Archives for category: Academic Freedom
« Older Entries

Viktor Orban’s Best Friends: Trump and Putin

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2026 //
14

A very important election takes place on Sunday. Hungarians will vote whether to keep Viktor Orban or to replace him with Peter Magyar, leader of the center-right party Tisza. The latest polls show Magyar leading Orban’s Fidesz party. The election is close, and there are many undecided voters.

Orban is a favorite of Trump and his MAGA base. He is also admired by Putin because he has been a disruptive force within NATO, blocking aid for Ukraine. Orban has fascist tendencies: he has clamped down of freedom of the press and expressed hostility to immigrants. He has a special hatred for gays.

JD Vance visited Hungary this week to convert support for Orban’s “illiberal democracy.”

In this post in The American Prospect, editor-at-large Harold Meyerson describes what is at stake in Sunday’s election in Hungary.

The friends of Viktor Orbán

Trump and Putin, Bibi and Tucker Carlson, thug-ocrats of all nations flock to Orbán’s banner.

If you wanted to find some way to cluster in a single room the individuals who pose a genuine threat to liberal freedoms, egalitarian values, and scientific epistemology, you might want to call a meeting of the Viktor Orbán fan club. There, Donald Trump would rub elbows with Vladimir Putin, JD Vance with Xi Jinping, Tucker Carlson with—yes—Bibi Netanyahu. Orbán, whose longtime rule over Hungary is threatened by Sunday’s election there, is uniquely positioned at the center of a set of overlapping Venn diagrams representing every xenophobic, obscurantist, homophobic, ethno-nationalist, and anti-democratic thug either currently in power or maneuvering to get there.

Right now, the two major players working to save Orbán from defeat on Sunday are Trump and Putin. Ukraine, Schmukraine: Both see in Orbán a fellow immigrant-hater, who, like them, has walled off his borders, seized control of his nation’s judiciary, created (through the miracle of kleptocracy) a new oligarchic elite devoted to bolstering his rule, taken control of the news media (both public and private), turned education into indoctrination, banished an entire university endowed by George Soros (whose legacy includes bringing down Putin’s beloved USSR and backing anti-Trump candidates and initiatives), served as Putin and Trump’s inside operator to undermine the European Union, mobilized homophobia when it’s been politically useful, and done his damnedest to curtail freedom of speech. Is it any wonder that Putin’s agents have tried to rig the upcoming election in his favor, or that MAGA culture warriors have rushed to bolster his cause because he’s demonstrated that even partial authoritarianism can impede the woke and exile the empiricists? Is it any wonder that Vance was stumping for him in Budapest last weekend as a way to solidify his own support from the American MAGAnauts whose affection he needs to rekindle? Is it any wonder that Trump himself has endorsed Orbán, or that Putin sees him as his man inside the EU?

Idolizing Orbán is also the common thread linking Tucker Carlson, who probably has done more to promote Orbán to MAGA conservatives than anyone else, and Bibi Netanyahu, who sent a message last month to the MAGA faithful attending their annual CPAC conference in Budapest, hailing Orbán as a leader who can “protect against this rising tide” of Islamic terrorism. “Viktor Orbán,” he added, “means safety, security, stability.” If that didn’t suffice, Yair Netanyahu, Bibi’s son, traveledto that Budapest conference to echo his father’s endorsement.

Orbán has emerged as a kind of Jeffrey Epstein of geopolitics. Just as Epstein managed to assemble a mind-boggling assortment of elites in the cause of sex with underaged girls, so Orbán has also brought together an equivalently mind-boggling assortment of elites in the cause of ethno-nationalistic anti-liberalism—a cause, clearly, that can unite communists and capitalists, Jews and antisemites.


The Trump-Orbán lovefest is nothing new. Orbán has endorsed Trump in all three of his presidential campaigns, and last October, Trump rewarded him by exempting Hungary from the sanctions his administration has placed on nations buying Russian oil and gas. Trump later made clear that this agreement was specifically between him and Orbán; were Orbán not re-elected (the most recent polls show him trailing his opponent by roughly ten percentage points), Trump made clear there was no guarantee that he would continue to honor it.

