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The president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said Friday she “cannot support.” white House proposal that asks with And eight other universities will embrace President Donald trumppolitical agenda in exchange for favorable access to federal funding.
MIT is one of the first to express strong views for or against the agreement, which the White House has described as providing “many positive benefits,” including “substantial and meaningful federal funding.” Leaders of the University of Texas system said they were honored that its flagship university in Austin was invited, but most other campuses remained silent while the document was reviewed.
In a letter to Trump administration officials, MIT President Sally Kornbluth said that MIT disagrees with the provisions of the proposal, including some that would limit free speech and the independence of the university. He said this is inconsistent with MIT’s belief that scientific funding should be based solely on merit.
“Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education,” Kornbluth said in a letter to the Secretary of Education. Linda McMahon and White House officials.
The higher education agreement unveiled last week requires universities to make broad commitments in line with Trump’s political agenda on topics ranging from admissions and women’s sports to free speech and student discipline. Universities were invited to provide a “limited, targeted response” by 20 October and make a decision before 21 November.
Others who have received 10-page proposals are: Vanderbilt, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, University of Southern California, University of Arizona, Brown University and University of Virginia. It was not clear how or why the schools were selected.
University leaders face intense pressure to reject the agreement amid opposition from students, faculty, free speech advocates and higher education groups. Leaders of some other universities have called it extortion. Mayor and City Council tucsonHome of the University of Arizona, formally opposed the agreement, calling it an “unacceptable act of federal interference.”
Even some conservatives have rejected the compact as a poor approach. Frederick Hayes, director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, called it “seriously problematic” and said the government’s requests are “legally baseless.”
Kornbluth’s letter did not explicitly reject the agreement but suggested that its terms were impractical. Still, he said MIT is already aligned with some of the values outlined in the deal, including prioritizing meritocracy in admissions and making college more affordable.
Kornbluth said MIT was the first institution to reinstate requirements for standardized admissions exams after the COVID-19 pandemic and admits students based on their talent, ideas and hard work. Incoming graduate students whose families make less than $200,000 a year don’t have to pay anything for tuition, he added.
Kornbluth wrote, “We freely choose these values because they are right, and we live by them because they support our mission.”
As part of the agreement, the White House asked universities to freeze tuition for American students for five years. Those with endowments of more than $2 million per undergraduate may not charge tuition at all to students attending “hard science” programs.
It called for colleges to require the SAT or ACT for all undergraduate applicants and to eliminate race, gender and other characteristics from admissions decisions. Signing schools would also have to accept the government’s binary definition of gender and apply it to campus bathrooms and sports teams.
Most compacts focus on promoting conservative viewpoints. To make campuses a “vibrant marketplace of ideas” the campuses would commit to taking steps “including changing or eliminating institutional units that knowingly punish, disparage, and even incite violence against conservative ideas.”
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