In late July, Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), released Science—A Golden Age, setting forth a strategy to revitalize US research and innovation for the 21st century. The report is a response to what it calls “a systematic breakdown in the lines of accountability that align the scientific enterprise with the public interest.” The pace of innovation in the United States is too slow, it argues, harming the country’s economic growth and competitiveness. In what it characterizes as the artificial intelligence (AI) “race,” in particular, the report observes that China is uncomfortably close. It asserts that the federal funding infrastructure is beset with administrative burdens like commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion, which constrain investigators and prioritize the wrong values. Meanwhile, universities, which the report deems “legacy institutions,” are too ossified to meet the nation’s innovation demands. Rather, they are “entrenched interests” that are no longer sufficiently accountable to the public interest.