Top Universities Rejecting Trump’s Plan to Make Them Fair and Balanced
The Trump administration finds that making some of the nation’s most prestigious universities more politically diverse is a tall order — even when schools are offered funding priority.
Dartmouth College joined the University of Virginia (UVA) this weekend in rejecting the Trump administration’s offer of preferential funding in exchange for an agreement to overhaul or eliminate departments that oppose conservative ideas and other far-reaching stipulations.
UVA and the Ivy League school in Hanover, New Hampshire, are two of nine schools approached by the administration as part of the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) also rejected the offer, as did Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California.
Only three universities have reportedly yet to make a decision on the proposal: Vanderbilt University, the University of Arizona and the University of Texas at Austin.
In a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock wrote: “I do not believe that government involvement through a compact – whether a Republican or Democratic-led White House – is the right way to focus America’s leading colleges and universities on their teaching and research mission. »
Some of the proposal’s stipulations include banning the use of race, gender and religion in hiring and admission, freezing tuition for five years, capping undergraduate enrollment of international students at 15 percent and requiring applicants to take the SAT or similar admissions test.
The pact also aims to restore order to campuses plagued by protests and disruptions, particularly common during appearances by conservative speakers and during recent anti-Israel demonstrations. He specifies:
Universities should neither support nor allow a heckler’s veto, for example in cases of disruption, violence, intimidation or vandalism. Universities must ensure that they do not knowingly: (1) authorize actions by the university, university employees, university students, or individuals outside the university community intended to delay or disrupt classroom instruction or disrupt libraries or other traditional study settings; (2) allowing protesters to heckle or accost individual students or groups of students; or (3) authorize the obstruction of access to certain parts of the campus based on the race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion of students.
In his message to Secretary McMahon, UVA Interim President Paul Mahoney wrote that the university agreed “with many of the principles set forth in the Compact” but “we seek no special treatment in exchange” for their improvement, including “a thriving marketplace of ideas, institutional neutrality, and equal treatment of students.”
The other universities that rejected the pact cited a variety of reasons for not joining the agreement, among them administrators believing that funding should be administered based on “scientific merit” and not central approval from the federal government.
The most hyperbolic rejection came from Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA), who threatened to withdraw public funding from any California university that agreed to the terms of the pact. In his statement, he used all capital letters, typically used in social media to mean shouting:
The governor wrote: “IF ANY CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY SIGNS THIS RADICAL AGREEMENT, IT WILL LOSE BILLIONS IN STATE FUNDING – INCLUDING CAL GRANTS – IMMEDIATELY. CALIFORNIA WILL NOT FUND SCHOOLS THAT SELL THEIR STUDENTS, FACTORS, RESEARCHERS AND GIVE BACK FREEDOM ACADEMIC.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the bestselling author of Below the line and nine other mystery novels and non-fiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com to find out more.
