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'MIT Did the Right Thing': First School Rejects Trump Extortion Compact
"It put its students first and preserved the social fabric of its university life," said Amnesty International USA. "We hope other universities will follow suit."
Oct 10, 2025
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Friday became the first university to reject President Donald Trump's "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education," which critics have called an "extortion" agreement for federal funding.
MIT and eight other schools—the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Virginia—were invited to sign the pledge earlier this month.
Sally Kornbluth, MIT's president, met with US Education Secretary Linda McMahon earlier this year and on Friday published her response to the administration's letter on the school's website.
"The institute's mission of service to the nation directs us to advance knowledge, educate students, and bring knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges. We do that in line with a clear set of values, with excellence above all," Kornbluth wrote. MIT "prides itself on rewarding merit" and "opens its doors to the most talented students," and "we value free expression."
Kornbluth continued
These values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent. We freely choose these values because they're right, and we live by them because they support our mission—work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health, and security of the United States. And of course, MIT abides by the law.
The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.
In our view, America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence. In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences. Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.
"As you know, MIT's record of service to the nation is long and enduring," she concluded. "Eight decades ago, MIT leaders helped invent a scientific partnership between America's research universities and the US government that has delivered extraordinary benefits for the American people. We continue to believe in the power of this partnership to serve the nation."
The decision to reject the compact was praised by current members of the university community, alumni, and others—including Amnesty International USA, which said on social media: "We commend MIT in its decision to reject President Trump's proposed 'compact.' In refusing to cave to political pressures, MIT has upheld the very ideals higher education is built on—freedom of thought, expression, and discourse."
"The federal government must not infringe on what students can read, discuss, and learn in school," the human rights group continued. "It is a violation of their academic freedom. MIT did the right thing: It put its students first and preserved the social fabric of its university life. We hope other universities will follow suit."
MIT's response to the Trump admin's proposed "compact" is excellent and should be a model for other universities. orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...
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— Jameel Jaffer (@jameeljaffer.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 10:14 AM
American Association of University Professors president Todd Wolfson similarly said in a statement to The New York Times that "the ability to teach and study freely is the bedrock of American higher education."
"We applaud MIT for standing up for academic freedom and institutional autonomy rejecting Trump's 'loyalty oath' compact," he added. "We urge all institutions targeted by the administration’s bribery attempt to do the same."
According to the Boston Globe:
MIT faculty are "relieved" by the school's position, said Ariel White, a political science professor and vice president of MIT's American Association of University Professors chapter. But they expect to see Trump employ his whole-of-government approach against the university in response.
"This offer looked like an invitation, but it wasn't," she said. "It was a ransom note. Now there is some risk that we will face reprisal."
What form that reprisal could take is not immediately clear. But White House spokesperson Liz Huston said Friday that "any university that refuses this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform higher education isn't serving students or their parents—they’re bowing to radical, left-wing bureaucrats."
"The truth is, the best science can't thrive in institutions that have abandoned merit, free inquiry, and the pursuit of truth,” Huston's statement continued. "President Trump encourages universities to join us in restoring academic excellence and commonsense policies."
As Common Dreams reported earlier this week, campus activist groups at various schools are organizing against Trump's proposed compact, and the national legal organization Democracy Forward launched an investigation into the effort to strong-arm universities—which is part of a broader agenda targeting any entities or individuals not aligned with the administration.
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Campus Leaders Mobilize to Battle Trump's Anti-Education 'Compact' Tooth and Nail
"Workers, students, campus community members across this great country are coming together to fight for a higher education system that actually works for all—one that is affordable, strengthens freedom and democracy, and stands up to its public mission."
Oct 08, 2025
Campus activist groups are banding together to fight against President Donald Trump's proposed "compact" with universities in which they would receive priority access to federal funding in exchange for pledging support for aspects of the president's political agenda.
The Sunrise Movement on Wednesday said that students and workers at the universities who have been invited by the Trump administration to sign the compact have "already gathered thousands of petition signatures" urging school administrators to reject it, and they are "planning coordinated campus protests in the coming weeks" to keep the pressure on their schools to resist any effort to infringe upon academic freedom.
The proposed deal with the Trump administration requires that universities abolish institutions on campus that "purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas." Additionally, it would completely overhaul admissions processes so that schools are not allowed to consider factors "such as sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity, [or] religious associations."
Critics have said that agreeing to these terms would essentially end schools' academic freedom, and the Sunrise Movement compiled quotes from both students and professors explaining their opposition to the Trump administration's proposed deal.
Kelsey Levine, a student at the University of Virginia, said the school's signature on the agreement would be tantamount to "selling out its most vulnerable populations of students: international students, transgender students, and students of color," as well as "compromising its foundational principles of independence, truth-seeking, and democracy."
Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, described the Trump administration's proposal as a "corrupt bribery attempt" that "would usher in a new draconian era of thought policing in American higher education, cripple our technological innovation capacity, and assault our very democracy."
Evan Bowman, vice chair of Higher Ed Labor United, said that the battle against the Trump administration's efforts to infringe upon academic freedom were being waged with an all-hands-on-deck effort.
"Workers, students, campus community members across this great country are coming together to fight for a higher education system that actually works for all," he said. "One that is affordable, strengthens freedom and democracy, and stands up to its public mission."
