The White House on Wednesday sent letters to nine of the nation’s top public and private universities, urging campus leaders to pledge support for President Trump’s political agenda to help ensure access to federal research funds.
The letters came attached to a 10-page “compact” that serves as a sort of priority statement for the administration’s educational goals — the most comprehensive accounting to date of what Mr. Trump aims to achieve from an unparalleled, monthslong pressure campaign on academia.
The compact would require colleges to freeze tuition for five years, cap the enrollment of international students and commit to strict definitions of gender. Among other steps, universities would also be required to change their governance structures to prohibit anything that would “punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”
Colleges that sign the agreement would receive “multiple positive benefits," according to a letter included with the compact signed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon; Vince Haley, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council; and May Mailman, the White House’s senior adviser for special projects.
Colleges that agree would get priority access to federal funds and looser restraints on overhead costs. Signed compacts would also serve as assurance to the government that schools are complying with civil rights laws. Federal civil rights investigations have been used to halt much of the research funding that the administration has blocked so far this year.
Letters on Wednesday were sent to the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia.
The nine schools declined to comment or did not immediately respond to messages late on Wednesday.
Ms. Mailman, who has orchestrated much of the administration’s higher education strategy, said the compact could ultimately be extended to all colleges and universities. She said the administration was open to hearing feedback about the compact from college leaders.
“We hope all universities ultimately are able to have a conversation with us,” she said.
The letters were sent as the White House was aiming to close a settlement with Harvard University, the only university to sue the administration over its pressure campaign. Mr. Trump on Tuesday said that a deal, which had been elusive as talks stalled, was close to being finalized. The Wall Street Journal first reported that the compact has been sent to schools.
The administration has secured individual deals with schools to restore funding, requiring the universities to pay steep fines and effectively adopt new policies. And while there is some overlap in the agreements, the first round of deals has all stood on their own.
The University of Pennsylvania agreed to align its athletic policies with the Trump administration’s beliefs about participation by transgender people. Brown University promised to provide a more granular level of student admissions data than is required by law.
The so-called “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” is effectively a declaration of the administration’s political priorities for higher education.
The first round of schools received the compact along with a letter that frames the pledge as an opportunity to proactively partner with the administration and its effort to shift the ideological tilt of the higher education system, which the president and his team view as hostile to conservatives and intent on perpetuating liberalism.
The demands in the compact also include providing free tuition to students studying math, biology, or other “hard sciences” if endowments exceed $2 million per undergraduate.
“Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forego federal benefits,” the compact says.
Alan Blinder contributed reporting.