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In April, Harvard stood up for democracy.

When University President Alan Garber wrote to the Harvard community on April 14 that the University would fight the Trump administration’s authoritarian attacks, Harvard students, faculty, and alumni rallied behind him. For supporters of democracy across America and the world, Harvard’s willingness to resist the government’s unlawful demands became a source of hope and inspiration.

Now, there are reports that Harvard’s leaders are negotiating a deal with the Trump administration. This would be a grave mistake — for Harvard, for academic freedom, and for American democracy.

The Trump administration’s attack on Harvard is blatantly anti-democratic. In no democratic society does the federal government seek to dictate the hiring, admissions, and student disciplinary policies of private universities. To accept demands of this nature would be to surrender basic academic freedoms, as occurred recently in places like Hungary, India, Turkey, and Venezuela.

When presidents can determine whether or not private universities are behaving — as President Trump put it —“appropriately,” according to their own ideological criteria, we no longer live in a democracy.

Not only is the administration’s behavior authoritarian, but its current leverage over Harvard was attained through a series of illegal acts. As the University’s lawsuits clearly show, the government violated the law and the Constitution when it arbitrarily withheld billions of dollars in congressionally approved research funds. Using the power of the federal government to punish a university because you don’t like its politics is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.

So the terms of any negotiation are these: The Trump administration’s illegal actions imposed severe hardship on Harvard. It is now offering relief from some of that illegally imposed hardship in exchange for Harvard’s adoption of policies that are aligned with the government’s ideology. This is not a “negotiation.” It is extortion. It’s like negotiating the terms of a mugging.

As with any case of extortion, it must be tempting for University leaders to seek a deal. The Trump administration has imposed extraordinary harm on us. It has crippled critical research, derailed careers, forced layoffs, and cruelly disrupted the lives of thousands of international students, generating a pervasive feeling of anxiety across campus.

Like a good mafia boss, Trump can, with a word, make all these problems go away.

And Trump may want a settlement. His administration is not winning its war on Harvard: It is losing in the court of law and in the court of public opinion, which has swung solidly in Harvard’s favor.

But even under these circumstances, it would be a serious mistake for Harvard to try to negotiate its way out of this authoritarian assault.

For one, extortionists never stop with a single payment. The Trump administration has already levied new demands on top of extortionary deals with leading law firms and Columbia University.

More fundamentally, Harvard’s acquiescence to authoritarian bullying would do lasting damage to higher education and democracy. It would embolden the Trump administration to make similar or greater demands of other universities. Indeed, one administration official said a successful extortion of Harvard would “basically be a blueprint for the rest of higher education.” If the country’s wealthiest university gives in to the government’s unlawful demands, then no university will be able to resist them.

Harvard’s acquiescence would also establish a dangerous precedent: that the federal government may use extra-legal pressure to intervene in the affairs of a private institution to impose its preferred policies and ideology. Such practices are antithetical to a free society. As Garber wrote in his April 14 letter, “No government…should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

We have approached a red line. Allowing the government to use extortionary threats to shape the teaching, research, and admissions policies of institutions of higher education is the stuff of autocracies. If Harvard accepts such unlawful intervention, it will weaken, if not destroy, the protective barriers to academic freedom that distinguish us as a democracy.

Indeed, one reason why so many Americans have rallied behind Harvard is that they understand that if the vast power of the government can be wielded arbitrarily to punish a university, it can be used to punish anyone.

Here at home, Harvard’s capitulation would undermine the trust it has earned from our community. In his University-wide message, Garber effectively drew a line in the sand at “freedom of thought and inquiry,” writing that “all of us share a stake in safeguarding that freedom.” Community members rose to the call, and many of them sacrificed to support Harvard’s stand: faculty pledged a portion of their salaries, alumni mobilized and donated money, and international students, putting themselves at risk, spoke out forcefully.

To violate that trust now, in the face of these shared sacrifices, would be a betrayal.

The authoritarian bargain on offer is a familiar one — history is littered with them. Harvard may get its research funding, just as businesses, law firms, and media companies may get their government contracts, approval of long-sought mergers, or the termination of lawsuits and investigations. But it comes with a steep price: acquiescence to a new regime, in a society that is less free.

Harvard’s leaders may be driven by expediency to make a deal in the hope of preserving the University’s present greatness. Such a step would be tragically short-sighted. A deal might allow us to return to our research for a while, but without basic democratic rights, we will leave ourselves, our students, and future scholars vulnerable to once-unthinkable restrictions on what they can research, publish, teach, and say.

In his April letter, Garber wrote of how universities “contribute in vital ways to a free society.” We wholeheartedly agree. But University leaders must not forget that the relationship runs both ways. American higher education has thrived precisely because we live in a free society.

This spring, more than 800 faculty members asked University leaders to resist the Trump administration’s demands and work with other universities to forge a coalition in defense of academic freedom. This is more important than ever. Universities work together to defend against unlawful federal encroachment. It’s a difficult task, but the stakes are high.

The threat to American democracy is mounting. The Trump administration has assaulted democratic institutions — arresting opposition politicians, investigating critics, abducting people off the street, flouting due process, and politicizing the military — more aggressively than Hugo Chávez, Viktor Orban, or Recep Tayyip Erdogan did in their first year in office. To cede academic freedom at such a moment would be a historic error.

Defending democracy requires sacrifice. There are moments when we must pay a price to ensure the long-term survival of our basic freedoms. This is one of those moments.

In his April letter, Garber wrote that Harvard “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” The University community – and much of American society — rallied behind him.

Now, with democracy in peril, Harvard must keep its commitment.

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