Let’s Call a Truce With the Trump Administration (opinion)

On Monday, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon published “A National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards.” Following up on reports about declining trust in American universities and colleges, Secretary McMahon’s letter asked universities to “reaffirm their commitment to serving the American people.” As the Secretary warned, “higher education has drifted from the principles that built up so much public esteem” in the past.

We agree with her. And we also support her demands for transparency and accountability around college admissions, free speech, tuition costs and more.

But transparency and accountability have to go both ways. Under McMahon’s boss, Donald J. Trump, the federal government has eroded many of the same values that she calls on universities to protect. And trust in the government has fallen to a near-historic low.

So we propose a truce. As per McMahon’s request, universities will publish statements about how they will bring their practices into accord with their principles. And the Trump administration will do the same.

Start with our admissions systems, which the Trump administration has justly indicted as opaque and confusing. It also claims we have evaded the Supreme Court’s decision striking down race-based affirmative action. Universities should eschew “favoritism” and “illegal discrimination,’ McMahon wrote, and commit to admitting students on the basis of “merit” and “achievement.”

Fine. We can do that. But we would also ask that the White House hire lawyers for the Department of Justice based on their skill and experience, not on whether they support President Trump. And we would urge the government to issue scientific grants to the most rigorous and original researchers, rather than the ones whose topics match the administration’s political agenda.

Next, McMahon asks that we protect the “free exchange of ideas” and “wide-ranging debate” on our campuses. Again, we’re in full agreement with her. Universities have not consistently defended these ideals; instead, we have promoted a groupthink that inhibits open expression.

But if we recommit to defending free speech—as we should—the Trump administration must do the same. That means rescinding its executive orders targeting critical race theory and “gender ideology” in educational settings and elsewhere. You can’t call on us to protect open debate when you’re clamping down on it at the same time.

McMahon also asks us to “encourage intellectual pluralism” in faculty hiring—to “ensure that all relevant perspectives are taken seriously”—and to rededicate ourselves to “advancing knowledge.” She has a point. As the recent report from Yale’s Committee on Trust in Higher Education noted, universities have too often diverged from their founding mission: to create and disseminate knowledge. And we can’t do that well if we all think the same way.

But all thoughts are not created equal. The Trump administration can’t ask us to advance knowledge if it also embraces myths and falsehoods about vaccines and climate change. And how does defunding cutting-edge medical research about cancer and other diseases help enhance knowledge? It does the opposite.

After that, McMahon’s letter urges us to “contain costs” and “ensure that families can access affordable, high-return degrees.” Again, we share her goals. We must find ways to cut tuition and also to ensure that our degrees help our students find gainful employment after graduation.

But under this White House, Americans have struggled to pay for housing, health care, gas and child-care. If it wants universities to be more affordable, it should also promote policies that help people purchase the other goods they need.

McMahon also asks us to “protect academic programs from foreign influence,” by refusing “gifts with problematic conditions” from overseas. But that’s coming from the same White House that accepted a new presidential plane from Qatar. Enough said.

Finally, McMahon wants universities to support America’s “economic and security needs” and “contribute materially to the Nation’s prosperity.” Of course, we want that as well. Yet we struggle to see how the Trump administration has satisfied those goals. Thus far, its war in Iran has made America less secure. And nobody can seriously assert that Americans are feeling more prosperous right now.

We are grateful to Secretary McMahon for calling out our problems and inconsistencies. She is right to urge “university leadership” to “seize this occasion to drive essential reforms,” and to insist that “only full candor and transparency can begin to strengthen the bonds between higher education and the American people.”

So, in the spirit of candor and transparency, we must admit: Universities have not made good on our promise of an affordable education that opens minds and provides pathways to success. And we need to do better.

But so does the White House. We will be happy to publish statements about our intended reforms. All we ask is that the Trump administration does the same.

Deal?