Alan Blinder, The New York Times; All but 2 Universities Decline a Trump Offer of Preferential Funding
"Seven of the nine universities that the White House initially approached about a plan to steer more federal money toward schools aligned with President Trump’s priorities have refused to endorse the proposal.
On Monday evening, an eighth signaled that it had reservations about it.
Only one, the University of Texas, suggested it might be open to signing on quickly."
Alan Blinder, The New York Times ; Universities Are Standing Up to Trump
"For months, his campaign faced only sporadic resistance. But over the last week, Brown University, M.I.T., the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California have all rebuffed the White House’s push to give preferential funding treatment to schools that show fealty to Mr. Trump’s agenda.
Brown’s decision, in particular, is a case study of how the White House may have misjudged its own strength and academia’s nerve, especially once one of Mr. Trump’s top aides said that the nine schools initially chosen to consider the proposal were “good actors,” or could be...
Previously, Harvard had been the only school to defy the Trump administration so openly, refusing a list of demands intrusive enough that even some of the university’s critics said the school had no feasible choice but to balk. Harvard sued soon after and won a crucial ruling last month.
The schools that have rejected the government’s compact may very well be risking Washington’s wrath since Mr. Trump has proved willing to attack the federal funding of schools that his administration disfavors. But the compact represents both an effort to immunize the administration’s efforts from court challenges and to take its ambitions well beyond a single school.
The demands also reach farther, with conditions that include accepting “that academic freedom is not absolute” and pledging to potentially shut down “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”"
, The Daily Beast; Republican Praises School for Turning Down Trump ‘Bribe’
"“The surest way to screw up the world’s best technical school is to let feds tell them how to run it,” Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie wrote on X. “Congrats to my alma mater for turning down a bribe to let the executive branch dictate what happens on its campus. A lot of things are wrong in [the U.S.], but MIT is not one of them.”"
Kimmy Yam, NBC News ; MIT is first school to reject Trump administration's agenda in exchange for funding benefits
"The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Friday became the first school to reject an offer of federal funds in exchange for agreeing to the Trump administration's education agenda.
MIT disagreed with a number of aspects of the administration's proposal, which was sent to nine major universities last week, arguing that it would restrict the university's freedom of expression and independence, Sally Kornbluth, president of the Cambridge-based school, wrote in a letter Friday to the Department of Education.
“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,” Kornbluth wrote. “Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.”"
