Adam Watson (00:00)
Welcome back to “Simplifying the State,” the podcast where we break down politics so you don’t have to try to figure out why the vice president referred to 30-year-old self-described Hitler lovers as just kids. As always, I’m Adam Watson.

Nicholas Perrin (00:13)
I’m Nicholas Perrin.

Drew Garfinkel (00:14)
And I’m Drew Garfinkel.

Adam Watson (00:16)
All right, now before we start, if you would be so kind as to rate us and follow the podcast wherever you are listening, as well as share it with anyone you think would enjoy it, such as friends, family, or a random account on Reddit. So today’s topic is going to be basically how the Trump administration sent out a memo basically to a bunch of top universities, in which they basically said you would receive preferential access to federal funding. If you adopted their Compact, it was called the Compact for Higher, for Excellence in Higher Education or something like that. xYeah, Nicholas, do you kind of want to, anyone want to kind of talk about what they think about that?

Drew Garfinkel (00:55)
The Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, or the Compact for short.

Nicholas Perrin (00:55)
Okay.

Adam Watson (01:00)
Okay. The Compact, yes. Much snappier.

Nicholas Perrin (01:03)
Yeah, so out of nine universities that the Compact was sent to, I believe it was three of them who’ve declined thus far, and none have accepted?

Adam Watson (01:14)
So far,

Drew Garfinkel (01:14)
Brown, MIT.

Adam Watson (01:15)
I saw that MIT, Penn, Brown, and the University of Virginia were the ones I saw last night. I think USC also declines. Yeah, USC. But now I think it’s just four or five of the nine who have yet to respond, including St. Louis’s own WashU, which has yet to decide on whether they will adopt the Compact.

Nicholas Perrin (01:37)
Why’d you say it like that?

Adam Watson (01:39)
Well, what do you mean? It’s like WashU. Yeah, it’s, it’s, dude, it’s the, it’s kind of, yeah, it’s kind of the biggest university in St. Louis.

Nicholas Perrin (01:41)
St. Louis’s own, like…

Drew Garfinkel (01:42)
Yeah, yeah, stop giving him trouble. It’s in St. Louis. We own it. Though,.

Adam Watson (01:52)
There are also other Washington universities, like the University of Washington and George Washington University.

Drew Garfinkel (01:56)
Yeah.

Nicholas Perrin (01:58)
Just the way you said it made it sound like you were… Yeah, I’m a hater, that’s what it is.

Adam Watson (02:00)
You’re just being a hater, man. You’re just being a hater.

Drew Garfinkel (02:01)
Yeah, he’s just hating. But like, also a good amount of people from Clinton are gonna go. Like last year was like, I think 14, something like that, 14 to 18 people went. So this decision could impact us, like when we go to college, if this goes through.

Adam Watson (02:07)
Well, they’re gonna apply, I mean… Isn’t it like 18? Yeah, something like that. It was like, yeah. No, we are all going to WashU, trust.

Drew Garfinkel (02:26)
Yeah, we’re not all Neppo babies.

Nicholas Perrin (02:27)
Yeah, now I’m gonna go to Pyongyang University. I’ll see you.

Adam Watson (02:30)
Okay, WashU wants us all, bro. Right. Yeah, so Drew, what do you think about the impact, like the implications of the Compact? So there are a bunch of different implications. The first one I think is, and the biggest one is the fact that it says universities would have to be, would have to keep their campuses neutral when it comes to social and political issues. So what kind of impact do you think that could have on the students if the universities are too?

Nicholas Perrin (02:34)
Yeah.

Adam Watson (02:58)
Except this Compact, basically. They’re accepting that impact on the students and their First Amendment rights and all that stuff?

Drew Garfinkel (03:06)
I have a pretty lukewarm take on that. I think they should be able to protest. It’s our First Amendment that we can do that.

Adam Watson (03:13)
Great. Nicholas, what do you think?

