And if there are any cooler heads left in the administration — people familiar with the law of unintended consequences — they should think again about whether this is truly a fight they want to pick, because there is a stronger-than-usual likelihood that the compact will boomerang on its authors.
The compact continues a war against higher education institutions that the administration has been waging since taking office in January. The administration’s demands have been shifting and vague. They boil down to the accusation that elite institutions have lost sight of their academic mission and become hotbeds of progressive ideological indoctrination, which taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund anymore.
And so the administration justifies yanking funding for medical studies or basic research at places like Brown and Harvard universities. Brown struck a deal in July with the administration to reclaim its funding, but Harvard continues to fight back. And the Trump administration has been losing against Harvard in court, suggesting that the stick approach may have its limits.
Now comes the compact, which appears to be the administration’s carrot. Nine universities, including MIT, were invited to join the agreement, under which they would commit to cap the enrollment of international students, freeze tuition for five years, accept the administration’s preferred definitions of gender, and protect conservative students. Signing would entitle them to “substantial and meaningful federal grants,” while refusing could mean forgoing federal benefits.
The question here is not whether Congress can attach conditions to taxpayer money. It can and does. The question is whether the administration can simply make up new requirements on a whim that go beyond the law and impose them arbitrarily on some universities and not others in a way that reeks of politics.
Take foreign enrollment, for instance. It may or may not be a good idea for universities to admit fewer international students. But there’s no law linking their funding to that choice. Indeed, it would be a misuse of federal money to base medical grants, for example, on factors other than scientific merit.
If private, independent universities accept the agreement, they will establish the precedent that the president can control them, including in core academic matters like admissions. (Several public universities were on the list, too, though none in New England.)
And that precedent is what ought to give even conservatives — especially conservatives — pause.
After all, if Trump can impose his own agenda on universities as a condition for receiving federal funding, so can a Democratic president. It might be hard to remember in the moment, but the pendulum always swings, and whatever precedent is set now about the limits of executive power is one that Republicans will need to live with when the tables turn.
There is a difference, though. The Trump administration is correct that universities, broadly speaking, are more liberal than the country as a whole. Given that reality, any concessions the Trump administration manages to wring out of colleges, either by threats or inducements, will be grudging and, likely, fleeting.
Progressive presidents, on the other hand, would be pushing on an open door at many campuses if they get the green light to impose, say, their definition of gender or their priorities for admissions.
If Congress wants to impose conditions on federal aid, it can do so — and the government should then enforce those rules fairly and with due process when violations are alleged. No institution is entitled to federal aid. But American institutions are entitled to a federal government that follows the law instead of making up its own.