US Colleges and Trump’s “University Compact”

Last week the Trump administration sent letters to a group of presidents of universities proposing a set of principles that has come to be known as the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” The purpose of the compact is to set forth the minimum standards of conduct and performance that institutions of higher education must meet to benefit from a relationship with the federal government. The compact is not yet final and remains subject to further input and discussion, including from campus leaders.

This sort of proposal is not unusual. For more than 20 years, government mandates on a host of issues — including diversity, discrimination and student discipline — have been welcomed on college campuses because they fit within the prevailing partisan ethos. But this government mandate, intended to promote excellence in core academic pursuits and to protect free speech, is being met with prophesies of doom.
As someone who played a part in the compact’s initial formulation, working alongside an administration working group, I would like to offer what insight I can into the motivation and need for the compact and to address its detractors.

I am the product of and have long believed deeply in the promise of America’s institutions of higher education. At their best, colleges and universities instill curiosity, critical thinking and commitment to bettering ourselves and our communities. American higher education has, moreover, been an engine of opportunity to countless Americans who have acquired the skills to pursue meaningful work, support their families and drive American prosperity.

But the system is broken. Over the past year, I have spoken with countless university presidents, directors and advisers; scholars and academics; and lawmakers, policy experts and activists. The one thing they all agree on is that our university system, which was once one of the nation’s greatest strategic assets, has lost its way.

The evidence is overwhelming: outrageous costs and prolonged indebtedness for students; poor outcomes, with too many students left unable to find meaningful work after graduating; some talented domestic students and scholars have been crowded out of enrollment and employment opportunities by international students; and a high degree of uniformity of thought among faculty members and administrators, which can result in a hostile environment for students with different ideas.

Critics have argued that it is not the place of the federal government to solve these problems. But without government involvement, reform will be difficult. Many colleges and universities, and especially some of the oldest and traditionally prestigious schools, are burdened with archaic governance structures that make self-reform all but impossible. This means that course correction must come from the outside.

Given the enormous investment of taxpayer money, it is appropriate that the federal government be involved. The government should not be using public funds — tens of billions of dollars annually in research funding, to say nothing of student aid — to prop up a system that purports to educate American students and serve the public good but is all too often doing nothing of the sort.

How do colleges and universities demonstrate that they are making decisions and carrying out policies that serve the public good by promoting excellence in their teaching and research? By agreeing to a few common-sense policies laid out in the compact.

These include: selecting students and faculty members based on individual merit instead of group characteristics; holding the line against grade inflation; providing transparency to students about the economic potential of the academic programs on offer; prohibiting discrimination, harassment and intimidation of students; neutrally enforcing “time, place and manner” guidelines for protest activities; refraining from taking institutional positions on political controversies unrelated to a school’s core mission, while encouraging all members of the community to speak out and debate in their personal capacities; reporting and following all applicable rules on foreign contributions; and enrolling and educating primarily American students, so that schools remain U.S. institutions with foreign diversity instead of becoming global institutions that happen to be based in the United States.

These are not politically partisan requirements. It is eminently reasonable for the government to expect all this of schools before providing them with public funds.

Critics have charged that the compact threatens free speech. It does no such thing. It places no constraints on individual speech, nor does it intrude on academic freedom. The compact does require schools not to punish, intimidate or incite violence against conservative ideas. Those are not speech restrictions. They are restrictions on the suppression of speech.

It is also important that colleges and universities remain neutral on hot-button political issues, as the compact requires. As many leading colleges have learned, the alternative is chaos and an environment that stifles rather than promotes individual expression. After all, who speaks for a university in the first place? The president? The provost? The board? Department chairs? When those or other individuals purport to speak on behalf of an entire school or department, those pronouncements chill the speech of students or professors who may think otherwise but who fear reprisal.

No school will be forced to adhere to the compact’s principles of fairness, civility, neutrality and transparency. If schools do not want to be accountable to these requirements, they need not accept federal funding. Ultimately, their commitment to these principles may also serve as a signal to donors, parents and others about which colleges and universities deserve their confidence and support.

With these reforms, America’s institutions of higher education can return to their proper mission. And in so doing, American democracy, ingenuity and prosperity will be ensured for generations to come.