Trump wants to monitor speech of American universities. Libertarians are silent

I haven't moved a thing. I am simply telling you what the response is at the level of higher education administration

 

Libertarians are busy dealing with the big JADE HELM fallout from Obama

They'll get around to the fascist takeover of government, invasion of US cities by govt paramilitary & suspension of the Bill of Rights eventually... It's just been a busy time.

Sometimes the 1st - 5th amendments get abrogated and you don't notice because crypto, or something

 

you're missing my point. Funding has strings attached, again as I've said, ALL THE TIME. There is no difference in principle between what universities have had to deal with in the past eight months and this "compact" now. The terms are negotiable; smart administrators and university presidents who are good at these negotiations rarely make the evening news.

You folks are dealing with the specifics of this specific compact with nine schools. I am making the far more general point, again, that funding agencies set funding requirements ALL the time.

 

BLACK HELICOPTERS WHIIIIIRRRRR

 

always hilarious

 

Setting funding requirements is not new. That isn't the issue that I've seen anyone raise. The specific requirements which are a threat to free speech are the issue.

 

Funding always has conditions - but not all conditions are equal. There's a huge difference between "report your spending" and "restrict what your students can say." One is administrative oversight, the other is speech policing.

About DEI statements: Even accepting your framing that they were ideological tests, you're contradicting yourself. You can't argue DEI was wrong because it used funding leverage, but this compact is fine because "funding has strings." Pick a principle.

Here's the real difference: DEI statements applied to individual faculty and researchers applying for specific jobs or grants. This compact restricts speech across entire student bodies - thousands of students already enrolled.

It's like the difference between setting requirements for someone applying to be a gov contractor vs setting requirements for every citizen in a city to keep federal highway funding. The university isn't just being asked to comply - it's being forced to police what its students say and do.

You keep saying funding agencies set requirements "ALL THE TIME" - but can you name one previous requirement that specifically restricted student protests or campus speech based on political viewpoint? That's the question you keep avoiding.

 

here's the text of the compact:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/docu...b1c1-a0ca9753375c.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_5

 

Exactly. It spells out not having students engage in speech that 'belittles conservative ideas'

And tying that to accessing Federal funding should be a concern to those that value the first amendment.

 

how exactly would that be enforced?

 

By denying federal funding which is what the agreement is related to. The whole idea is that colleges agree to this which restricts free speech won't get the preference to Federal funds.

 

from the other thread:

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/10/02/university-texas-austin-trump-administration-compact/

 

I guess I could have been clearer. How exactly does one investigate, document, and prove "speech that belittles conservative ideas"? How does one define "conservative ideas"? How would that hold up in court in the inevitable lawsuits that would result?

Again, much of this is performative bullshit, designed to harass the nine institutions that were selected for the "compact," as well as fire up Democrats to keep them distracted from other things. Most of what is in the compact is unremarkable. Some of it is very vague (e.g., the stuff you're referring to here). Only one or two things are potentially problematic--the institutional and actor neutrality stuff is the main one. But again, it is difficult for me to see how this would actually play out in real life. And in three years all of this will be gone. It's like a "Dear Colleague" letter only much less well-thought out, if that's even possible.

 

I will add one more thing: what the federal government has done in the past eight months--in terms of denying and/or delaying funds that have already been contractually promised and agreed to--is illegal and should be stopped as quickly as possible. To set conditions on future funding, as wacky as the conditions might be, is NOT illegal per se, i.e., in and of itself. If institutions don't want to agree to the conditions, they can refuse to sign the compact. If that messes up their institutional finances, they should look for other funding sources. Sucking at the public tit is not some sort of guaranteed sinecure.

Again, my view of Trump 2.0 is that he doesn't mind testing the waters with things that will likely get shot down in the courts. It seems like he has pretty carefully targeted at least some of these nine institutions for reasons related to politics. In principle I do not have a problem with that. When it comes to specifics I'd have to see how the thing plays out in the long run. These universities have until November to provide feedback on the "compact" and negotiate whatever terms they feel suits their institutions. I suspect there will nine different versions of the "compact" come 2026. I kind of doubt whether these things even survive into 2026, as the Trump administration seems to have ADD at times and in six months they probably will have moved on to bigger and better things. What do people call Trump? President TACO? I suspect that will hold here as well.

 

There is also a clause ... waiving tuition for "hard science" students at universities with endowments over $2 million per undergraduate ... which the current consensus is "hard science" includes engineering.

According to a White House official, a letter outlining the plan and a copy of the agreement were sent on Wednesday to the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Texas, University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University.

Trump wants MIT to be free for their students ... starting now FTW. How the F*CK does this work? Universities are large enterprises that have 5 year plans for budgeting and such. But starting now, they lose their tuition funding source because Trump and his VERY LARGE BRAIN thought it was a good idea after giving 5 seconds of deep thought.

You know it is just like Trump wants to run colleges without dealing with any of that messy day to day business.

Freeze tuition ... because why not.

Make science and engineering free ... because why not.

Control the admissions process ... to give white men the DEI program that they can not live without.

Make college a "safe space" for conservative snowflakes.

And you know that Trump is one tweet away from adding one more thing to the compact ... every day for the rest of his Presidency/life.

 

The fact that it is so vague makes it all more dangerous. Trump isn't concerned with what is legal or follows the constitution and he has people in place that are in agreement and a few have learned how to implement or attempt to implement these policies.

Literally any complaint against groups from a Trump supporter that hates his detractors coukd be enough. Given his history, that isn't unreasonable to believe. He's already taken actions and cut funding for Columbia and Harvard prior to this.

But if it was all for show, it still isn't okay to have the Federal government of the United States putting this policies into place

 

maybe. But maybe all less dangerous than you think. There's two months of waiting to see how these universities respond--that's a lot of time for them and the administration to make changes to the document.