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The Trump administration’s authoritarian offensive is accelerating.

It is now openly persecuting opponents, bullying media to silence critics, and sending masked security forces to terrorize cities, and the president recently told top military commanders to prepare to fight the “enemy from within.”

And last week, the administration revived its assault on higher education, offering nine major universities a “compact” that would bring a degree of government control over admissions, hiring, student discipline, and speech that occurs only in authoritarian regimes. The “compact” threatens the intellectual freedom that has made U.S. universities the envy of the world.

To preserve academic freedom and democracy, universities must stop acquiescing to the government’s extortionary demands and start cooperating to resist them. And Harvard, rather than quietly pursuing its own appeasement strategy, should lead the way. Doing so would be right for Harvard and for the country.

The Trump administration’s “compact” — presented to Brown, Dartmouth, MIT, Penn, and five other top universities — promises eligibility for student loan programs, federal contracts, research funding, and even basic functions like non-profit status and the approval of international student visas, only if institutions agree to a set of government dictates that are at odds with basic democratic norms.

These include government oversight of admissions and hiring practices; monitoring of the ideologies of faculty, students, and staff; severe restrictions on protest (including a commitment to apply harsh penalties, and even force, to mild protest); adherence to government-enforced definitions of gender; and restrictions on international student enrollment, along with ideological screening for international applicants.

The “compact” also contains substantial restrictions on speech, including commitments to dismantle academic units seen as hostile to conservatism, prohibit support for groups the government designates as terrorist (recall that Trump administration officials have repeatedly accused Democrats and other liberal organizations of supporting terrorism), and limit faculty members’ ability to speak publicly on national and international issues.

An administration official has suggested they plan to extend the “compact” to all U.S. colleges and universities. Compliance with the “compact” will be subject to review by the Department of Justice — an institution that is now openly targeting President Donald Trump’s opponents.

The proposed “compact” poses an extraordinary threat to academic freedom. It is “extortion, pure and simple.” Although universities may choose to forego federal benefits, those benefits are so basic that it’s like making a choice with a gun to one’s head.

The “compact” is also plainly unconstitutional. As a federal judge already ruled in one of Harvard’s lawsuits against the administration, the First Amendment prohibits governments from conditioning funding on political speech they find acceptable. The “compact” does precisely that, prompting one UCLA law professor to describe it as “the most sweeping pile of unconstitutional conditions that any American constitutional lawyer has ever seen in the wild.”

And crucially, the “compact” will further erode American democracy. Government dictates that curb student and faculty speech, shut down “ideologically incorrect” departments, and change the ideological composition of the faculty have no place in a democratic society. They are the stuff of dictatorship.

We have reached this point, in part, because universities’ initial responses to the Trump administration’s attacks have failed. Many university leaders adopted a strategy of appeasement: they acquiesced to the federal government’s extortion in the hope that it would take the heat off their own institution and stave off greater damage in the future. Other universities, seeking to avoid the administration’s crosshairs, retreated to the sidelines, refusing to publicly denounce attacks on higher education or join collective efforts to resist them.

Appeasement hasn’t worked — it only legitimized the administration’s illegal attacks and emboldened the administration to accelerate its assault. This latest offensive makes it painfully clear how misguided it is to negotiate with an extortionist.

Among the universities initially targeted by this “compact” are some of the very schools that acquiesced in earlier rounds, either by negotiating deals with the administration (Brown and Penn) or by forcing out their leaders under government pressure (University of Virginia). Predictably, the extortionist has returned for more. The reward for capitulation was more extortion.

Universities must push back — and they must do so collectively. If some universities accept this “compact,” it will dramatically heighten the pressure on others to sign on. Absent a coordinated response, we could eventually find ourselves facing a level of federal government control without precedent in America.

Harvard, to its credit, has not capitulated. It is fighting — and winning — in court. But rather than working with other universities to collectively defend academic freedom, Harvard continues to fend for itself. And despite the evident costs of appeasement, it has been reported to be seeking a negotiated deal.

In early March, as the Trump administration launched its authoritarian offensive, we urged Harvard to take the lead in publicly defending democracy. At the time, it chose silence. A week later, when Columbia was attacked, we again urged Harvard to step up. We called on Harvard’s leadership to speak out in Columbia’s defense and to use its prestige and influence to help organize a collective defense of academic freedom. Harvard remained silent.

Unsurprisingly, the Trump administration soon came for us. As the administration tightens its authoritarian grip, we are seeing the cost of our silence.

We again call on Harvard’s leadership to work with other universities to forge a collective response to the administration’s assault on higher education. Harvard must now do what it should have done many months ago: take the lead in building a broader coalition to defend democracy and academic freedom. It is past time to abandon go-it-alone strategies — as well as the illusion that we can appease an authoritarian government.

Harvard should lend its prestige and resources to efforts to bring universities together to collectively reject the administration’s extortionary “compact.” American civil society has more than enough financial and organizational muscle to stop this authoritarian offensive. But it requires collective resolve. And it requires leadership, which has been in painfully short supply.

Harvard has shown resolve. Now it’s time to lead.

Ryan D. Enos is a professor of Government. Steven Levitsky is the David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and a professor of Government.