"The Trump administration this week tried to make nine elite research universities an offer they can't refuse. In exchange for vaguely defined funds, MIT, Dartmouth, Brown, Vanderbilt, the University of Virginia, and others were asked to sign a nine-page "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" that amounts to complete adoption of the MAGA higher-education agenda. If they don't agree? "The institution elects to forego federal benefits," seemingly including federal contracts and access to student loans."
"It began with massive cuts to federal research funding and charges that some schools violated the civil rights of Jewish students and faculty during protests about the war in Gaza. Whereas Harvard chose to fight the matter in court, Columbia agreed to a sweeping settlement that restored hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants. The deal went far beyond legitimate civil-rights concerns, requiring Columbia to implement Trump-dictated policies around hiring, admissions, DEI, academics, and student discipline,"
A nine-page compact sought to compel elite research universities to adopt a MAGA-aligned higher-education agenda in exchange for vaguely defined federal funds. The compact would require broad policy changes across hiring, admissions, DEI, academics, and student discipline and appears to threaten federal contracts, grants, and student loan access for noncompliant institutions. The measure follows prior White House actions including research-funding cuts and civil-rights enforcement tied to campus protests, and a settlement that imposed monitoring and policy changes on one university. The compact represents an escalation of federal efforts to exert ideological control over higher education.
Read at The Atlantic
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