MIT president says she cannot support proposal to adopt Trump priorities for funding benefits

washington: the president of the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) said friday she “cannot support” a white house proposal asking mit and eight other universities to adopt president donald trump's political agenda in exchange for favourable access to federal funding.mit is among the first to express strong views on the proposal, which the white house billed as providing “multiple positive benefits,” including “substantial and meaningful federal grants.” leaders of the university of texas system said they were honoured its flagship university in austin was invited, but most other campuses have remained silent as they review the document.ina letter to trump administration officials, mit president sally kornbluth said the university disagrees with provisions that would limit free speech and institutional independence. she said the proposal is inconsistent with mit's belief that scientific funding should be based on merit alone.“therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education,” kornbluth said in her letter to education secretary linda mcmahon and white house officials.the higher education compact, circulated last week, requires universities to make a wide range of commitments aligned with trump's agenda on issues including admissions, women's sports, free speech, and student discipline. universities were invited to provide “limited, targeted feedback” by october 20 and make a decision by november 21.others that received the 10-page proposal include vanderbilt, the university of pennsylvania, dartmouth college, the university of southern california, the university of arizona, brown university, and the university of virginia. it remains unclear how or why these schools were selected.university leaders face pressure to reject the compact amid opposition from students, faculty, and higher education groups. some university leaders have labelled it “extortion.” the mayor and city council of tucson, home to the university of arizona, called it an “unacceptable act of federal interference.”even some conservatives have criticised the plan. frederick hess, director of education policy at the american enterprise institute, described it as “profoundly problematic” and “ungrounded in law.”kornbluth's letter stopped short of a formal rejection but called the terms unworkable. she noted mit already upholds several of the outlined values, such as merit-based admissions and affordable education. mit reinstated standardised test requirements post-pandemic and offers free tuition to undergraduates whose families earn less than $200,000 annually.“we freely choose these values because they're right, and we live by them because they support our mission,” she wrote.as part of the compact, the white house proposed a five-year tuition freeze for us students and no tuition for those in “hard science” programmes at universities with endowments above $2 million per undergraduate. it also called for mandatory sat/act scores, race- and gender-blind admissions, and adherence to the government's binary definition of gender in campus policies.much of the compact focuses on promoting conservative viewpoints, calling for universities to “transform or abolish institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”