Harvard nemesis wants Trump's college crusade to reach every campus
The Trump administration has used federal funding as leverage to press schools to align with its priorities, from battling campus antisemitism to reassessing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. This week, the White House finalized a $221 million agreement with Columbia that imposes new conditions tied to these issues, the first such deal with an Ivy League school. Harvard, a primary target, is fighting the administration's efforts in court even as it negotiates a possible settlement.
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Talks are underway with Cornell University, Northwestern and Brown to reinstate previously frozen funds, while institutions such as Duke and Johns Hopkins are facing mounting pressure as grant suspensions threaten to disrupt research programs and international student pipelines.
Under Rufo's proposal, schools would be subject to demands including purging their institutions of diversity initiatives or other programs focused on specific minority groups; harsh and swift disciplinary measures for student protesters; the publicization of demographic data in admissions decisions; and hiring conservative faculty.
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The terms would be baked into universities' contracts with federal agencies for research funding — and, if taken a step further, could be incorporated into the powerful accreditation system that determines colleges' eligibility to receive federal financial aid.
'Columbia has its unique issues, Harvard has its own unique issues. But after you go through the list of the next six or seven universities, there has to be a point where there's a general, blanket policy,' said Rufo, 40. 'The particular negotiations, in that sense, are just the opening bid.'
Education Secretary Linda McMahon walked toward the West Wing of the White House, following an TV interview on Tuesday, July 15.
Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon appeared to endorse the proposal last week when she congratulated Rufo in a post on X and called the plan 'a compelling roadmap to restore integrity and rigor to the American academy.'
When reached for comment, an Education Department spokesperson referred Bloomberg to McMahon's post and said there was no mention of implementation plans. But Rufo said he is optimistic that the statement will turn into policy sometime in the next few months.
'This set of principles is a fairly reasonable compromise,' Rufo said. 'I think the president should just impose it as a condition.'
The efforts are already spreading piecemeal to an increasingly broad swath of higher education. On Wednesday, the Education Department announced civil rights investigations into scholarship programs at five colleges, including the University of Michigan, the University of Miami and the University of Nebraska Omaha.
A series of federal investigations at George Mason University, a regional public college in Virginia, seem aimed at forcing out president Gregory Washington over his past support for DEI initiatives — a move that successfully led to University of Virginia president Jim Ryan's resignation last month.
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But while they've been indirectly affected by the chaos, most of the country's patchwork of 4,000 colleges and universities have escaped direct federal threats.
Robert Kelchen, a professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said the administration is clearly laying the groundwork for a more wide-ranging attack on higher education.
'I think they're trying to move in that direction, especially on things like DEI,' he said. 'It's clear the administration is using every lever they can think of.'
Rufo isn't a White House adviser or a federal employee, but he has strong influence among conservative education reformers, including many currently working for the Trump administration. He rose to prominence crusading against DEI programs and played an instrumental role in Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' education agenda in 2023.
The gates to Harvard Yard on June 5.
Heather Diehl for the Boston Globe
His profile rose higher still after he spearheaded a public campaign to oust former Harvard president Claudine Gay over plagiarism allegations — one of the initial seismic reverberations of the campaign to change higher education.
One of Rufo's main proposals is tied to accreditors, historically powerful but until recently largely uncontroversial entities that focus on ensuring educational quality and financial health. They also are responsible for determining if institutions are eligible for federal student aid.
Rufo said the White House should 'turn the screws' on accreditors and then use them as a proxy for reform.
'We want to say that every accreditor needs to have these minimum principles and enforce them at universities,' he said.
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Trump has called accreditation his 'secret weapon,' and in April he issued an executive order calling for reform. He threatened to strip federal recognition from accreditors 'engaging in unlawful discrimination in violation of federal law.'
For Rufo, the stakes of that order are clear: Accreditors must enforce the conservative view of antidiscrimination law, including by ensuring colleges aren't engaging in DEI initiatives. Almost every accreditor has already eliminated language in their standards around diversity and inclusion, but Rufo said they should go a step further and adopt some version of the standards laid out in his proposal.
'The goal is to extend all of this basically to federal financial aid,' Kelchen said. 'The administration so far has not gone after that, maybe because it could be seen as political overreach. But they can work through the accreditors to do that.'
If that happens, Rufo said it would 'shift the whole university sector on a new course.'
'That's my goal: To change the culture of the institutions as a whole,' he said.
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