As USC considers Trump’s funding offer, MIT firmly rejects it

As USC weighed its options, MIT became the first of nine universities to forcefully reject a White House proposal asking them to embrace President Trump’s conservative political agenda in exchange for advantageous access to federal funds.

MIT President Sally Kornbluth said in a letter to Trump administration officials on Friday that the campus disagrees with the proposal’s provisions, including some provisions that would limit free speech and the university’s independence. He said Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” is inconsistent with MIT’s belief that scientific funding should be based solely on merit.

“Therefore, we cannot respectfully support the proposed approach to solving the problems facing higher education,” Kornbluth wrote in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and White House officials.

MIT’s rejection comes as the University of Southern California has been upset with the contract since it was offered earlier this month. The school’s faculty members strongly condemned the proposal at a meeting this week, calling it “highly invalid,” “possibly unconstitutional” and “contrary to the principles of academic freedom.”

But interim President Beong-Soo Kim told the nearly 500 attendees that the university “has not made any final decisions.”

At the same time, Governor Gavin Newsom aggressively weighed in, challenging USC to “do the right thing” and rejecting the offer. He threatened to withhold state funding from any California university that agreed to do so.

“The Trump Administration’s sole demand is that universities desegregate. Any university that rejects this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform higher education is not serving its students or parents; they are bowing to radical, left-wing bureaucrats,” said White House spokeswoman Liz Huston.

“The truth is that the best science cannot thrive in institutions that abandon virtue, free inquiry, and the pursuit of truth,” Huston said. “President Trump encourages universities to join us in restoring academic excellence and common-sense policies.”

What’s inside the compact

The higher education deal distributed this month requires universities to make a wide range of commitments in line with Trump’s orders Political agenda. In exchange, universities that accept the terms will gain more advantageous access to federal research grants, additional funding and other benefits.

They will have to accept the government’s definition of gender (two genders, male and female), and transgender people will not be allowed to recognize their gender identity. Admission of foreign students will be limited. The agreement also calls for a five-year tuition freeze for U.S. students.

It demands that universities require the SAT or ACT from all undergraduate applicants and eliminate race, gender and other characteristics in admissions decisions. As for free speech, the charter says schools will be required to commit to promoting a broad range of views on campus and replace or eliminate “institutional units that deliberately punish, belittle, or even lead to violence against conservative ideas.”

Universities were called on to provide “limited, targeted feedback” by 20 October and to make a decision no later than 21 November.

Other institutions that received the 10-page proposal include: Vanderbilt, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, University of Arizona, Brown University, University of Texas and University of Virginia. It was unclear how or why the schools were chosen.

Leaders of the Texas system were “honored” that the Austin campus was selected as part of the agreement and its “potential funding benefits,” according to a statement from Kevin Eltife, chairman of the board of trustees.

University leaders face intense pressure to reject the deal in the face of opposition from students, faculty, free speech advocates and higher education groups. Leaders of some other universities called it extortion. The mayor and City Council in Tucson, where the University of Arizona is located, formally opposed the agreement, calling it “an unacceptable act of federal intervention.”

Some conservatives criticized this. Frederick Hess, director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, called this “deeply problematic” and said the government’s demands “are not based in law.”

“I deeply sympathize with Trump’s criticism of higher education,” he told The Times on Friday. “I support almost every point in the agreement, but even I have real concerns about the way it was framed and presented.”

But Hess noted that the compact has become a kind of “Rorschach test.”

“If you look at it from one side, you see the administration’s attempt at bullying to impose its will,” he said. “If you look at it another way, the Trump administration offers a positive, constructive vision of the federal-university partnership.”

View from Los Angeles

USC faculty’s vocal disapproval of the contract at an Oct. 6 meeting of the university’s academic senate was in line with the reactions of similar institutions on other affected campuses.

USC department chairs, professors and others strongly condemned the deal, with many saying there should be no negotiations with the Trump administration.

Interim chairman Kim attended the meeting but did not share his opinion on the agreement. He noted that USC did not solicit an offer from Trump. “I wanted to make sure I was hearing from the community and getting your input,” he said.

Asked for comment Friday, a USC spokesperson told The Times that Kim had made comments on Oct. 3 in which he said he would consult with the school’s board of trustees and other stakeholders to “listen to a broad range of perspectives” on the proposal.

Trump’s offer comes at an alarming time for USC, which is facing a $200 million budget deficit and in the midst of widespread layoffs.

Across town, UCLA is also grappling with its own serious financial problems, though it is directly related to the president’s powerful push to reshape higher education.

UCLA is negotiating with the Trump administration on a $1.2 billion settlement offer that would resolve a federal investigation into alleged civil rights abuses on campus. The allegations stem from UCLA’s handling of allegations of antisemitism during pro-Palestinian protests in the spring of 2024. UC leaders say the penalty would be “devastating” for the 10-campus system and generally say other proposals violate the university’s mission and values.

Speaking at a UC-wide academic senate meeting on Thursday, UC President James B. Milliken said the “landscape has changed” after the Trump administration rolled out the compact to non-UC campuses last week.

He did not say whether the proposal would affect UC negotiations, but said it was a “shift from private pursuit of universities to wholesale” targeting higher education, which puts the UC in a safer position. He said he did not know the impact of the contract on UCLA.

In some ways, the contract offered to USC matches the solution proposed to UCLA. For example, both make provisions for binary gender definitions that exclude transgender people.

But the agreement differs in imposing strict limits on foreign student enrollment and a tuition freeze for U.S. citizens.

Although the contract has not been presented to UC, university officials are examining its contents to better understand Trump’s stance on higher education and create a negotiation strategy.

Compact debate at colleges across the country

In addition to USC and MIT, the agreement was the subject of fierce debate at many other campuses that received it.

At the October 3 meeting of the University of Virginia senate, attended by interim President Paul G. Mahoney and hundreds of faculty members, senate representatives rejected the contract.

Faculty members expressed concerns about academic freedom and discrimination against transgender people and said they feared compliance would have a “chilling” effect on free speech, according to meeting notes provided to The Times.

Three days later, at the University of Arizona faculty senate meeting, 81% of voting members rejected the government’s proposal.

At Dartmouth, President Sian Leah Beilock also expressed hesitation about signing.

“I am deeply committed to Dartmouth’s academic mission and values ​​and will always defend our fierce independence,” Beilock said in a statement. “You’ve often 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.”

Some university faculty members, including USC, have expressed skepticism about Trump’s willingness to abide by the terms of the agreement if an institution accepts it. Hess said it was a “valid concern.”

“If you look at the existing agreement [by the Trump administration] “There’s definitely a perception that the agreements are not in writing on tariffs and technology,” he said. “Normally, I’m usually very skeptical about faculty concerns in these conversations, but from what we’ve seen… many of these practical concerns are very legitimate.”

Binkley writes for the Associated Press.