Letter omits funding incentives that accompanied year-old compact
The open letter McMahon sent Monday comes about a year after the Education Department asked a group of colleges to sign a compact that promised federal funds to schools that embraced the administration’s agenda. Monday’s letter does not include the compact’s connected advantages in funding and grants, which are usually merit based, and it omits many of the compact’s strictures.
Instead, McMahon asked schools to post statements prominently on their websites covering academic rigor, free speech, and what she described as “malign” foreign influence, writing that the postings would improve public perception. The letter also requests statements on prioritizing “American interests” and on hiring faculty of “all relevant perspectives.” The administration has previously said colleges and universities are too liberal.
McMahon wrote that “the dilution of academic standards, opaque admissions policies and a domineering monoculture have badly eroded public trust” in education, and that “only full candor and transparency can begin to strengthen the bonds between higher education and the American people.”
The year-old compact, in contrast, carried a broader set of requirements: limits on international enrollment, a pledge to follow the administration’s definitions of biological sex, and “consideration of transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle or even spark violence against conservative ideas.” It also promoted policies “to recognize that academic freedom is not absolute.”
None of the colleges signed the agreement, and several publicly rejected it.
McMahon wrote that “there is no single template for academic excellence,” adding, “I hope we will witness a variety of institutional types, each with distinct missions and priorities, issue landmark declarations of purpose that will revitalize higher education for years to come.”