\n<\/p>\n
S<\/span>ticks are bad, but sometimes corruption through carrots is worse. The Trump administration \u2013 after having brutally cut federal funding earlier this year \u2013 is now trying to make nine universities an offer that they seemingly cannot refuse. In exchange for preferential treatment in funding and bonuses like \u201cinvitations to White House events\u201d \u2013 apparently the same logic as a fancy credit card that promises you backstage access at concerts \u2013 the universities are expected to sign a \u201ccompact\u201d with the government. All nine institutions must reject this proposal: 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\u2019s powers to begin with; and it is bound to achieve the opposite of its stated goal of \u201cacademic excellence in higher education\u201d (as opposed to what kind of excellence in education, one is tempted to ask).<\/p>\n Some features of the compact might look reasonable at first sight. No one is against addressing ever-rising tuition fees (never mind that the Republican party at the same time is capping federal loan programs and shoveling money to high-cost private lenders). And some might welcome the Stephen Miller-lite version of xenophobia: capping the number of foreign students at 15% and forcing foreigners to take American \u201ccivics\u201d (it is unclear who would decide the content of lessons \u201cabout how great our country is\u201d).<\/p>\n But the document also functions as a kind of rap sheet for institutions portrayed as single-mindedly focused on discriminating against white males. Formulations like \u201csignatories shall adopt policies prohibiting incitement to violence\u201d would make one believe that, as of now, universities encourage terrorist agitators to run rampant on campus; the demand to \u201ctransform or abolish institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas\u201d suggests that, as of now, anyone saying the wrong thing about abortion is beaten up by progressive vigilantes (never mind the question what it means to treat an idea as such \u201cviolently\u201d).<\/p>\n It is no small irony that one of the strategists of the assault on higher education, May Mailman, charges universities with having committed to a \u201cculture of victimhood\u201d in an interview with the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat; obviously, it is the Trumpist grievance-industrial complex which mass-produces resentment among supposed \u201creal Americans\u201d held down by nefarious liberal elites. For all the talk of fostering open debate, the goal appears to be the creation of safe spaces for the fragile egos of Maga students suffering from universities\u2019 supposed culture of \u201cnegativity\u201d.<\/p>\n The clearest attack on academic freedom consists in the demand to ensure \u201ca broad spectrum of viewpoints \u2026 within every field, department, school, and teaching unit\u201d. Faculty, students \u201cand staff at all levels\u201d will first have to be tested for ideology; once \u201cempirical assessments\u201d have been completed, the diversity of viewpoints judged appropriate will have to be engineered, presumably by a bureaucracy that can also guarantee consistent viewpoints over time (for what if our new conservative colleague starts to hold different views?). In theory, the result would not just be affirmative action for the right, but forcing the economics department to employ Marxists.<\/p>\n To be sure, some Trumpists themselves insist that the government should not be in the business of micromanaging the distribution of political attitudes. But the rejection is not a principled one centered on a proper understanding of academic freedom. It is simply the fear of setting a precedent with what they openly call \u201cpolicing\u201d and one fine day having the Democrats flood universities with leftists.<\/p>\n As with other aspects of Trump\u2019s emerging mafia state, there is no guarantee that those bending the knee will not be bullied again. The government can always come back to universities and accuse them of having violated the agreement (still too many courses in victimhood studies; still too much \u201cviolence\u201d \u2013 as defined by bureaucrats \u2013 vis-a-vis someone\u2019s cherished ideas). The government will also encourage donors to claim back their cash. Since the compact\u2019s criteria are exceedingly vague, those who take the offer will probably overdo compliance.<\/p>\n At the risk of sounding like one of those dreadful self-styled victims: universities are fragile institutions. Many American ones are excellent precisely because people trust each other and cooperate successfully without over-regulation (some Europeans can tell you what it means to be subject to constant assessments \u2013 and how a Soviet-style bureaucracy constantly distracts from research and teaching). Of course there is always plenty of academic infighting, but what the Trumpists are doing is consciously trying to create divisions by setting potential Trump administration collaborators against those determined to resist it. As has become apparent with other autocrats\u2019 assaults on universities, even if institutions escape (sometimes literally, as they have to relocate to other countries) the worst, much damage has been done. This is why the nine universities should not only reject the compact, but also publicly explain what is wrong with it (otherwise they will be immediately charged with wanting to protect their tuition-racket, helping foreigners and \u201cimporting radicalism\u201d to undermine American greatness).<\/p>\n Precisely because they have been losing court cases over free speech and visas for foreign students, Trumpists now <\/strong>seek to entrap universities in a deal that effectively removes the protections of federal law and gives the administration arbitrary power over them. The carrots serve to lure institutions of higher learning into a dark alley where, rather than just waiting with a big stick, the government can put a gun to their heads at any time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sticks are bad, but sometimes corruption through carrots is worse. The Trump administration \u2013 after having brutally cut federal funding earlier this year \u2013 is now trying to make nine universities an offer that they seemingly cannot refuse. In exchange for preferential treatment in funding and bonuses like \u201cinvitations to White House events\u201d \u2013 apparently<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[10497,1052,15888,15889,1468,13691,71,489],"class_list":{"0":"post-26444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-compact","9":"tag-full","10":"tag-janwerner","11":"tag-muller","12":"tag-reject","13":"tag-traps","14":"tag-trumps","15":"tag-universities"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}