as truth-seeking, knowledge-generating institutions that the American public can trust.

In my letter, I focused on four areas where federal higher education policy could be reformed, with an emphasis on changes that would support rather than threaten academic freedom. Those areas of focus outlined are:

• ending political litmus tests in the hiring and promotion of faculty;

• implementing fair Title IX regulations that prevent discrimination without infringing on faculty academic freedom or due process rights;

• navigating campus unrest while protecting free speech on campus; and

• thoughtfully addressing antisemitism on college campuses.

We chose those areas because each is timely, has direct ties to academic freedom rights, or, as is the case with protecting free expression, is necessary for institutions of higher education to truly be places where intellectual curiosity and freedom thrives. For example, ending political litmus tests in the hiring and promotion of faculty helps ensure that professors with disfavored views on contested issues aren’t purged from the academy.

Our recommendation to support campus free speech comes in the context of the campus unrest that has been testing the limits of campus free expression policies. A federal commitment to free expression on campus can help institutions foster an environment where students and faculty can debate these pressing matters while maintaining educational environments conducive to learning. As I state in my letter, “Open inquiry requires a legal framework that protects students and scholars from censorship and a campus culture that supports the rights of people to research, teach, debate, and discuss even the most controversial of ideas.” With that in mind, HxA asked the administration to “support congressional efforts to require public institutions to reform their speech policies to reflect judicial definitions and standards for time, place, and manner regulations.” We also urged it to “insist that institutions use those policies when unprotected conduct creates a hostile environment.”

We recommended reforms to Title IX regulations because, while ending sex-based discrimination is a critical goal, misapplications of Title IX have threatened academic freedom. Accordingly, we urged the administration to protect faculty from frivolous Title IX investigations by implementing federal regulations that (1) define sexual harassment using the Supreme Court’s standards; (2) make clear that academic scholarship cannot be the basis of Title IX investigations; and (3) require institutions to provide accused faculty robust due process protections.

Finally, because the federal government will be focussing on addressing antisemitism on college campuses, we offered our recommendations in the hopes that federal solutions to this pressing issue will be mindful of academic freedom rights.

Frederick Douglass once said: “I would unite with anybody to do right, and with nobody to do wrong.” My letter to President Trump was written very much in that spirit. As a non-partisan organization, HxA is committed to fostering productive relationships with elected officials from across the political spectrum in the pursuit of policies that promote and protect our core values. With yesterday’s letter, we start a new HxA tradition of introducing ourselves and sharing our federal priorities with every President on their inauguration. We stand ready to work with any administration in the hopes that we can steer them to do right.

Sincerely,

John Tomasi