MIT will not sign onto a White House compact that would have provided expedited access to federal grants, in exchange for meeting President Trump’s political priorities.
MIT President Sally Kornbluth announced the decision in a letter Friday to Education Secretary Linda McMahon that she shared with the campus community. MIT is now the first institution to refuse the demands.
“In our view, America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence,” Kornbluth wrote. “In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences. Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.”
The “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” asked nine colleges and universities to meet a variety of demands, from banning the consideration of race and gender in admissions decisions, to requiring undergraduate applicants take the SAT or ACT.
Several of the requirements, Kornbluth wrote, MIT is already meeting. Admissions at the school are “need blind,” meaning ability to pay isn’t taken into account when accepting students. The SAT or ACT is already required for admission.
The compact also required international enrollment be capped at 15% of a college’s undergraduate student body with no more than 5% of students from a single country. Kornbluth said MIT already caps enrollment of international undergraduates at roughly 10%.
She also said MIT will continue to support freedom of expression.
“We must hear facts and opinions we don’t like — and engage respectfully with those with whom we disagree,” she wrote.
MIT’s graduate student union held a press conference on campus Friday cheering Kornbluth’s rejection of the compact. Union president Lauren Chua said the Trump administration is trying to create division on college campuses, particularly between American and international students.
“All of us are classmates and coworkers and so we won’t take bait of tuition freezes or caps on international enrollment,” she said. “Our international co-workers and colleagues are a critical part of our university, and we will continue to defend them in the onslaught of these xenophobic attacks.”
Other public and private universities that received the offer include Vanderbilt, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, University of Southern California, the University of Texas, the University of Arizona, Brown University and the University of Virginia.
The American Association of University Professors is urging colleges not to sign the compact. Ariel White, vice president of MIT’s AAUP chapter, told those at the press conference Friday that other campuses should be wary of the compact and follow in MIT’s footsteps.
“The goal is to leave universities powerless and at the whim of the federal government and of the president personally and to make sure that universities cannot provide any sort of opposition to or simple disagreement with this administration,” she said. “Even if some individual parts of this deal sound OK to you now, you should not sign because it will not end there.”
Correction: An earlier version incorrectly included Harvard as one of the schools that received the compact.