But Orbán’s ties to America’s Christian nationalists go beyond Trump’s “what’s in it for me?” ethos. When a number of Hungary’s European neighbors were welcoming Muslim refugees a decade ago, Orbán built barricades on the borders and made clear that Muslims were not welcome. While endorsing Orbán during his drop-in to Budapest, Vance said he’d come there “because of the moral cooperation between our two countries,” that each was engaged in a “defense of Western civilization” based on their common adherence to “Christian civilization and Christian values.”

As even the most cursory course in Hungarian history can make clear, one of the nation’s defining Christian values has long been antisemitism. Imagine the kind of 20th-century Silicon Valley that Hungary could have cultivated had it not compelled such Jewish scientific and mathematical geniuses as John von Neumann, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, Edward Teller, and Theodore von Kármán to leave their homeland in their late teens or early twenties. Imagine how many more Hungarian Jews would have survived the Holocaust had Hungarian Christians not been steeped in antisemitism well before the Gestapo arrived.

“Will you stand for freedom, truth, and the God of our fathers?” Vance concluded. “Then, my friends, go to the polls and stand for Viktor Orbán.”

But, hey: If Bibi is willing to overlook such incidents, who am I to cavil?

Of course, there have always been lots of Hungarians who never cottoned to Orbán, the God of their fathers notwithstanding. Like most big, cosmopolitan cities, Budapest has been a bastion of anti-Orbán sentiment, favorably disposed to the arts and sciences; his support, like that of most Christian nationalist leaders, is disproportionately rural and parochial. But the redistribution of Hungarian wealth and income to the oligarch class that Orbán has created has apparently taken a political toll even among some longtime Orbánistas—much as its American equivalent seems to be taking a political toll on Republicans here in the States.

JD Vance was right: Illiberal kleptocratic Christian nationalism is on the ballot in Hungary this Sunday, just as it will be on the ballots that Americans will cast in November. Here and there, may it be massively repudiated.


Harold Meyerson
Editor-at-Large

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Immigration, International

A Song About Trump’s Education Policies: “We Believe in Local Control”

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2026 //
4

A good way to start off April Fool’s Day is by listening to this song by a group of young people in Colorado. The lyrics were written by Kevin Welner and are posted at the website of the National Education Policy Center.

The Trump regime says clearly “We believe in local control.” Except when they don’t.

Trump has issued executive orders about what may or may not be taught. Trump’s executive order #14253, signed on March 27, 2025, was titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” What it meant in practice was to censor any teaching or displays that showed the shameful aspects of American history, and to focus instead on “patriotic history.”

Trump has launched a campaign to oust diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as gender studies, African-American studies, and studies of other groups.

Trump has tried to seize control of institutions of higher education institutions by falsely accusing them of anti-Semitism. He has sought to control the admission of students, the curriculum, and the hiring of faculty.

Trump has taken institutions of higher education hostage by withholding or cancelling billions of dollars for research into medicine and science unless they turned control over to the federal government.

But, as the song says, “We believe in local control!”

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Curriculum, Democracy, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Health, Higher Education, Lies, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

International Report: Democracy in the USA is in Jeopardy

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2026 //
2

The Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg in Gothenburg, Sweden, publishes an annual report on the state of democracy around the world. In the recently published report, the authors made clear that democracy in the world is in retreat. Nowhere has it declined as dramatically as in the United States.

A special section of the report is focused on the United States. Under Trump, democracy in the USA is under attack. The President has centralized power in his office. The Republican-dominated Congress has ceded almost all of its Constitutional powers to Trump. The word “almost” may be an overstatement, as it’s difficult to remember an issue when Congress said no to a Presidential power grab.

The V-DEM report begins its special section about the “autocratization” of power in the United States:

*Under Trump’s presidency, the level of democracy in the USA has fallen back to the same level as in 1965.

Yet the situation is fundamentally different than during the Civil Rights era. In 2025, the derailment of democracy is marked by executive overreach undermining the rule of law, along with far-reaching suppression and intimidation of media and dissenting voices.

*The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history.

*Legislative Constraints – the worst affected aspect of democracy – is losing one-third of its value in 2025 and reaching its lowest point in over 100 years.

*Civil Rights and Equality before the Law are also rapidly declining, falling to late 1960s levels.