Nicholas Perrin (03:15) 

I mean, for that alone, like, yeah, it’s, I mean, like, it would affect them somewhat had they accepted, but it would also lead to some legal trouble down the line for the university if they actually go to enforce that. And like, we’ve already seen that, like, some police have cracked down on protests on college campuses, most of which, I think they were mostly peaceful, but some of them turned to like, minor vandalism, I think, in the worst case. But yeah, I mean, like, it won’t be good for free speech or the university if they accept, which is why none of them have accepted so far. But what are some of the other, like, aspects of the Compact that could affect the universities?

Adam Watson (04:00)
Yeah, so what I saw basically was [that] it requires them to define sex as ⁓ between male and female, so basically [a] binary choice. It was like we talked about how the campuses have to remain neutral on social and political issues. They have to cap undergraduate, international undergraduate admittance at 15%. Can’t remember everything else, but those were the big ones that I saw.

Drew Garfinkel (04:24)
Something to add is equity and admissions like you can’t look at [it] like sex, ethnicity, race, anything like that when deciding who gets into your school.

Adam Watson (04:27)
Yeah. Yeah, so they have to separate anything, like, they cannot consider sex, gender, race, basically anything like that in their admissions process. They also require any school that accepts it to require SAT and/or ACT scores when they apply. So like, that’s not, I’m not sure how big of a thing that is, but that’s just a minute.

Nicholas Perrin (04:56)
To talk about the cap on international students. assuming other universities do cave in eventually, which they might not do. But if they do, then the Trump administration might have the courage to go after smaller universities with that, because I think the only reason that he’s only went after big-name universities so far is because of the political power that would grant him if they do accept and it’s just the bully pulpit of the president really, 

Adam Watson (07:12)
Yeah, mean, most are good. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I also think there’s another big thing, which is like the autonomy that colleges should have when it comes to what goes on on their campuses. Obviously, I think there should be, like, you know, some degree of oversight, but that’s what the Department of Education is, or sort of was before it was basically disassembled. But that was basically what it was for. And so now it seems like This is less so about things that would benefit universities as a whole, more so it’s about forcing them to choose between getting preferential access to federal funding to ⁓ continue educating and stuff like that versus maintaining their autonomy, which, know, is I think something that much like most a lot of what this president has done is extremely unprecedented.

Drew Garfinkel (08:06)
And why do you think he did this? Like, do you think he? I don’t think he did it just for fun. Like, what’s he getting out of this?

Nicholas Perrin (08:06)
I see what you did there.

Adam Watson (08:11)
Well, no, I’m… Well, I mean, I think the Republican, this new wave of Republicans, has a certain disdain for higher education and specifically these Ivy League colleges. I think they sort of see it as what they would probably call indoctrination sites or something like that. For liberal ideologies, so they’ve been wanting to go after these higher ⁓ education specifically Ivy [League] universities, for a while, simply because they’re not teaching conservative ideology in there ⁓ they think that they are intentionally teaching liberal ideology and attempting to indoctrinate the students. And so they’ve wanted to do this for a while. So I’m not sure if this is Trump specifically, but I think there are a lot of people in this new wave of Republicans who have, for a long time, wanted to go after higher education. What do you guys think could be the impact on the equity and admissions part and the non-discrimination and hiring part?

Drew Garfinkel (09:08)
It’s like some initiative to go after DEI or something, done like that, but like, knowing that they just saw it.

Nicholas Perrin (09:14)
Yeah, definitely.

Drew Garfinkel (09:18)
They they they’re just opposed to it. I feel like they don’t understand what that means for these colleges. Diversity is a big factor. A lot of colleges, like I just went to, WashU, were talking about how they try to get as many diverse people as they can. Like this graph up on the screen, and had like we have 40% white, 20% Asian, bunch of stuff like that, and like without that, without some standard to make sure people have equal access. That would look different. It would be way more just white people.

Adam Watson (09:57)
Great.

Nicholas Perrin (09:58)
Trump is not going after, at least I feel Trump is not going after DEI, because he feels that it is unfair to like white men, for example. The reason he’s going after DEI is because most of his base thinks that it has a negative consequence, an unfair consequence on, like, white men, for example. Most of them, like on college admissions, for example. And they, you know, they think DEI is a negative consequence and unfair. It’s really not, and there’s a reason that it’s in place, but I don’t believe Trump himself believes that it is meant to give an unfair representation of the diversity in the United States, I guess.

