As MIT rejects Trump deal, USC faces a dilemma

L.A. school’s faculty has denounced the demand to cede rights to ensure funding.

- DANIEL MILLER, JAWEED KALEEM AND COLLIN BINKLEY

TRUMP'S proposal comes at a fraught time for USC, which is facing down a $200-million budget deficit.

As USC weighs its options, MIT has become the first of nine universities to forcefully reject a White House proposal that asks them to adopt President Trump’s conservative political agenda in exchange for favorable access to federal funding.

In a letter to Trump administration officials, MIT President Sally Kornbluth said Friday the campus disagrees with provisions of the proposal, including some that would limit free speech and the university’s independence. She said that Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” is inconsistent with MIT’s belief that scientific funding should be based on merit alone.

“Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education,” Kornbluth said in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and White House officials.

The MIT rejection comes as USC has been roiled by the proposed compact since receiving it earlier this month. The school’s faculty members strongly denounced the offering at a meeting this week, calling it “egregiously invalid,” “probably unconstitutional,” and “antithetical to principles of academic freedom.”

But interim President Beong-Soo Kim told the roughly 500 attendees the university “has not made any kind of final decision.”

At the same time, Gov. Gavin Newsom has aggressively weighed in, challenging USC “to do the right thing” and reject the offer. He threatened to withhold state funding to any California university that agrees to it.

White House spokesperson Liz Huston said that “the Trump Administration’s only request is for universities to end discrimination. 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.”