Trump Pressures Top Universities to Sign 'Extortion Agreement' for Federal Funds

President Donald Trump's war on academia continued this week with letters pressuring the leaders of top universities across the United States to sign his "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" for priority access to federal funding and other "positive benefits."

The New York Times reported that "letters were sent on Wednesday 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, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Virginia."

The letters "urging campus leaders to pledge support for President Trump's political agenda to help ensure access to federal research funds" were signed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon and two key White House officials, according to the Times.

The compact, published by the Washington Examiner, states 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."

"Signatories commit themselves to revising governance structures as necessary to create such an environment, including but not limited to transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas," the 10-page document continues.

In an apparent response to campus protests against US complicity in Israel's ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, the compact adds:

Universities shall be responsible for ensuring that they do not knowingly: (1) permit actions by the university, university employees, university students, or individuals external to the university community to delay or disrupt class instruction or disrupt libraries or other traditional study locations; (2) allow demonstrators to heckle or accost individual students or groups of students; or (3) allow obstruction of access to parts of campus based on students’ race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Signatories commit to using lawful force if necessary to prevent these violations and to swift, serious, and consistent sanctions for those who commit them.

The compact also requires strict definitions of gender, including for sports, as well as limits on the enrollment of international students. Transgender athletes and foreign scholars have been key targets of the Trump administration.

While Kevin P. Eltife, chair of the University of Texas Board of Regents, told the Times that the school system "is honored" that its flagship in Austin was "selected by the Trump administration for potential funding advantages" and "we enthusiastically look forward to engaging with university officials and reviewing the compact immediately," the other eight schools declined to comment.

The president has already used federal funding to push for changes at major institutions, waging battles over admission policies, trans athletes, and campus protests against US government support for Israel's genocide in the Gaza Strip. Brown and UPenn are two of the schools that have already reached agreements with the administration, while others have fought back.

Critics were swift to condemn the Trump administration's effort as "blackmail," "extortion," and a "shakedown."

"This administration is extorting universities to sign away academic freedom—nothing meritocratic or 'small government' about it," said Salomé Viljoen, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School, on social media.

The compact was decried as a "loyalty oath" and "political bribe." Damon Kiesow, the Knight chair for journalism innovation at the Missouri School of Journalism, said that "it is a document of unconditional surrender."

Edward Swaine, a professor at the George Washington University Law School, warned that "this steps boldly toward a scheme in which the federal government's role in relation to all colleges and universities, public and private, is akin to how state governments presently govern state institutions."

"Federalism aside, at what point does every school become a state actor?" he asked.

Despite Republican officials' long-standing opposition to student debt relief and tuition-free higher education, the compact also calls for a five-year tuition freeze and free tuition for students studying "hard sciences" if a school's endowment exceeds $2 million per undergraduate student.

Richard W. Painter, the chief White House ethics counsel under former President George W. Bush and now a University of Minnesota law professor, said Thursday that "the Trump administration is absolutely right that universities must freeze tuition."

"Price gouging of students and wasteful spending must stop," he added. "The administration's obsession over 'definition of gender' is a silly sideshow undermining higher ed reform."