The first clue that this is the case is that Katherine Gregg’s article is not framed to be about the compact, itself, but about the far-left ACLU of Rhode Island’s activism against it, and the first paragraph dives right in:

The ACLU of Rhode Island is urging the president of Brown University to “forcefully and publicly reject” the Trump administration’s latest demand for fealty to the president’s political agenda in exchange for priority access to federal funding.

“Fealty” to a “political agenda”!  Writing the article about the ACLU’s objection rather than the original text allows Gregg to pass along its activistic interpretation as if it’s journalistic reporting.  For instance, the ACLU claims the document would “restrict university employees from speaking out on political issues.”  Actually, the document calls for institutional neutrality, but:

All university members, including students, faculty, and staff, are encouraged to comment on current events in their individual capacities, provided they do not purport to do so on behalf of the university or any of its sub-divisions.

Similarly, Gregg write-quotes from the ACLU (with the article losing track of where quotes begin and end):

“While it purports to demand that universities promote a “marketplace of ideas” on campus, it also obligates universities to prohibit anything that would “belittle” “conservative ideas.”

What the document actually does is call for “a broad spectrum of ideological viewpoints present and no single ideology dominant.”  This principle simply describes universities’ own claim about what they do.  Granted, that claim is proving increasingly dishonest, but why it’s now objectionable to call on institutions of higher education to live up to their values might be an interesting question for the ACLU to answer.

To further this balance, the compact asks universities to “commit themselves to revising governance structures as necessary to create such an environment, including but not limited to transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”  That is very different from Gregg’s summary that the document “obligates universities to prohibit anything that would ‘belittle’ ‘conservative ideas.'”  How Gregg’s paraphrase could have gotten through a professional editor is a question Providence Journal readers should ask themselves.

In the off chance the memo’s language is not as clear as I think it is, I’ll explain.  What the Trump administration is requiring is a change to “institutional units” — that is, official agencies of the universities — that “purposefully” suppress targeted categories of ideas.  This is not limited to “conservative ideas,” but they are used as the obvious example, given that a major spokesperson for such ideas was just assassinated on a college campus and conservatives are often restricted from speaking, sometimes with the excuse that security costs would be too high.

Relying on the Washington Post, Gregg doubles down in a way that illustrates just how a label like “conservative” is applied to make ideas seem objectionable:

The “compact” asks schools to pledge allegiance to conservative values and policies in several enumerated areas in order to receive various forms of federal funding.
As spelled out by The Washington Post, they would have to agree to:

• • Prohibit consideration of factors such as gender, race or political views from being considered for admissions, scholarships or programming
  • Freeze tuition for five years; give free tuition to students pursuing “hard science” programs at schools with endowments exceeding $2 million per undergraduate; and refund tuition to undergraduates who drop out during their first term
  • Maintain institutional neutrality at all levels, ensuring that university employees abstain from political speech
  • Cap international enrollment at 15% of a college’s undergraduate student body, with no more than 5% coming from a single country
  • Publicly post average earnings from graduates in every discipline

There is no “pledge” of “allegiance”; the compact is a voluntary agreement between parties to a transaction, one providing money and the other providing some supposed benefit.  And to categorize that list of five requests as “conservative values and policies” is ridiculous.

The requirement against discrimination against students is only “conservative” in the sense that radicals have corrupted neutral American values with their own left-wing bigotry and biases.  Meanwhile, freezing tuition is a step progressives have heretofore been happy to demand, additional aid to students pursuing much-needed skills is simply in the national interest, and requiring the posting of student earnings by major is little more than a truth-in-advertising label.  The third bullet point, in addition to repeating the lie that employees have to “abstain from political speech,” is politically neutral.

The only point that arguably constitutes a “conservative policy” is the limit on international enrollment.  That policy is worthy of debate, and perhaps in a world with genuine journalism we could have one.  At issue is funding provided by federal taxpayers; given the amount of that aid, is it unreasonable for a federal administration to use its leverage to set targets for domestic enrollment?  I’m not convinced, myself, but to treat this as simply an ideological demand is to dumb down Americans’ capacity for policy consideration in a democratic republic.

Colleges, mainstream journalists, and even progressive activists should pause for consideration.  While it may not seem like it from within their bubble, the Trump administration is offering a genuine compromise by pressuring universities to live up to their stated ideals.  If they reject that recommendation for balance, many of us will be happy to see them lose all government funding, not to mention their privileged place in our society.

The proper framing, in other words, is not the authoritarian attack they fantasize about. Rather, it’s more like the Trump Administration’s efforts to broker peace in conflicts around the world.  In the place of Hamas and Israel, for example, are colleges and We the People.

Featured image by Justin Katz using DALL-E.