M.I.T. became the first university to reject an agreement that would trade support for the Trump administration’s higher education agenda in exchange for favorable treatment.
The proposal, called the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” was sent to nine universities and would require colleges to cap international student enrollment, freeze tuition for five years, adhere to definitions of gender and prohibit anything that would “belittle” conservative ideas.
In a letter on Friday to the Trump administration, M.I.T.’s president, Sally Kornbluth, wrote that the university has already freely met or exceeded many of the standards outlined in the proposal, but that she disagrees with other requirements it demands, including those that would restrict free expression.
“Fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone,” Dr. Kornbluth wrote.
A White House spokeswoman, Liz Huston, said in a statement that “any university that refuses this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform higher education isn’t serving its students or their parents — they’re bowing to radical, left-wing bureaucrats.”
“The best science can’t thrive in institutions that have abandoned merit, free inquiry, and the pursuit of truth,” she added. “President Trump encourages universities to join us in restoring academic excellence and common sense policies.”
The White House has said it wants responses from the universities by Oct. 20. The other eight colleges are the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia.
The compacts have been deeply unpopular among faculty members, who view them as yet another political intrusion into the affairs of academia. They argue that the Trump administration is threatening the independence of American higher education by cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding to force top universities to adopt its agenda.
At a politically sensitive moment, as schools are trying to avoid being singled out by the administration, most of the universities’ responses have been noncommittal.
“Brown’s course of action should and will be informed by the perspectives of our community,” Christina Paxson, its president, said in a message to the community on Friday.
Some schools, like the University of Virginia, have turned to the time-tested higher education strategy of delaying controversial decisions by creating a committee.
Others expressed what appeared to be concern about the compact but did not shut the door on signing it.
“I am deeply committed to Dartmouth’s academic mission and values and will always defend our fierce independence,” Dartmouth’s president, Sian Leah Beilock, wrote last week.
“You have often heard me say that higher education is not perfect and that we can do better,” she wrote, “At the same time, we will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves.”
The University of Pennsylvania’s president hit a similar note.
“The long-standing partnership with the federal government in both education and research has yielded tremendous benefits for our nation,” J. Larry Jameson, Penn’s president, said in a message on Sunday.
“Penn seeks no special consideration,” he continued. “We strive to be supported based on the excellence of our work, our scholars and students, and the programs and services we provide to our neighbors and to the world.”
Perhaps the most enthusiastic response came from the University of Texas at Austin, which is in a state that has aggressively tried to control what professors can teach in the classroom on sensitive topics like gender.
The chair of the system’s board, Kevin Eltife, a former Republican state lawmaker, said he was honored that the Austin campus was selected. “We enthusiastically look forward to engaging with university officials and reviewing the compact immediately,” Mr. Eltife said in a statement last week.
Vimal Patel writes about higher education for The Times with a focus on speech and campus culture.
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