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BRACE YOURSELF, PEOPLE. I have something nice to say about Trump: I don’t think his recent proposal to the nine colleges was completely nuts.
Sure, the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” forces Trump’s cultural agenda down the colleges’ throats – from abiding by the administration’s definition of gender, bathroom rules (has there ever been a presidency so potty-obsessed?) to SAT/ACT mandates, and promotion of “diversity of viewpoints” (colleges commit to “abolishing institutional units” that “belittle” conservative ideas).
And, yeah, the tone was a tad threatening: “Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forgo federal benefits.”
But for colleges that sign on, the benefits are awesome: priority access to funds and a presumption that they are in compliance with civil rights laws. It’s like getting a TSA pre-check at the airport – shorter lines and automatic exemption from the terrorist list.
The lucky institutions that got the president’s ultimatum offer are the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Virginia. Why these nine, who knows? (Funny how it was also nine law firms that capitulated to Trump. Must be his lucky number.)
So far, only MIT has refused to comply. The others have been largely quiet – except for the University of Texas, which gushed: “We enthusiastically look forward to engaging with university officials and reviewing the compact immediately.” (It’s Texas, okay?)
Those who value educational independence are alarmed, including some on the right. “This is not engagement,” writes conservative David Ramadan, a professor at George Mason University, in USA Today. “This is coercion – an attempt to remake higher education through executive fiat and financial threat.”
Even the Wall Street Journal thinks the proposal went too far, though its main objection seems to be the five-year tuition freeze and the 15% limit on international students – that free market stuff – rather than the threat to free speech and educational autonomy.
So what’s positive about this deal? Well, who doesn’t like freezing tuition? One thing the left and the right can agree on is that the price of college is too damn high. Tuition at Brown, Penn, Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, and USC – to name some colleges on Trump’s hit list – is well-over $72,000 a year, not counting room and board.
But what really knocked my socks off was the directive that colleges eliminate gender in admissions, along with race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.
Does the Trump administration realize what this will mean for the future of American men?
Truth is, boys and men need an extra bump to play in the sandbox. “Affirmative action for men has been an open secret for decades,” says admissions consultant Anna Ivey, a former admissions dean at the University of Chicago Law School. To opponents of DEI, though, “affirmative action just means women and people of color,” Ivey tells me.
Fact is females outperform males from the get go – and men are not catching up. Women now represent the majority in undergraduate institutions (58% as of 2020), law schools (56% in 2024), and medical schools (55% in 2024). And in Biglaw, women outnumber men in the associate ranks. (Interestingly, women make up only 42% of MBA students.)
As any parent who’s played the school admissions game knows, boys get brownie points. I can’t tell you how many open houses I’ve been to – from nursery schools to colleges – where the admissions officer talks about the importance of striving for a “gender-balanced” class. As the mother of girls, I know the subtext: too bad your kid isn’t a boy.
But what happens if gender considerations are tossed out the window and admission is based solely on test scores, grades, and talent? The number of girls and women in higher education will soar. No longer will they have to give up their seat for some dithering, mediocre dude! And before you know it, women will comprise 70%, maybe 80%, of all college students in this country. And dominate the professions and run America – leaving men in the dust.
Poor men. It seems they’ve been screwed. Just when they thought this administration was going to reset America and make masculinity great again, it’s women who’ll win with this policy. Oh, what havoc Trump has wreaked by pulling the DEI rug out from under the men of America.
Of course, none of that will happen because this talk about instilling a culture of meritocracy is pure bull. One glaring example of the chicanery: there’s no mention about ridding preferential treatment for children of alumni or big donors. (Not that I’d ever suggest that Trump and his children didn’t get into Wharton based on their stellar academic records, or that Jared Kushner’s admission to Harvard had anything to do with his dad’s $2.5 million donation to that college.)
All this is to say that privilege has its privileges, and affirmative action for men will continue unabated – with Pete Hegseth, our brawniest secretary of war, as the ultimate poster child. Except we’re not allowed to call it that, because how can something as low rent as affirmative action possibly apply to them?
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Vivia Chen writes “The Ex-Careerist” column on Substack where she unleashes her unvarnished views about the intersection of work, life, and politics. A former lawyer, she was an opinion columnist at Bloomberg Law and The American Lawyer. Subscribe to her Substack by clicking here:
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