After waging war on public broadcasting and the arts, the Trump administration threatened recently to cut federal funding to nine prominent colleges unless they restricted campus speech that opposed conservatives.
“Academic freedom is not absolute,” read part of a Compact for Excellence in Higher Education that offered the schools preferential research funding if they obliged with a laundry list of demands that would restrict expression. If any school refused the demands, it “elects to forego federal benefits,” the compact read.
While the corporate media chose to gloss over the full extent to which the proposal undermined free expression, thousands of students across the country read it for themselves and took to the streets, demanding that their schools not capitulate.
And although none of the initial nine universities have signed on thus far, President Donald Trump has now offered the agreement to every college in the country.
What Does the Compact Say?
The compact was sent on Oct. 2 to the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia.
Nine pages long, it listed almost two dozen demands. Among the most controversial was one requiring schools to abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” Students noted these terms were vague, perhaps intentionally.
“What does that mean?” said Raya Gupta, a freshman at Brown who protested the compact. “We can be pretty sure that the Trump administration is going to use that to shut down programs like the Center for Students of Color and our LGBTQ+ center.”
The compact also demanded professors, when acting “as university representatives,” refrain from speaking on “societal and political events.”
Timmons Roberts, a professor of environment and society at Brown, said his courses on climate change fall into those categories.
“How am I going to teach what I need to teach?” he said. “That is a direct attack on the freedom of speech.”
In another clause, the compact demanded that universities “screen out” international students who “demonstrate hostility” to U.S. values and allies, and share “all available information” with the State Department.
Universities risk “saturating the campus with noxious values, such as anti-Semitism,” the compact read.
Notably, the State Department this year has revoked the visas of hundreds of students it accuses without evidence of supporting antisemitic terrorism.
Students and faculty claimed other demands—a limit on international students to 15% of the school population, sex-based definitions of gender and an SAT requirement—eroded institutional independence.
“We are not a dog,” said Clay Dickerson, the student council president at UVA, at a protest. “We are not to be leashed up by the federal government and dragged around.”
How Did Universities Respond?
Although federal officials set a final deadline of Nov. 21 to respond to the compact, seven of the original nine schools had already rejected it at the time.
Emphasizing the importance of academic freedom, Vanderbilt stated it was providing feedback as part of a dialogue but not yet deciding whether to accept or reject the compact. The University of Texas at Austin’s response was more positive, welcoming the opportunity and expressing a desire to work with the administration. However, it has yet to publicly commit to signing the agreement.
But, in a social media post, Trump expanded the compact’s scope to all universities, claiming it will “bring about the Golden Age” of higher education.
While only two universities—the New College of Florida and Valley Forge Military College—have officially agreed to the compact, many of the schools that rejected it appeared more concerned with preserving merit-based research funding than protecting free expression.
In his response to the federal government, Arizona president Suresh Garimella wrote that his school has “much common ground” with the compact’s ideas, but does not agree with “a federal research funding system based on anything other than merit.”
UVA interim president Paul Mahoney’s response was almost identical. Penn president Larry Jameson’s only justification was that he is “committed to merit-based achievement.” MIT president Sally Kornbluth wrote that the compact would “restrict” her school’s independence. But “fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone,” she wrote.
Only three schools—Brown, Dartmouth and USC—heavily emphasized academic freedom in their responses.
“It’s disappointing,” said Jade Personna, a senior at MIT who protested against the compact, “that the school, which has a lot more power and leverage than I do, is not willing to stand up for us in that way.”
Personna said she believed MIT treaded lightly to prevent a brash response from Trump. But she would have preferred “stronger language,” she added.
It remains unclear what will happen to the schools that did not sign. In early November, Project Censored requested comment from the Education Department, but received an automated response: “Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of [a spending bill]. … We will respond to emails once government functions resume.”
What Did the Media Cover?
The Wall Street Journal reported first on the compact, but its main and deck headlines included no mention of free speech. Six paragraphs in, after referencing the SAT requirement, the story mentioned the clause banning “institutional units” that “belittle” conservative values.
The article included no reference to clauses prohibiting professors from discussing “societal and political events” and mandating that schools screen foreign students who “demonstrate hostility” to U.S. allies. Neither did stories by The New York Times, CNN and USA Today.
The Washington Post’s story does mention the “societal and political events” clause—30 paragraphs in. But, like the others, it doesn’t say international students would be screened for their values.
In its framing, CNN initially downplayed free speech implications, describing the effective ban on anti-conservative speech as a policy “to foster ‘a vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus,’” before quoting the rest of the clause seven paragraphs in.
Personna, the MIT student, said it was “concerning” to see that the establishment press did not cover all of the compact’s free-speech implications. Although she read the compact in full, individuals who relied on media summaries may have lacked critical information. “We all need to look at the things that are most alarming,” she said in reference to the compact’s free-speech clauses, because they can become a “stepping stone for the Trump administration to expand its power further.”
But even with the selective coverage, student groups on campus publicized the unfiltered truth, Personna said.
“The Trump administration very much miscalculated … how easy it would be to coerce people into signing something like this,” she said.
James Libresco is a first-year student at Brown University studying political science.