*Freedom of Expression is now at its lowest level since the end of WWII.

*Electoral components of democracy remain stable. Election-specific indicators are re-assessed only in electoral years, and the 2025 scores are based on the quality of the 2024 elections.

The scale and speed of autocratization under the Trump administration are unprecedented in modern times. Within one year, the USA’s LDI score has declined by 24%; its world rank dropped from 20th to 51st place out of 179 nations. The level of democracy on the LDI is dwindling to 1965 level – the year that most regard as the start of a real, modern democracy in the USA.

Yet the deficiencies of American democracy today are fundamentally different from that of the Civil Rights era. As the V-Dem data and other evidence below show, the autocratization now is marked by executive overreach, alongside attacks on the press, academia, civilliberties, and dissenting voices.

The Most Dramatic Decline in American History

In 2023, the USA scored 0.79 on the LDI – shortly before the 2024 election year when first deteriorations were registered. The scores plummeted to 0.57 in 2025 (Figure 22). With such a sharp drop on the LDI, the level of democracy at the end of 2025 is back to the 1965 level. Symbolically, that is the year that most analysts consider the USA began its transition to a real democracy.

Democracy in the USA is now at its worst in 60 years. We are not alone in this assessment. Professor Steven Levitsky at Harvard University says the regime in the USA is now some type of authoritarianism. The Century Foundation argues that “American democracy is already collapsing…”

By magnitude of decline on the LDI, the 2025 plunge is the largest one-year drop in American history going back to 1789 – that is, in the entire period covered by V-Dem data. Only Trump 1.0 compares, when the LDI in the USA fell from 0.85 to 0.73 in four years, bringing the country back to its 1976 level and far below the regional average (Figure 22). American democracy survived Trump 1.0 but did not recover fully.

One notable shift is the transformation of the Republican Party to endorsing a far-right, nationalist, and anti-pluralist agenda. Nationalist, anti-liberal, far-right parties and leaders have largely driven the “third waveof autocratization.” Yet the USA stands out as the only case where such movement seized control over one party in a rigid two-party system.

Please open the link and read the report to review the sources and to understand how dramatically democracy has been undercut during the first year of Trump’s second term.

The Founding Fathers thought they had written a Constitution that would prevent the rise of tyranny. They were wrong.

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Environment, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, For-Profit, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, Health, Privatization, Separation of church and state, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: How Fascists Gain Power

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2026 //
2

Heather Cox Richardson obtained a pamphlet written during World War II for our troops overseas. Its purpose was to explain the tactics of fascists: how they gain power, how they lie to distort reality, how they use hatred to divide and conquer.

The pamphlet is insightful, incisive, and remarkably relevant to the world we live in now.

What we are learning is that “It can happen here.” We must arm ourselves with knowledge to preserve our democracy.

She writes:

Beginning in 1943, the War Department published a series of pamphlets for U.S. Army personnel in the European theater of World War II. Titled Army Talks, the series was designed “to help [the personnel] become better-informed men and women and therefore better soldiers.”

On March 24, 1945, the topic for the week was “FASCISM!”

“You are away from home, separated from your families, no longer at a civilian job or at school and many of you are risking your very lives,” the pamphlet explained, “because of a thing called fascism.” But, the publication asked, what is fascism? “Fascism is not the easiest thing to identify and analyze,” it said, “nor, once in power, is it easy to destroy. It is important for our future and that of the world that as many of us as possible understand the causes and practices of fascism, in order to combat it.”

Fascism, the U.S. government document explained, “is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state.” “The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.”

“The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires; hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law.” “Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the church,’ was the Nazi slogan for women,” the pamphlet said.

Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose…. They maintain themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by false promise of security. The propaganda glorifies war and insists it is smart and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.”

Fascists understood that “the fundamental principle of democracy—faith in the common sense of the common people—was the direct opposite of the fascist principle of rule by the elite few,” it explained, “[s]o they fought democracy…. They played political, religious, social, and economic groups against each other and seized power while these groups struggled.”

