Kornbluth said “the premise of the document is inconsistent” with MIT’s values.
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has rejected the Trump administration’s proposal to sign on to the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which would mandate sweeping changes across campus in exchange for preferential treatment on federal funding.
MIT is the first of the nine universities invited to join the compact to publicly reject the proposal, which has ignited fierce pushback from other higher ed leaders, faculty and experts who see the document as a way to strip institutions of their autonomy. The Trump administration also asked Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Arizona, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University to sign. Most have provided vague statements saying that they are reviewing the compact, though Texas officials have expressed some enthusiasm about the offer.
MIT president Sally Kornbluth announced the move in a Friday morning letter to the campus community, which included a copy of her response to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
Kornbluth highlighted a number of areas the White House had emphasized in the compact, such as focusing on merit, keeping costs low for students and protecting free expression.
“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,” Kornbluth wrote.
She also noted that MIT disagreed with a number of the demands in the letter, arguing that it “would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution” and that “the premise of the document is inconsistent” with MIT’s belief that funding should be based on merit.
“In our view, America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence,” Kornbluth wrote. “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.”
Neither the White House nor the Department of Education responded to requests for comment.
Kornbluth has weathered searing criticism in recent years, both by Republican lawmakers and the broader public, after a disastrous congressional hearing in late 2023 over how universities handled pro-Palestinian protests and concerns about antisemitism.
She was one of three presidents, including former leaders of Harvard University and Penn, who offered equivocating answers when asked about hypothetical calls for the genocide of Jews and whether that would violate institutional policies. Kornbluth, who is Jewish, was somewhat more direct with her answers and the only one of the three to keep her job following the hearing.
Where Do Others Stand?
While MIT is the first institution to outright reject the compact, others have indicated they may be leaning that way.
Dartmouth president Sian Leah Beilock, for example, issued a statement last week saying she was “deeply committed to Dartmouth’s academic mission and values and will always defend our fierce independence.” The university “will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves,” she wrote. While some observers have read Beilock’s statement as a rejection of the compact, Dartmouth spokesperson Jana Barnello rebutted that notion.
Barnello told Inside Higher Ed by email that deliberations continue as administrators are “engaging with faculty across the university through Dartmouth’s shared governance framework and working closely with the Board of Trustees.”
Officials in Texas—where concerns about academic freedom and political interference in the classroom are surging—have publicly welcomed the idea. UT system Board of Regents chairman Kevin P. Eltife, a former Republican lawmaker, wrote in an Oct. 2 statement that the university was “honored” to be among the nine institutions “selected by the Trump Administration for potential funding advantages” and the board looked forward to “reviewing the compact immediately.”
Some state government officials are aiming to make the university’s decision for them by threatening financial consequences if they sign onto the proposed compact. California governor Gavin Newsom was the first to do so, warning that any institution in the state that signs the agreement will lose funding, including access to scholarship funds known as Cal Grants.
Virginia Democrats made a similar threat to scale back state funding in a letter to UVA, to which the University of Virginia Board of Visitors offered a vague and noncommittal response. A working group at UVA is studying the proposal even as officials have expressed concerns. Pennsylvania lawmakers have also spoken out against the compact.
Boards for both the UT system and UVA are heavily stocked with GOP donors and figures.
Reactions Pour In
MIT’s rejection of the compact prompted celebration in academic circles.
“I am proud to say that MIT has rejected Trump’s poison compact,” American Association of University Professors president Todd Wolfson wrote on Bluesky shortly after the news broke.
And some scholars suggested that MIT had established a precedent that others may look to. Brendan Cantwell, a higher education professor at Michigan State University, questioned in a post on Bluesky whether MIT’s action changes “the calculus” for the other eight universities.
“The language MIT uses does put the onus on all universities that accept to explain how they are not surrendering academic freedom and institutional independence,” Cantwell wrote.
Some lawmakers also applauded MIT for rejecting the compact.
“This is what courage in the face of authoritarianism looks like. No university should take Trump’s bribe & surrender their integrity—bending the knee to a bully only feeds the beast & puts ALL our rights at risk,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, wrote in a post on X. He encouraged others to follow MIT’s example in rejecting the administration’s demands.
But some Trumpworld figures hinted that there may be retaliation ahead for MIT.
“It’s time for MIT to be held accountable for their noncompliance. We have a pending lawsuit,” Kenneth L Marcus, a former Department of Education official in the first Trump administration, wrote in a post on X, tagging Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice, who is playing a growing role in the pressure campaign against universities.