Drew Garfinkel (10:51)
Yeah, I agree. Think DEI does what it does. Like, it does what it’s set out to do, I mean. It makes it so people have access to education or jobs they potentially wouldn’t have because of things out of their control.

Nicholas Perrin (11:06)
And the only reason that Trump is going after DEI like this is because it’s politically beneficial for him. I don’t think he would do this otherwise.

Drew Garfinkel (11:14)
Yeah. But you also brought up a really interesting point. You were trying to say that, although Trump himself might not believe it, because he represents this whole group of people, he has to take on the viewpoint to appease them. Is that what you’re trying to say?

Nicholas Perrin (11:31)
Yeah. 

Adam Watson (11:34)
I think there’s a misunderstanding of what DEI is. And it’s not so much so elevating minorities above white people, it’s more so giving them like an equal platform to stand on for things like jobs and college admissions and stuff like that, because it recognizes that there have been a bunch of different social and economic factors that have contributed to a sort of uneven playing field when it comes to different groups of people. And so it tries to equalize the playing field as much as possible. But I think that, you know, there has been a misunderstanding about what it is and what it does, which has led to people thinking that at the heart of this, basically, I think they want everything to be equal and for stuff to be merit based. But I think that they have misunderstood the whole point behind DEI and have basically misconstrued its methods.

Adam Watson (12:32)
Yeah. Sort of to turn it local here, do you think, do you guys, what do you guys think? Do you think WashU will accept the Compact? Do you think they’ll refuse? What do you think is going to happen? Because I know that WashU is a big school that really relies on NIH grants to pay for the medical school. And given the shakeups that are going on. With the NIH, with the CDC, with everything under RFK Jr., they might be looking at that source of revenue as a less than reliable thing and so might determine that they need this preferential access to federal funding, in which case do you guys think they would accept or do you think they would decline or what do you guys think would happen?

Nicholas Perrin (13:13)
Based on the examples set by the other colleges thus far, from that I would think they would reject. I have a feeling that if all of the colleges have the same, like if none of them accept, then there would be no preferential treatment given to any of them, so there would be no threat posed, but if one of them did, then there would be. So I mean, I guess it’s just like, if anyone else accepts the Compact then maybe WashU would follow suit. I don’t think WashU would be, but I don’t think any college really would be that one to accept the Compact.

Drew Garfinkel (13:49)
Yeah, I doubt they will, honestly. I feel like this might just blow over and we won’t hear about this ever again in a couple weeks.

Adam Watson (13:49)
What do you think, Drew? Yeah, I mean, like I said, most of the universities immediately declined. The sort of pretty big universities like MIT, like Brown, like Penn, declined pretty quickly. There are a couple, WashU isn’t the only one that hasn’t yet declined. The University of Texas at Austin hasn’t declined yet. Neither has the University of Arizona, neither has Dartmouth, and neither has Vanderbilt. So that is about five universities that have yet to decline. And so I’m wondering, is the fact that WashU has not declined yet? I’m assuming that they’re seriously considering this. I mean, I don’t know what the other reason for the delay could be in deciding.

Nicholas Perrin (14:44)
They might also just be waiting it out to see what the other colleges do. I mean, that’s what, if I were in WashU’s position, I think I would do that as well and maybe meet with the other colleges that have not yet declined.

Adam Watson (14:55)
Yeah, if I was going to be, if I was WashU, I would probably not want to be the only one accepting this, given the, you know, people, because I mean, a lot of professors at WashU have come out against this. I assume the student body largely is not for this. I know WashU is a fairly liberal school. But I assume they probably don’t want to be the only one who accepts.

Nicholas Perrin (15:22)
That would also be kind of a PR, like bad times, you

Adam Watson (15:26)
Thank you for listening to “Simplifying the State.” We’ll be back next week with our next topic. So stay tuned for that. Make sure to follow us on Instagram at “Simplifying the State.” We will be posting anything when we upload new episodes there. So keep an eye on that and we’ll talk to you guys next time.

Drew Garfinkel (15:42)
Yep.