Editor’s Note: This is the second installment of Civil Discourse, a column where columnists Helen Nguyen and Addison Walsh share their perspectives on a political story or event covered by The Heights. This second column is a response to “White House asks 9 universities to sign agreement to ensure access to grants and other federal benefits.”
Helen Nyugen:
The federal government is continuing to crack down on the autonomy of higher education, but it’s not working.
On Oct. 1, the Trump administration offered nine colleges preferential funding in exchange for agreeing to comply with a set of conditions. Formally known as the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, the deal was offered to MIT, Brown University, University of Arizona, University of Texas at Austin, University of Virginia, Dartmouth, UPenn, USC, and Vanderbilt.
Nine requirements—or, more aptly, restrictions—were laid out in the compact. Some of the pertinent ones include “equality” in admissions and hiring—meaning the dismantling of equity in the process—restructuring or dissolving units that “punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” It also called for freezing tuition rates for the next five years. waiving tuition for students pursuing the “hard sciences,” and defining gender strictly on the basis of biological sex.
The deadline for colleges to respond was Monday, Oct. 20, and the response was an overwhelming “no.” Seven of the nine institutions declined the offer. UT Austin expressed enthusiasm about participating but has not released a public decision, and Vanderbilt has only committed to providing feedback on the proposal.
Although the offers were sent to these nine universities, the Trump administration appears to be extending the deal to other institutions.
And if the deal were ever to arrive at BC, our immediate answer must be a rejection.
The pinnacle of the BC experience is its liberal arts education—one that embraces the interdisciplinary nature of all areas of study.
The compact—and broader conservative rhetoric—has vilified the humanities as useless for economic progress and tools for perpetuating progressivism that terrorizes conservative principles.
At BC, however, we recognize the importance of educating the whole student, regardless of professional vocations. A comprehensive education shapes well-rounded lawyers, doctors, and engineers. To regard only the hard sciences as beneficial to the public good is to contradict the liberal arts mission.
Additionally, the push for signatories to invest endowments to cover tuition based on major, rather than fortifying need-based financial aid, is not only an odd financial move but against BC’s aim for justice.
The compact stands in opposition to the values of BC’s most crucial identity as a Jesuit institution. The Jesuit tradition is grounded in a service-oriented expression of faith that seeks justice, especially for the poor and marginalized. Marginalized groups remain so because of ignorant government policies and ignorant social conceptions of a people.
The document dismisses this real phenomenon as institutions “treating certain groups as categorically incapable of performing—and therefore in need of preferential treatment.”
According to this ethos, accounting for sex, ethnicity, and nationality, and identity factors in admissions “perpetuates a dangerous badge of inferiority, destroys confidence, and does nothing to identify or solve the most pressing challenges for aspiring young people.”
The inaccessibility of elite institutions and meaningful employment is one of the most pressing challenges for the aspiring young people from diverse backrounds. Which subset of young people does this deal seek to serve?
For BC to shape students whose hearts lean toward service and justice, it must model the same in its administrative processes.
Addison Walsh:
If Boston College were to accept this deal, it would sacrifice its core attributes for the shiny, variable promise of a little more money.
So far, all but one of the universities who received Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” have signaled they will not sign onto the demands in their current format. I applaud these institutions for standing up to an administration that has targeted its foes—or really anyone who did not immediately cave to their wishes—with a vengeance, but I have to wonder how durable this resistance will prove.
What comes next? Some of the schools, while they refused to agree to the proposal as a whole, said that some of the White House’s ideas “deserve thought consideration.” On the administration’s side, senior policy advisor May Mailman—who has spearheaded most of Trump’s education objectives—signaled a willingness to work toward an agreement based on the universities’ feedback.
The White House has already begun to reach out to additional schools, hoping they give the proposal greater consideration.
As we await the administration’s next move, it is worth acknowledging the possibility that BC is invited to enrich its federal funding by endorsing right wing objectives.
Campus protests are rare on the Heights, certainly not the violent scenes “terrorizing college campuses” frequently condemned by the president.
In October, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) rated BC seventh to last for freedom of expression out of 257 U.S. colleges and universities.
Citing the administration’s restriction of Pro-Palestinian demonstrators last winter, FIRE asserted that the University’s expression policies are unfairly vague– granting administrators near complete discretion as to what students can say.
BC’s existing policy stipulates that it may bar student demonstrations that “adversely impact BC’s mission, especially its Jesuit, Catholic dimensions,” is not dissimilar from the compact’s call for schools to enforce a “vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus” by restricting faculty from expressing their political beliefs and punishing those who attack “conservative ideas.”
If Trump officials are looking for a quick win, BC’s muted political environment positions it as a potential ally.
But agreeing to the demands outlined in the compact would be disastrous for its intellectual integrity.
Higher education is not just about boosting our knowledge and career readiness—it develops our capacity for leadership and encourages engaging with the world around us. It seeks to develop critical thinking skills, which are crucial not only to academic discovery but also to informed decision-making in an age of misinformation.
We cultivate these skills through the study of philosophical, historical and literary texts—not just the hard sciences emphasized in the Trump proposal.
We also learn through the very disagreement and open discourse—something BC has struggled with—which the compact seeks to further restrict. BC is known for producing well-rounded, engaged community leaders, but this holistic development will not take place if faculty and peers are encumbered with strict rules on what can be explored and discussed.
The proposed agreement is just the beginning of the White House’s all-out war on colleges and universities.
It is crucial, therefore, that higher education presents a unified front in resisting threats to its independence. If prompted, BC should join its peers in rejecting the Trump compact. Not only does it police free speech and unfairly manipulate federal funding procedure, but it also threatens the very benefits at the core of a BC education.
