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Posted
1 hour ago, gernblansten said:

How does one reconcile “make acceptance merit based” and “cap the number of foreign students so Americans have more spots”?

Same way they reconcile all the other stupid bullshit they say / believe.

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Posted
Which of the policies have people the most riled up, besides that the Trump administration came up with them? I can see people not agreeing with elimination of DEI, supporting trans sports, or wanting more foreign students and "anti-conservative" content in classrooms, but I don't see any as turning higher education into a "wasteland." This thread is 98% bitching about Texas accepting or rejecting it and not much discussing the compact itself and how it will turn Texas into a joke of a university unable to educate students. It seems these universities could take the money, interpret and enforce the terms as they want, and the worst case is the Trump team doesn't like it and pulls the preferential funding status which the universities lose anyway by not accepting.
  • Eliminate DEI in hiring and admissions and make them based on merit
  • 5 year tuition freeze, and make STEM education tuition-free for "non-wealthy" students
  • Cap foreign student enrollment to save more spots for American students
  • Limit sports participation to biological sex
  • While professors can voice their "anti-conservative" views off the clock, keep it out of classroom curriculum
  • Prevent protests intended to disrupt classroom and study areas
  • Receive preferential status in federal grant funding

Your summarization is incomplete and the devil is in the details. Here is the full text of the compact:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/4059a5dd-f3dc-4cf6-bf1f-9e0d98c2f8d9.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_8

For starters, it should be rejected on principal. The federal government, and in particular, a highly partisan and biased presidential administration, should not be overseeing the ideas that can and can’t be taught on a university campus. Look at the shitstorm that A&M just went through for a professor discussing gender in the classroom, and now imagine that the federal government has a signed agreement that gives them authority over this or they withdraw research funding.

Secondly, this specific presidential administration is not a reliable negotiator or business partner. The entire tariff debacle should be plain evidence of that. Even if the university felt the demands of the compact were reasonable, Trump has proven time and again that he will change his mind on a whim. There is no reason to willingly enter a formal agreement with him if it can be avoided.

Thirdly, the DOJ is responsible for enforcing it. The same DOJ that is currently being used to prosecute Trump’s political enemies. In its current form, this is not a fair or reliable mediator for the compact. It is a weapon that can and will be used by Trump if the university does anything that he is not happy about.

And if you want to get further into the language of the compact, the biggest concern I have is section 2 - Marketplace of Ideas & Civil Discourse. This notion of an intellectually open campus environment already exists at UT Austin, so it is a boogeyman request that suggests the curriculum is intentionally designed to persecute conservative ideas. It creates protections specifically for conservative ideas, while failing to provide any similar reciprocal protections for progressive ideas. Conservative ideas don’t need the government to protect them. If they are less prominent at UT Austin compare to a place like A&M or Tech, that is merely the nature of the university and the students and faculty it has attracted for decades. It is not an evil scheme to indoctrinate otherwise innocent conservative young adults. If families or students are afraid of that, they have every opportunity to select a different university in the first place, rather than allow the government to create a mechanism to homogenize all education and restrict the expression of ideas within academia. In normal times, I would feel strongly the same way if a Democrat president wanted to meddle in A&M’s curriculum and force them to become more progressive under the notion that progressive ideas are unfairly targeted.

Finally, the language in some key areas is intentionally vague, leaving it open to interpretation and therefore weaponization. What does it mean to “abolish institutional units that purposefully punish or belittle conservative ideas?” Who defines what constitutes as belittling? If a professor discusses climate change and a conservative student gets offended, what happens? If a professor teaches that Tylenol and circumcision do not actually cause Autism, and a MAHA nutjob gets offended and feels belittled, do we lose the professor? Why would any self-respecting professor choose to teach in that environment?
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Posted
Which of the policies have people the most riled up, besides that the Trump administration came up with them? I can see people not agreeing with elimination of DEI, supporting trans sports, or wanting more foreign students and "anti-conservative" content in classrooms, but I don't see any as turning higher education into a "wasteland." This thread is 98% bitching about Texas accepting or rejecting it and not much discussing the compact itself and how it will turn Texas into a joke of a university unable to educate students. It seems these universities could take the money, interpret and enforce the terms as they want, and the worst case is the Trump team doesn't like it and pulls the preferential funding status which the universities lose anyway by not accepting.
  • Eliminate DEI in hiring and admissions and make them based on merit
  • 5 year tuition freeze, and make STEM education tuition-free for "non-wealthy" students
  • Cap foreign student enrollment to save more spots for American students
  • Limit sports participation to biological sex
  • While professors can voice their "anti-conservative" views off the clock, keep it out of classroom curriculum
  • Prevent protests intended to disrupt classroom and study areas
  • Receive preferential status in federal grant funding

Your summarization is incomplete and the devil is in the details. Here is the full text of the compact:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/4059a5dd-f3dc-4cf6-bf1f-9e0d98c2f8d9.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_8

For starters, it should be rejected on principal. The federal government, and in particular, a highly partisan and biased presidential administration, should not be overseeing the ideas that can and can’t be taught on a university campus. Look at the shitstorm that A&M just went through for a professor discussing gender in the classroom, and now imagine that the federal government has a signed agreement that gives them authority over this or they withdraw research funding.

Secondly, this specific presidential administration is not a reliable negotiator or business partner. The entire tariff debacle should be plain evidence of that. Even if the university felt the demands of the compact were reasonable, Trump has proven time and again that he will change his mind on a whim. There is no reason to willingly enter a formal agreement with him if it can be avoided.

Thirdly, the DOJ is responsible for enforcing it. The same DOJ that is currently being used to prosecute Trump’s political enemies. In its current form, this is not a fair or reliable mediator for the compact. It is a weapon that can and will be used by Trump if the university does anything that he is not happy about.

And if you want to get further into the language of the compact, the biggest concern I have is section 2 - Marketplace of Ideas & Civil Discourse. This notion of an intellectually open campus environment already exists at UT Austin, so it is a boogeyman request that suggests the curriculum is intentionally designed to persecute conservative ideas. It creates protections specifically for conservative ideas, while failing to provide any similar reciprocal protections for progressive ideas. Conservative ideas don’t need the government to protect them. If they are less prominent at UT Austin compare to a place like A&M or Tech, that is merely the nature of the university and the students and faculty it has attracted for decades. It is not an evil scheme to indoctrinate otherwise innocent conservative young adults. If families or students are afraid of that, they have every opportunity to select a different university in the first place, rather than allow the government to create a mechanism to homogenize all education and restrict the expression of ideas within academia. In normal times, I would feel strongly the same way if a Democrat president wanted to meddle in A&M’s curriculum and force them to become more progressive under the notion that progressive ideas are unfairly targeted.

Finally, the language in some key areas is intentionally vague, leaving it open to interpretation and therefore weaponization. What does it mean to “abolish institutional units that purposefully punish or belittle conservative ideas?” Who defines what constitutes as belittling? If a professor discusses climate change and a conservative student gets offended, what happens? If a professor teaches that Tylenol and circumcision do not actually cause Autism, and a MAHA nutjob gets offended and feels belittled, do we lose the professor? Why would any self-respecting professor choose to teach in that environment?
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