Americans should not be fooled into thinking that fascism could not come to America, the pamphlet warned; after all, “[w]e once laughed Hitler off as a harmless little clown with a funny mustache.” And indeed, the U.S. had experienced “sorry instances of mob sadism, lynchings, vigilantism, terror, and suppression of civil liberties. We have had our hooded gangs, Black Legions, Silver Shirts, and racial and religious bigots. All of them, in the name of Americanism, have used undemocratic methods and doctrines which…can be properly identified as ‘fascist.’”

The War Department thought it was important for Americans to understand the tactics fascists would use to take power in the United States. They would try to gain power “under the guise of ‘super-patriotism’ and ‘super-Americanism.’” And they would use three techniques:

First, they would pit religious, racial, and economic groups against one another to break down national unity. Part of that effort to divide and conquer would be a “well-planned ‘hate campaign’ against minority races, religions, and other groups.”

Second, they would deny any need for international cooperation, because that would fly in the face of their insistence that their supporters were better than everyone else. “In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations.”

Third, fascists would insist that “the world has but two choices—either fascism or communism, and they label as ‘communists’ everyone who refuses to support them.”

It is “vitally important” to learn to spot native fascists, the government said, “even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal, drape themselves with the American flag, and attempt to carry out their program in the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy.”

The only way to stop the rise of fascism in the United States, the document said, “is by making our democracy work and by actively cooperating to preserve world peace and security.” In the midst of the insecurity of the modern world, the hatred at the root of fascism “fulfills a triple mission.” By dividing people, it weakens democracy. “By getting men to hate rather than to think,” it prevents them “from seeking the real cause and a democratic solution to the problem.” By falsely promising prosperity, it lures people to embrace its security.

“Fascism thrives on indifference and ignorance,” it warned. Freedom requires “being alert and on guard against the infringement not only of our own freedom but the freedom of every American. If we permit discrimination, prejudice, or hate to rob anyone of his democratic rights, our own freedom and all democracy is threatened.”

—

Notes:

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=armytalks

War Department, “Army Talk 64: FASCISM!” March 24, 1945, at https://archive.org/details/ArmyTalkOrientationFactSheet64-Fascism/mode/2up

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Courage, Cruelty, Democracy, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, History

Harvard President Blames Faculty Activism for Repression of Free Speech

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2026 //
12

Harvard University’s President Alan Garber said in a recent discussion that faculty activism in their classes chilled students’ free speech and created a repressive climate on campus.

An article in The Harvard Crimson reported on President Garber’s comments.

Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 said the University “went wrong” by allowing professors to inject their personal views into the classroom, arguing that faculty activism had chilled free speech and debate on campus.

In rare and unusually candid remarks on a podcast released on Tuesday, Garber appeared to tie many of higher education’s oft-cited ills — namely, a dearth of tolerance and free debate — to a culture that permits, and at times encourages, professors to foreground their identity and perspectives in teaching.

“How many students would actually be willing to go toe-to-toe against a professor who’s expressed a firm view about a controversial issue?” he said.

The remarks mark Garber’s most explicit public acknowledgement that faculty practices have contributed to a breakdown in open discourse on campus — and that he is committed to backtracking toward neutrality in the classroom…

Though Garber has carved some exceptions to the policy — notably when he, in his personal capacity, condemned a Palestine Solidarity Committee post marking the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack — he has increasingly emphasized restraint, particularly in the classroom.

“I’m pleased to say that I think there is real movement to restore balance in teaching and to bring back the idea that you really need to be objective in the classroom,” he said….

In his responses, Garber echoed the sentiment of a Faculty of Arts and Sciences reportreleased last January, which affirmed professors’ right to “extramural speech” but warned that instructors must proactively encourage disagreement in the classroom to avoid alienating students…

Instead of relying primarily on punishment, Garber touted changes to University orientations — including the addition of a module on discussing controversial topics — alongside the expansive reports produced by Harvard’s twin task forces on combating bias toward Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian affiliates.

“It’s about learning how to listen and how to speak in an empathetic way,” he said.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Democracy, Ethics, Freedom of Speech

Three More Universities Reject Trump’s “Compact”

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2025 //
8

It seems that universities have a stronger spine than large law firms or media conglomerates.

