\n<\/p>\n
Kornbluth said \u201cthe premise of the document is inconsistent\u201d with MIT\u2019s values.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Photo illustration by Justin Morrison\/Inside Higher Ed | Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images | Nate Hovee\/iStock\/Getty Images | MIT<\/p>\n The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has rejected the Trump administration\u2019s proposal to sign on to the \u201cCompact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,\u201d which would mandate sweeping changes across campus in exchange for preferential treatment on federal funding.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n \u201cThese values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent. We freely choose these values because they\u2019re right, and we live by them because they support our mission\u2014work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health and security of the United States. And of course, MIT abides by the law,\u201d Kornbluth wrote.<\/p>\n She also noted that MIT disagreed with a number of the demands in the letter, arguing that it \u201cwould restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution\u201d and that \u201cthe premise of the document is inconsistent\u201d with MIT\u2019s belief that funding should be based on merit.<\/p>\n \u201cIn our view, America\u2019s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence,\u201d Kornbluth wrote. \u201cIn 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Neither the White House nor the Department of Education responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n While MIT is the first institution to outright reject the compact, others have indicated they may be leaning that way. <\/p>\n Dartmouth president Sian Leah Beilock, for example, issued a statement last week saying she was \u201cdeeply committed to Dartmouth\u2019s academic mission and values and will always defend our fierce independence.\u201d The university \u201cwill never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves,\u201d she wrote. While some observers have read Beilock\u2019s statement as a rejection of the compact, Dartmouth spokesperson Jana Barnello rebutted that notion.<\/p>\n Barnello told Inside Higher Ed<\/em> by email that deliberations continue as administrators are \u201cengaging with faculty across the university through Dartmouth\u2019s shared governance framework and working closely with the Board of Trustees.\u201d<\/p>\n Officials in Texas\u2014where concerns about academic freedom and political interference in the classroom are surging\u2014have publicly welcomed the idea. UT system Board of Regents chairman Kevin P. Eltife, a former Republican lawmaker, wrote in an Oct.\u00a02 statement that the university was \u201chonored\u201d to be among the nine institutions \u201cselected by the Trump Administration for potential funding advantages\u201d and the board looked forward to \u201creviewing the compact immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n Some state government officials are aiming to make the university\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Boards for both the UT system and UVA are heavily stocked with GOP donors and figures.<\/p>\n MIT\u2019s rejection of the compact prompted celebration in academic circles.<\/p>\n \u201cI am proud to say that MIT has rejected Trump\u2019s poison compact,\u201d American Association of University Professors president Todd Wolfson wrote on Bluesky shortly after the news broke.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s action changes \u201cthe calculus\u201d for the other eight universities. <\/p>\n \u201cThe language MIT uses does put the onus on all universities that accept to explain how they are not surrendering academic freedom and institutional independence,\u201d Cantwell wrote.<\/p>\n Some lawmakers also applauded MIT for rejecting the compact.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what courage in the face of authoritarianism looks like. No university should take Trump\u2019s bribe & surrender their integrity\u2014bending the knee to a bully only feeds the beast & puts ALL our rights at risk,\u201d Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, wrote in a post on X. He encouraged others to follow MIT\u2019s example in rejecting the administration\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n But some Trumpworld figures hinted that there may be retaliation ahead for MIT.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s time for MIT to be held accountable for their noncompliance. We have a pending lawsuit,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kornbluth said \u201cthe premise of the document is inconsistent\u201d with MIT\u2019s values.\u00a0 Photo illustration by Justin Morrison\/Inside Higher Ed | Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images | Nate Hovee\/iStock\/Getty Images | MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has rejected the Trump administration\u2019s proposal to sign on to the \u201cCompact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,\u201d which would mandate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[10497,319,9413,1679,7559],"class_list":{"0":"post-27289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-compact","9":"tag-federal","10":"tag-mit","11":"tag-proposed","12":"tag-rejects"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27289","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=27289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Where Do Others Stand?<\/h2>\n
Reactions Pour In<\/h2>\n