The Trump administration has made nine leading institutions of higher education, including Dartmouth College, an offer they can’t not refuse, unless they are willing to cede their independence and throw academic freedom overboard.
The allusion to “The Godfather” is warranted; the draft “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” that was sent to the nine institutions amounts to a crude shakedown in which universities would supposedly receive preferential access to federal funding if they adopt Trump’s political priorities on admissions, student discipline, gender and women’s sports, international student enrollment and other matters in which the government has no business meddling. The veiled but implicit threat is that those institutions that decline to kiss the ring will be taken for a ride by the Justice Department, as Harvard has been.
A letter accompanying the compact asserts that signing on would provide “multiple positive benefits” in return for capitulation, including “substantial and meaningful federal grants” and “increased overhead payments where feasible.” But as a practical matter, there is nothing in the nine-page compact that makes a specific commitment as to federal funding. Even if there were, the administration has demonstrated repeatedly that it considers no commitment binding and that acquiescence to its demands is highly likely to result in further and even more onerous ones.
This is not to mention that the compact itself is rife with internal contradictions. On the first page, for example, it proclaims that “no factor such as sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious associations, or proxies for any of those factors shall be considered, explicitly or implicitly, in any decision related to undergraduate or graduate student admissions or financial support, with due exceptions for institutions that are solely or primarily comprised of students of a specific sex or religious denomination.”
On the following page, however, universities are required to commit to “rigorous, good faith, empirical assessment of a broad spectrum of viewpoints among faculty, students and staff at all levels” and “to seek a broad spectrum of viewpoints not just in the university as a whole, but within every field, department, school and teaching unit.”
How this might be accomplished if political views cannot be taken into account in admissions is not explained. And satisfying this requirement would create an Orwellian nightmare for universities trying to ascertain and publicly report the political views of applicants, students, faculty and staff whose privacy they would necessarily have to invade.
It’s also hard to parse how this diversity of viewpoints can be achieved without taking into consideration in the admissions process some of the factors touching on background and identity that are proscribed in the initial passage cited above.
We note also that while nationality cannot be taken into account in admissions under the proposed compact, it goes on to stipulate that international students can make up no more than 15% of the undergraduate student body, with no more than 5% from any one country. We await White House clarification on the term “nationality.”
In the student discipline section, universities are enjoined, among other things, not to “allow demonstrators to heckle or accost individual students or groups of students.” From this we infer that heckling individuals or groups is to be permitted as long as the hecklers are not taking part in a demonstration.
The compact also requires universities that sign on to adopt policies of institutional neutrality, as Dartmouth has already done. In fact, the compact contains an admiring footnote on the subject citing Dartmouth’s president, Sian Leah Beilock.
This proposed requirement is simply another front in the administration’s broad effort to muzzle its critics. When the leaders of prestigious institutions speak their minds on pressing public issues, they carry weight and influence. That is why President Trump seeks to suppress such expressions.
For her part, after receiving the draft compact, Beilock assured the Dartmouth community that she is “deeply committed to Dartmouth’s academic mission and values and will always defend our fierce independence. You have heard me say that higher education is not perfect and that we can do better. At the same time, we will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves.”
The colleges have until Oct. 20 to respond to the draft compact. We urge Beilock to fiercely defend that fierce independence.