Trump offered nine prestigious universities a deal: Adopt the Trumpian rightwing policies and you won’t have any difficulty getting federal funds in the future.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was first to say no. In the past few days, three more universities told Linda McMahon, wrestling entrepreneur, that they would not sign the “Compact.”

Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California said no. No way. Our academic freedom and independence from federal control are not for sale.

Good for them!

Categories Academic Freedom, Higher Education, Trump

MIT’s President Rejects Trump “Compact” to Abandon Academic Freedom

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2025 //
9

The U.S. Department of Education invited 9 eminent universities to join a “compact” in which they would adopt Trump priorities in exchange for assurances of future federal funding. Trump priorities include abolishing any efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion; assuring that rightwing views are accorded equal time; and agreeing that students would be admitted solely by merit (i.e. test scores). This “compact” means intrusion of the federal government into the internal decision-making of the university.

The first institution to respond was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its president Dr. Sally Kornbluth, a cell biologist, wrote this letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, a wrestling entrepreneur:

Regarding the Compact

October 10, 2025

Sally Kornbluth, President

Dear members of the MIT community, 

The U.S. Department of Education recently sent MIT and eight other institutions a proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” along with a letter asking that MIT review the document.

From the messages I’ve received, I know this is on the minds of many of you and that you care deeply about the Institute’s mission, its values and each other. I do too. 

After considerable thought and consultation with leaders from across MIT, today I sent the following reply to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon. 

Sincerely,
Sally Kornbluth

Dear Madam Secretary,

I write in response to your letter of October 1, inviting MIT to review a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” I acknowledge the vital importance of these matters.

I appreciated the chance to meet with you earlier this year to discuss the priorities we share for American higher education.

As we discussed, the Institute’s mission of service to the nation directs us to advance knowledge, educate students and bring knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges. We do that in line with a clear set of values, with excellence above all. Some practical examples:

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.

The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.

In our view, America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence. 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.

As you know, MIT’s record of service to the nation is long and enduring. Eight decades ago, MIT leaders helped invent a scientific partnership between America’s research universities and the U.S. government that has delivered extraordinary benefits for the American people. We continue to believe in the power of this partnership to serve the nation.

Sincerely,
Sally Kornbluth

cc
Ms. May Mailman
Mr. Vincent Haley

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Ethics, Higher Education, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

M.I.T. Rejects Trump “Compact” That Offers Federal Money for Academic Freedom

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2025 //
13

The Trump administration used a threat to try to cow leading universities to abandon their independence. The administration called their offer a “Compact,” but in reality it was an offer of protection money. The old way of the Mafia: “Pay us and we will make sure no one breaks your windows or vandalizes your store.”

Vimal Patel of The New York Times reported:

M.I.T. became the first university to reject an agreement that would trade support for the Trump administration’s higher education agenda in exchange for favorable treatment.

The proposal, called the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” was sent to nine universities and would require colleges to cap international student enrollment, freeze tuition for five years, adhere to definitions of gender and prohibit anything that would “belittle” conservative ideas.

In a letter on Friday to the Trump administration, M.I.T.’s president, Sally Kornbluth, wrote that the university has already freely met or exceeded many of the standards outlined in the proposal, but that she disagrees with other requirements it demands, including those that would restrict free expression.

“Fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone,” Dr. Kornbluth wrote.

A White House spokeswoman, Liz Huston, said in a statement that “any university that refuses this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform higher education isn’t serving its students or their parents — they’re bowing to radical, left-wing bureaucrats.”

“The best science can’t thrive in institutions that have abandoned merit, free inquiry, and the pursuit of truth,” she added. “President Trump encourages universities to join us in restoring academic excellence and common sense policies.”

The White House has said it wants responses from the universities by Oct. 20. The other eight colleges are the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia.

The compacts have been deeply unpopular among faculty members, who view them as yet another political intrusion into the affairs of academia. They argue that the Trump administration is threatening the independence of American higher education by cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding to force top universities to adopt its agenda.

Categories Academic Freedom, Corruption, Higher Education, Trump

The Trump Cabal’s “Compact” to Stamp Out Academic Freedom

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2025 //
1

Our reader Christine Langhoff discovered an excellent analysis of the “compact” that the Trump administration has offered to several universities. A “compact” usually refers to an equitable agreement between two parties. The Trump “compact” is a harsh threat: sign or die.