Jan-Werner Müller, a professor of politics at Princeton University, wrote in The Guardian on Tuesday that all universities must reject Trump's proposal on the grounds that "it is a thinly veiled attack on academic freedom; it is a test case for whether Trumpists can get away with demanding loyalty oaths; it exceeds the president’s powers to begin with; and it is bound to achieve the opposite of its stated goal of 'academic excellence in higher education.'"
Müller also linked the agreement to what he described as "Trump's emerging mafia state," in which "there is no guarantee that those bending the knee will not be bullied again."
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on Monday that only one institution, the University of Texas at Austin, has so far signaled support for the compact, while others have started to signal their opposition.
Dartmouth president Sian Beilock, for instance, said late last week that she was "deeply committed to Dartmouth’s academic mission and values and will always defend our fierce independence," and vowed that "we will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves."
National legal organization Democracy Forward on Wednesday announced that it was launching an investigation into the Trump administration's efforts to strong-arm universities into signing the compact, which it described as an effort to "stifle free thought" on college campuses.
To that end, the organization is seeking access to all public records related to the compact, including "all records and communications between U.S. Department of Education officials... and any representatives" of the nine universities that were invited by the administration to sign.
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said "every American should be concerned about these threats to freedom" from the Trump administration, adding that the organization would "get to the bottom of what is happening to protect people and our democracy."
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House Democrats Demand Answers About ICE Targeting of K-12 Students for Deportation
"ICE is using your tax dollars to target children," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Nearly 2,350 kids have been brought into immigration detention since Trump retook office.
Oct 06, 2025
A group of House Democrats is demanding that the departments of Homeland Security and Education provide answers for the deportation of K-12 students by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
According to an investigation published last week by The Guardian, since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, "nearly 2,350 kids under the age of 18, including 36 infants, have been booked into immigration detention centers around the country."
In a letter sent Friday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and 10 other New York lawmakers wrote that "ICE’s targeting of not only adults without criminal convictions, but also children and families, negates the administration’s stated policy of going after the 'worst of the worst' for deportation proceedings."
They added that many of the individuals targeted "do not even have open orders of removal in their family's immigration proceedings."
The lawmakers highlighted five K-12 students in New York City who have been arrested by ICE over the past year.
These include Dylan Lopez Contreras, a Bronx high school student who was arrested in May while showing up for a legal asylum court hearing. Chalkbeat reported that Lopez Contreras had arrived in the US last year after making a perilous journey from Venezuela and was allowed to remain in the country while he awaited his court date.
At that court appearance, he was detained without the ability to consult a lawyer and was then shuttled in and out of several detention facilities in at least five different states. According to the lawmakers, he is currently being held in Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, where the ACLU says "those in detention have endured insufficient medical and mental healthcare, grossly inadequate access to non-English language services, and rampant discrimination."
The lawmakers also highlighted the arrest of a 6-year-old named Dayra, who was arrested in August alongside her mother, Martha, and deported back to Ecuador. Martha's 19-year-old daughter was also taken into ICE custody, but not deported with her family. Meanwhile, her 16-year-old public high school student was left in the care of her 21-year-old brother.
Other students mentioned by the lawmakers include Mamadou Mouctar Diallo, a 20-year-old legal asylum-seeker from Guinea, and Derlis Chusen, a 19-year-old high school student from Ecuador, who was arrested outside a court hearing and taken to an immigration facility in Texas, where he was released on what the lawmakers called an "exorbitant" $20,000 bond.
(Video: Fox 5 New York)
As the lawmakers noted: "Not only did these students have no criminal convictions, they made every attempt to comply with their immigration hearings and ICE check-ins. Despite that, they were held in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, and were transported far away from their families, lawyers, and school communities."
Joselyn Chipantiza-Sisalema, a 20-year-old student from Ecuador, told The City that while she was held for 10 days at the notorious detention center at 26 Federal Plaza: “We had to beg the people working there that they gave us something to eat, they didn’t even give us water. Sometimes a few cookies they’d throw in there. A human being doesn’t deserve to be treated that way… it was a horrible thing I wouldn’t wish on anyone. They had us in there like animals.”
These are just a few of the dozens of students in New York City who have been deported under the Trump administration. According to numbers from the Deportation Data Project reported on by The City, ICE's New York City field office, which also covers Long Island and some areas north of the city, arrested 48 children in June and July alone, with 32 of them deported as of August 19.
"Poor conditions and inadequate care in immigration detention not only cause immediate harm to a child’s health, they can have long-term physical and mental consequences, impacting their studies and their adult life," the lawmakers wrote. "There is no doubt that these experiences are deeply traumatic for the children and young people detained, but also for their classmates and educators, regardless of immigration status. Exposing K-12 students to the trauma of immigration enforcement is certain to have social and economic consequences for their entire communities."
The Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that states cannot constitutionally deny children access to a free K-12 public education based on their immigration status, including if they are undocumented.
The lawmakers demanded that DHS provide a list of all the students it has arrested since January 20, 2025, and information about how students in immigration detention are receiving education.
"It is impossible to reconcile ICE’s narrative of making communities safer by going after 'the worst of the worst' when the majority of those currently in ICE detention, almost 70%, have no criminal convictions, according to data published by the agency," the lawmakers said. "Students like Dylan and Dayra represent the very best of this country. Their cases remind us of the irreparable harm that this administration’s reckless mass deportation policies cause our students and communities."
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