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White House Dangles Grant Priority to Nine Universities in Sweeping Campus Policy Compact

The offer pairs grant incentives with Justice Department enforcement to advance a broader bid to remake campus policies through federal leverage.

FILE - Students walk past the "Great Dome" atop Building 10 on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Mass, April 3, 2017. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
FILE - Passers-by walk and ride along a path on the campus of Brown University, in Providence, R.I., Monday, Oct. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
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Students walk past the Faye and Joe Wyatt Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 27, 2023.

Overview

  • Letters sent Oct. 1 ask Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, Penn, USC, MIT, UT Austin, Arizona, Brown and Virginia to consider a 10-point pact that would give them priority for federal grants and White House access.
  • The compact seeks a five-year tuition freeze, bans on using race or sex in admissions and hiring, required SAT/ACT testing, a 15% cap on international undergraduates with no more than 5% from any one country, and adoption of government gender definitions for facilities and sports.
  • Signatories would commit to protecting a “vibrant marketplace of ideas,” including reforming or abolishing units that penalize conservative viewpoints, and to annual anonymous polling of campus communities to assess compliance.
  • Benefits would be enforced by the Justice Department, with violations costing at least a year of access to the compact’s advantages, while non-signers remain eligible for federal funds without priority treatment.
  • Initial reactions include the University of Texas System saying it is honored to be selected as schools review the proposal, as well as sharp pushback from higher-ed leaders and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who threatened to cut state aid to any California university that signs; a decision window reportedly runs to Nov. 21.