Christine writes:

Here’s UCLA Law professor Joseph Fishkin on the so-called compact the administration want universities to accept.

Any lawyer—really, any careful reader—who makes it through even the first paragraph of the document can see that this is incorrect. The “compact” is quite explicit: Universities that do not sign on to this thing thereby “elect[] to forego federal benefits.” What benefits? Well, that same first paragraph lists quite a few specific “benefits”: “(i) access to student loans, grant programs, and federal contracts; (ii) funding for research directly or indirectly; (iii) approval of student and other visas in connection with university matriculation and instruction; and (iv) preferential treatment under the tax code,” which means 501(c)(3) status. This compact is a “reward” in exactly the same sense that it is “rewarding” to purchase protection from the Mafia. The compact is an open, explicit threat.

It nonetheless does represent a tactical shift on the part of the Trump Administration. The Trump team’s goal has not changed. They want an unprecedented—and flagrantly unconstitutional—degree of government oversight and control over American universities. So far they are having some trouble obtaining it. Their initial strategy, to roll up the sector from the top, starting with Harvard, through bespoke negotiated dealmaking with individual schools, has turned out to be slower going—and I suspect, simply more labor-intensive—than I am guessing they expected. (I use the rollup metaphor to evoke how a monopolist takes over a sector by buying out one firm after another, gaining more leverage over holdouts as they go. So far it has not worked.) Meanwhile, federal district courts have dealt a series of significant blows to the government’s ability to, for example, arbitrarily withdraw federal scientific research grants. So the administration is pivoting to a new tactic, which seems to be to roll up the higher ed sector from what you might call the upper middle. Instead of starting at the very top with the high-stakes confrontation with Harvard and working their way down, the new tactical approach is to start with whichever prestigious schools seem likeliest—for various reasons—to be amenable to the government’s overtures. It is no accident that many of the schools May Mailman’s team first approached about this “compact” have interim presidents, who are inherently weak, sometimes because a prior president was successfully forced out through political agitation by the right.

https://balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-art-of-replacing-law-with-deal.html

Categories Academic Freedom, Censorship, Democracy, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Higher Education, Trump

Trump Adminstration Asks MIT to Abandon Academic Freedom to Secure Funding

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2025 //
7

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/04/business/white-house-university-compact-mit/

The new conditions for federal funding the Trump administration offered to MIT put the school in a no-win situation, people on the Cambridge campus and throughout academia said Friday: Agree to the federal government’s terms and surrender some academic freedom, or refuse and risk further punishment.

The White House’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” — sent to MIT and eight other top-tier universitiesthis week — ties access to federal money to a string of conditions that, if agreed to, would effectuate the most substantial changes MIT has seen to date and fundamentally transform an economic powerhouse of Greater Boston. 

The 10-point document asks the list of schools — which also includes Brown and Dartmouth — to cap international student enrollment, freeze domestic tuition rates for five years, and commit to strict definitions of gender. Some of those requests, such as reducing tuition and the number of international students, are popular with many Americans. But others, including one to limit the speech of university employees, strike at the heart of freedom and independence that universities have long prized.

While MIT declined to comment, on campus and in academia, there doesn’t appear to be much inclination to make a deal with the White House.

The offer amounts to “a loyalty oath to the federal government,” said Catherine D’Ignazio, an MIT professor of urban studies and planning. 

MIT and other schools face new set of demands from White House.

“They’re asking us to sacrifice science. They’re asking us to sacrifice international students. They’re asking us to sacrifice our trans students. They’re asking us to sacrifice our whole idea of shared governance,” D’Ignazio said. “No amount of money is worth that great long list.”

The mandate also says that universities should transform or abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” That’s troubling, said Tyler Coward lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, because it conflates allowing speech with condoning violence.

“This mandate basically forces these institutions to remain silent in order to secure some government benefit,” Coward said. “I think that is a problem, a First Amendment problem.”

MIT is free to decline, the administration wrote in the compact, but doing so would mean the institution “elects to forgo federal benefits” that power much of the school’s vast research operations, spurring innovations and paychecks that ripple across Greater Boston and around the globe.

