If you thought the Hamas Hokey Pokey was bad, just wait until you see the Poison Ivy Pas de Deux.
Donald Trump didn't limit his cease-fire proposals to Gaza this week. Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported on the White House's efforts to create a blanket approach to enforcing federal policies with universities and colleges that receive federal funding. His team has developed a ten-point plan for compliance that would apply universally, allowing schools to plan for the Trump administration's policies and avoid legal fights and big-ticket lawsuits.
But will Academia comply, revolt, or mark time? That's the big question:
The expansive 10-point memo, dubbed the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” puts forth a wide-ranging set of terms the administration says are intended to elevate university standards and performance. Universities that sign on will get “multiple positive benefits,” including “substantial and meaningful federal grants,” according to a letter addressed to university leaders. ...
The memo demands that schools ban the use of race or sex in hiring and admissions; freeze tuition for five years; cap international undergrad enrollment at 15%; require that applicants take the SAT or a similar test; and quell grade inflation.
That part should get received ... well, not enthusiastically, but with some flexibility. The DEI issues will create the biggest pushback, but the recent Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action make it clear that race-preference policies are doomed anyway. The Trump administration can control international admissions through visa programs anyway, and grade inflation is a scourge that even progressive professors likely lament. Given the rapid increase in tuition over the past several decades, a five-year freeze hardly seems out of place or particularly damaging.
However, other demands won't go down so smoothly at the Poison Ivies and other higher-ed schools:
The compact asks universities to ensure a “vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus” and to bar employees from expressing political views on behalf of their employer, unless the matter affects the school. It seeks to create a more welcoming environment for conservatives, asking colleges to make governance changes and abolish departments that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” ...
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents more than 1,500 presidents of colleges and universities, said he found the idea of a compact troubling, particularly its points regarding political expression and views.
“Who decides if the intellectual environment is vigorous and open-ended? This is not something the federal government should be involved in and adjudicating,” he said. “The implications for free speech are horrifying.”
Horrifying, eh? Perhaps Mitchell should talk with conservative students and faculty to see what horrifying means to them. He'll have to search far and wide for any who will publicly identify as such in the current indoctrination model of Marxist formation, especially in the Humanities, but these days even in the hard sciences. UCLA's medical center is a great example of all these ills, as we have discovered this year. They are fighting a suit for racial discrimination in admissions, had a plagiarism scandal last year, and, most disturbingly, began imposing woke victimology rather than medical science in its curricula.
Nor is this just an observation from the cheap seats. Last month, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) released its annual report that grades universities and colleges on their free speech policies and practices. They surveyed 257 schools, and gave Academia an F overall:
If America’s colleges could earn report cards for free speech friendliness, most would deserve an “F”— and conservative students are increasingly joining their liberal peers in supporting censorship.
The sixth annual College Free Speech Rankings, released today by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and survey partner College Pulse, show a continued decline in support for free speech among all students, but particularly conservatives. Students of every political persuasion show a deep unwillingness to encounter controversial ideas. The survey, which is the most comprehensive look at campus expression in the country, ranked 257 schools based on 68,510 student responses to a wide array of free speech-related questions. ...
Other key findings from the report include:
- 166 of the 257 schools surveyed got an F for their speech climate, while only 11 schools received a speech climate grade of C or higher.
- Only 36% of students said that it was “extremely” or “very” clear that their administration protects free speech on campus.
- A record 1 in 3 students now holds some level of acceptance – even if only “rarely” — for resorting to violence to stop a campus speech.
- 53% of students say that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a difficult topic to discuss openly on campus. On 21 of the campuses surveyed, at least 75% of students said this — including 90% of students at Barnard.
- For the first time ever, a majority of students oppose their school allowing any of the six controversial speakers they were asked about onto campus — three controversial conservative speakers and three controversial liberal ones.
Now, that's "horrifying."
Will this compact address the crisis on college campuses? It's a start, but it's not sufficient. This looks more like a map for barely obligatory compliance in the short run, while marking time until a friendlier administration gets elected. They can avoid punitive actions while still sucking at the federal teat, planning for a return to the status quo ante in 2029 or 2033. They'll likely still attempt to bargain on the edges, creating a Poison Ivy Pas de Deux that will eventually exhaust the resources of the Departments of Education and Justice. That might even happen within this administration, as the compact would allow Trump and his team to shift focus away and target other priorities.
The only real answer to this is to defund Academia entirely, as I wrote two years ago. That would get the federal government out of the supposed speech policing to which Mitchell objects, as well as force these schools to compete on the basis of value-to-cost like any other private business. The Marxist indoctrination may or may not disappear, but the reach of that cult would dramatically drop as students opt for less burdensome options. This compact is well intentioned, but it's just a Band-Aid on a corrupted education industry.
