“Newsom wrote on X that if any California university agrees to this extreme deal, they will lose billions in state money — including Cal Grants — right away.” California will not give money to schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and give up academic freedom.
The post showed a screenshot from a New York Times article about the Trump administration’s new “compact.”
The administration sent a document to nine big universities asking them to support the MAGA agenda in exchange for better access to federal funding. By signing the compact, the universities would be committing to remaining lockstep on Trump’s pet issues including his definition of gender. They would have to apply that definition to campus bathrooms, locker rooms, and women’s sports teams. Schools would need to stop using factors like race, gender, and other important demographic information when deciding who gets admitted. This is a major concern for the white nationalist group within Trump’s support base. International students would make up no more than 15% of a college’s undergraduate group, and no single country could contribute more than 5% of that total. In general, the universities would need to strongly promote conservative ideas. For example, they would need to ensure their campuses are a “vibrant marketplace of ideas,” which in reality would involve promoting right-wing views in a way that seems natural and suppressing left-wing perspectives. They would also need to increase the number of professors who are conservative. These professors would be responsible for “changing or ending institutional units that deliberately punish, mock, and even encourage violence against conservative ideas.”
The administration says signing the compact will give universities “many good benefits,” including “large and important federal grants” and “more overhead money when possible.”
“It’s not worth the trade-offs they would have to deal with.”
“This is a Faustian bargain,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education. Newsom’s threat to these universities has real consequences. Cal Grants is a large student financial aid program that gives out $2.8 billion in total.
” Said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, ‘reform is essential for the future of higher education.'”
This is what we require from our Democratic leadership. Fight back with concrete threats. Democracy is on the line.
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