The Trump administration's controversial offer to nine major universities this week was met with derision by The Washington Post's editorial board, which railed that "no serious university" could ever agree to such a "doomed" deal.
The universities were asked to commit to conservative-aligned policies in exchange for preferential access to federal funding. Key points of the offer included, freezing tuition rates for five years, banning the use of race, sex, or gender identity as factors in admissions, financial aid, and faculty recruitment, capping undergraduate international student enrollment to 15% of the student body and enforcing "academic freedom" for conservative viewpoints and abolishing campus units that supposedly punish or belittle conservative ideas.
They'd also have to adopt the federal government's definition of gender for access to bathrooms, locker rooms, and women's sports, establish conditions to prevent disruptive campus demonstrations, and share information about foreign students with federal agencies.
The nine universities receiving this offer include the University of Southern California, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, University of Arizona, University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University.
The board said the Trump administration had some "good ideas" for improving colleges, but it is "making demands in its quest to implement them that no serious university could ever agree to without surrendering academic freedom."
"After President Donald Trump took office, determined to eliminate the Education Department, this represents an unsettling expansion of federal power in higher learning," the board warned.
Specifically, Trump's deal "oversteps" by trying to pick "winners and losers." While the board acknowledged college "costs too much," it "never works for government to impose price controls on goods and services."
To boot, the board slapped the administration for trying to disincentivize the study of the humanities, and called it "counterproductive" to cap foreign undergraduates, noting such students often pay full tuition price, subsidizing low-income American students.
The board was more forceful with its criticism that colleges were asked to eliminate programs that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”
The board called the demand "worrisome."
"That’s fine in theory but impossible to police in practice. It raises First Amendment concerns and threatens a frank exchange of ideas that is essential to human progress. It also smacks of snowflakery. If conservative students can’t stand to be within shouting distance of people who “belittle” their views, they should go back to high school until they’re ready to grow up. The same is true for liberals," the board said.