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The dueling characterizations typify the Trump administration’s agreements with a growing list of institutions that now includes Columbia, Brown, Cornell, and the University of Pennsylvania. The deals involve financial penalties and policy commitments made by the universities in return for the release of federal research funds and the closing of pending civil-rights and related investigations. The dollar amounts involved — $75 million from Northwestern and $221 million from Columbia, among others — have drawn headlines and stoked controversy over why institutions are paying fines absent any legal findings, much less court judgments. But it is the fine print of the deals that will determine whether they are, as the administration claims, landmark compacts reshaping American campuses, or practical bargains that let the universities get back to business without major compromise. Those details, involving not just the text of the agreements but how they are interpreted and implemented, will shape the independence and operations of universities for generations to come.
Northwestern’s 12-page, single-spaced deal obligates the university to enforce federal civil-rights law banning ancestry-related discrimination and harassment, explicitly singling out antisemitism. It requires mandatory campuswide training on antisemitism, an advisory council on Jewish life, and a campus-climate survey that would cover related issues. The agreement also contains robust commitments to nondiscrimination in admissions, hiring, and promotion, pledging full adherence to executive orders banning the use of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
On its face, those requirements simply dictate adherence to the law, remedying alleged lapses on antisemitism while correcting race-consciousness in other areas. But they also reflect the Trump administration’s priorities, vigorously combating antisemitism while scaling back DEI. Even before the deal was struck, Northwestern had rebranded a former DEI office as an “Office of Health Equity” and made other changes to downplay inclusion efforts. Operating for the next three years under the government’s watchful eye, the university may avoid events or course offerings on the Israel-Palestine conflict in order to avert possible claims of antisemitism. Northwestern might call off DEI training that is not technically barred under the agreement but is nonetheless seen as risky. Given the serious consequences of a breakdown in any of these deals, universities are bound to err on the side of caution. Such an approach could mean chilling academic freedom, or hampering inclusivity on campus.
The details of the administration’s deals will shape the independence and operations of universities for generations to come.
In fulfillment of its agreement with the Trump administration, Columbia University is newly requiring international applicants to its law and engineering schools to submit statements spelling out why they want to study in the United States. While benign on its face, the implication is that such statements will be used to weed out applicants with critical views toward America.
While Harvard University is not subject to a deal at this stage, it recently instructed alumni interviewers that they must not consider or mention applicants’ race, ethnicity, or national origin in submitting their interview reports. This means interviewers may have to obscure references to applicants’ clubs, home life, or interests to avoid breaching the new rule. While neither the Supreme Court nor the federal government has dictated that such information be scrubbed entirely, the university has adopted a cautious approach to compliance with nondiscrimination law while living beneath a federal microscope. Harvard announced the policy shift publicly because it affected thousands of interviewers worldwide. But there is every reason to believe other admissions offices will quietly follow suit, erasing identity-related markers from the admissions process. The net result could be the exclusion of entire categories of student activities from consideration in college admissions. Ethnically oriented youth groups and service clubs could suffer if students conclude that such activities can no longer be featured in their college applications.
Northwestern, Brown, Columbia, and Cornell have committed themselves in their deals to provide detailed admissions data to the federal government, including breakdowns by race, GPA, and test scores. While such simple reporting obligations may seem innocent enough, it is no stretch to imagine admissions officers thinking twice about applicants of color whose talents or accomplishments might ordinarily win them spots despite lower grades and scores.
But the heavy hand of government threats and pressure tactics will take a toll, whether campus leaders admit it or not. Faculty search committees and oversight bodies that approve appointments may hesitate to bring on scholars critical of President Trump or his agenda. They may avoid specialties like gender studies or sociology that are considered “woke.” Some will welcome such shifts as overdue correctives to balance universities’ leftward skew. But when hiring decisions happen in the shadow of government retribution, it may be impossible to discern whether judgments are independent, or under the influence. Professors could find themselves walking on eggshells for fear of not just a viral video or student complaint, but one that triggers government reprisals. In Columbia’s case, their agreement will be overseen by an outside monitor, meaning that all manner of university decisions are likely to be assessed in light of how they might be judged. If those scenarios ensue, the government will have gotten its wish, bringing the universities to heel.
On the other hand, if university leaders are serious about safeguarding institutional independence, they will need to vigilantly guard against excesses of caution that result in the silencing of speech or the marginalization of identities and ideas. University general counsels who helped lead the fight to get the government off their backs will be naturally risk-averse. Their guidance will have to be balanced against the imperative of preserving space for controversy, heresy, and conflict without which leading universities would shrivel. University leaders will need to affirm that the resolve they communicated in announcing the deals will be accompanied by resolute determination to comply with the letter of their agreements while preserving their institutions’ independent spirit. Faculty, students, staff, and campus newspapers will have to keep administrators honest, calling out instances where professed values are shunted aside out of caution. Time will tell whether the Trump administration’s attacks on the university deliver their desired result of an academy remade in the image of MAGA.
