HURRAH FOR M.I.T.—AND ITS PRESIDENT’S WORD COUNT!    PART 2 

WHEN I BEGAN THIS ANALYSIS OF TRUMP’S LATEST SHAKEDOWN of higher education, I didn’t realize how it would be a battle of word counts (or that it would evolve into a two-parter). Here in Part 2, we rejoin Vimal Patel’s “M.I.T. Rejects a White House Offer for Special Funding Treatment.” 

More From The New York Times. “The idea of the compacts,” Patel observes, “has been deeply unpopular among faculty members and free speech advocates, who view them as yet another political intrusion into the affairs of academia. They argue that the Trump administration is threatening the independence of American higher education by cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding to force top universities to adopt its agenda.”

However, Patel notes, “But at a politically sensitive moment, as schools are trying to avoid being singled out by the administration, most of the universities’ responses have been noncommittal.”

Christina Paxson, Brown’s president, is quoted as saying its “course of action should and will be informed by the perspectives of our community.” “I am deeply committed to Dartmouth’s academic mission and values,” its president Sian Leah Beilock is quoted, “and will always defend our fierce independence.”

And Texas? Patel reports, “Perhaps the most enthusiastic response came from the University of Texas at Austin, which is in a state that has aggressively tried to control what professors can teach in the classroom on sensitive topics like gender.”

To wit, NBC Nightly News, September 10, 2025, reports, “Texas A&M Fires Professor Over Gender-Identify Lesson in Literature Course.”

Patel recounts, “The chair of the system’s board, Kevin Eltife, a former Republican state lawmaker, said he was honored that the Austin campus was selected. ‘We enthusiastically look forward to engaging with university officials and reviewing the compact immediately,’ Mr. Eltife said in a statement last week.” 

A Ropes & Gray Analysis. The Ropes & Gray law firm (with 1500+ attorneys worldwide, 139,000+ pro bono hours in 2024, 14 consecutive years on A-List of elite firms) analyzes “White House Invites Nine Universities to Enter ‘Compact’ in Exchange for Access to Federal Funds and Other Benefits.” 

The Ropes & Gray (1995-word) analysis suggests to me that the Compact is an ill-framed attempt at extortion: In particular, “Many concepts and terms in the Compact,” Ropes & Gray writes, “are as yet undefined and/or vague. Accordingly, signatories may find it difficult to know whether the Department of Justice will deem them in compliance with its requirements…. The scope of benefits under the Compact, and relatedly the scope of liability for violations, likewise are unclear…. Finally, but importantly, signatories must certify annually to their institutions’ adherence to the Compact. This raises the prospect whether violations might provide an avenue for False Claims Act liability (with its attendant treble damages) and thereby support the Trump administration’s recent push for that statute’s use against federal funding recipients that fail to comply with funding conditions.”

The Ropes & Gray analysis concludes, “We will continue to monitor these and other developments. Please reach out to the authors or your usual Ropes & Gray advisor if you have any questions.”

I am sorely tempted to ask about the legal definition of “extortion.” But then I’m justa mathematically trained guy seeking clarity, truth (and occasional word counts). ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025