MIT is the birthplace for countless startup companies, forms the backbone of Kendall Square, and serves as a first landing place for many students — roughly 30 percent of whom come from abroad — who stay and build careers in Massachusetts. 

MIT’s endowment is heavily invested in Kendall Square real estate. Here’s why that could be a problem.

Federal money plays a key role in seeding all that. Last year, MIT collected $648 million in government funding for sponsored activities, including research, which federal agenciescould simply choose to award elsewhere.

The provisions in the compact, said Sandy Baum, a higher education finance expert with the think tank The Urban Institute, amount to “dramatic requests” of MIT from a dollars-and-cents perspective. 

MIT is already bracing for a $300 million reduction in its central budget from the newfound 8 percent tax on its endowment and potential losses of federal science funding that powers much of its massive research arm, university administrators said in a September staff forum. (A recording of the meeting was reviewed by the Globe.) 

In the spring, MIT saved roughly $100 million by freezing hiring and instituting a 5 percent cut to department budgets. It plans to close the remaining $200 million gap by terminating some real estate leases and seeking outside private funding for some academic priorities, including climate change, life sciences, and artificial intelligence, according to details shared at the staff forum. Administrators said that they may also withhold merit raises for employees next year. 

“We do need to treat the $300 million amount as a permanent burden on the central budget that requires a permanent budgetary solution,” Glen Shor, MIT’s executive vice president and treasurer said at the September meeting. “Even if power at some point changes hands in Washington, we can’t count on these policies being reversed.”

Meanwhile, signing onto the compact could impact the number of international students at MIT, who make up around 10 percent of its undergraduate population — less than the limit set in the agreement. (Around 40 percent of MIT graduate students are from abroad.) Many international students pay full price to attend MIT, which can cost nearly $90,000 between tuition, housing, and other expenses. MIT would also pledge to cover the cost of attendance for all students studying hard sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and biology. 

“If [MIT] had to freeze tuition and limit [the] number of international students, that would be a huge hit,” said Baum, the university finance expert. 

Multiple MIT student organizations signed a letter Friday asking MIT to “firmly refuse” to sign the document, claiming that “accepting such a compact would effectively destroy the institutional culture of MIT as we know it.”

Nadia Zaragova, a material sciences PhD student and vice president of the graduate student union, said it would give the federal government “undue oversight over what we do here at the university, including our classrooms, what we study, what we research.”

And Governor Maura Healey, who has proposed $400 million in state funding to help make up for lost federal funds to Massachusetts universities, urged MIT to stand strong, describing the White House offer as “yet another attempt by President Trump to silence speech.”

MIT supporters note the university has already taken up some measures pushed by the Trump administration, including winding down its Institute Community and Equity Office and taking disciplinary actions against students — including a commencement speaker — who participate in pro-Palestinian protests. 

Indeed, MIT was chosen among the schools who received the compact because they are seen as “good actors,” according to May Mailman, senior adviser for special projects at the White House.

“They have a president who is a reformer or a board that has really indicated they are committed to a higher-quality education,” she said to The Wall Street Journal. 

But Ian Hutchinson, an MIT emeritus professor and co-president of its Council of Academic Freedom, said that even those in favor of those moves have sour feelings about the new offer from the administration. 

“Many of us on the council think that the modern academy needs to reform and [is] beginning to do so and that the compact has the risk of alienating a large fraction of the faculty,” he said. 

Others fear that some professors could leave entirely, should the school sign onto the compact. 

A better approach, Hutchinson added, would be if “the government makes clear what it is interested in funding in the way of research and what it is not interested in funding.”

The compact also frames preserving “single-sex spaces” such as bathrooms and locker rooms as necessary for “women’s equality” and stipulates institutions must commit to defining gender “according to reproductive function and biological processes.”

Mila Halgren, an MIT postdoctoral associate, said including such language is an affront to what the values of American higher education should be. 

“In a personal capacity, every moment MIT even considers this compact is a betrayal of every marginalized group on campus,” she said. “That MIT did not immediately reject a proposal which defines trans people out of existence is shameful.”

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Democracy, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, Funding, Gender, Higher Education, Trump
« Older Entries