The federal government and some state governments are now wanting to dictate to American colleges and universities what can and can’t be said on campus, what must and must not be taught in the curriculum, which students to admit and which to expel, which faculty to hire and which to fire, and what subjects to research and how.

Part of this effort at ideological capture of American higher education has been to try to redefine the role of trustees at our institutions, particularly the public ones, as mere partisan operatives who should impose the will of the party in power on the institutions they govern. Trustees are framed as accountable to “the public.” They should be. The problem is that in this context, what is meant by “the public” is only that portion of it that agrees with government officials in charge at the moment, not the broader citizenry.

Why is this a bad idea? Shouldn’t elected officeholders have some influence on the public campuses that their governments help fund? (Student tuition and donors help fund them, too, of course.) What about influence on private institutions whose students use public financial aid to pay tuition, and so much of whose research is government-funded? These are wholly reasonable expectations. However, when influence turns into direct intervention, when it manifests as heavy-handed government management, we have a problem. Why’s that?

The genius of American higher education since colonial times has been the absence of a Ministry of Education that controls the operation of colleges and universities. This approach is very much in the American vein. The notion is that those who occupy elected office should not be able to manipulate independent, credible sources of information that might influence whether they get re-elected. (Ironically, many of the people who are pushing direct government control of higher education are at the same time taking apart the federal Department of Education because they say it exercises too much control over educational institutions.)

The logical conclusion to today’s growing governmental pressure on higher education would be to dismiss all boards of trustees and establish a centralized ministry to govern the sector. Why resist the siren song of my favorite party telling those pointy-headed academics how to run their business without the intermediary layer of these governing boards? I’ll provide here just a few of the reasons.

First, because Americans don’t like censorship, especially when the government does it. They hate the idea of any government telling them or their kids how to think or what to say. They don’t like political parties determining for them what “the truth” is. Trustees are the border runners between the party in power and government entities on the one hand, and the university on the other. At their best, they act as a conduit to bring public opinion—and sometimes public criticism—into the university, while at the same time buffering it from interference that gets in the way of its always messy search for truth, and its service to the commonwealth that derives from that mission.

Second, boards in particular can and need to step up to defend America’s researchers in fields such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics as they follow their expertise to discoveries that benefit the health, economic well-being and national security of our citizens. Boards can assist in warding off politically motivated regulations and budget cuts that senselessly damage this vital progress pipeline. An Associated Press/NORC at the University of Chicago poll from May showed that 75 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans favor maintaining federal funding for scientific and medical research. Governing boards, populated by highly regarded, independent citizens with impressive personal and professional networks, are uniquely positioned to reflect the bipartisan will of the people, regardless of their personal partisan leanings.

Third, if elected politicians, not trustees and staff, decide who gets hired and fired at colleges and universities, employees will be chosen and dismissed based more on personal and party loyalty than expertise and merit. So much for meritocracy.

Fourth, boards can and should model for students, staff and the public at large how public-spirited volunteers civilly debate policy issues, without fear or favor, across whatever divisions exist among board members. Has there ever been a time when that would be a greater service by trustees to American democracy?

Colleges and universities are hardly perfect. For one thing, they have not adequately reflected the diversity of the country—intellectual, economic or ethnic. This and other flaws trustees can identify and help fix. As informed, “loving critics,” they know more about their institution than anybody else who does not work there. Working with their president, they can push their institution to teach the conflicts we live today authentically and objectively, not preach the prevalent party line on campus or in the state house.

In the current overheated political rhetoric, trustees, especially of public institutions, are presented with a false choice: Do you serve your institution or the citizens of your state? The question is based on the absurd assumption that you cannot serve both. Trustees have a responsibility to serve citizens by protecting the legacy of their institution built by previous generations, improving its quality and reach for today’s population, and ensuring its sustainability for generations to come. They should not be counting down to the next election; they should be taking the long view. That’s what we should be able to trust them to do.