Newsom claims that the compact “ties access to federal funding to radical conservative ideological restrictions.” In fact, the document, mailed to several universities and obtained by the Washington Examiner, demands complete academic freedom while also protecting conservatives from being silenced.
The document, part of a response to universities’ failure to fight antisemitism, includes ten provisions:
- Maintain “equality in admissions,” with no preference for race, gender, or other categories of identity
- Maintain a “marketplace of ideas” and “civil discourse” that reflects a variety of viewpoints and protects freedom of speech
- Nondiscrimination in hiring of faculty and administrative staff
- Institutional neutrality on political and social issues, except those that affect the university itself
- Integrity in student grading systems, to fight grade inflation
- Equal treatment for students, including recognition that there are only two biological sexes, and protecting women’s locker rooms and sports
- Financial responsibility, which includes avoiding costs that burden students with debt, providing financial advice about potential majors, and using endowments to help students in “hard sciences”
- Avoiding “foreign entanglements” by scrutinizing foreign donations and vetting foreign students to exclude those with “with noxious values such as anti-Semitism and other anti-American values”
- Maintaining preferences for American students, and allowing religious institutions to use sex-based preferences
- Agreeing to enforcement by an external monitor who reports to the Department of Justice
Newsom posted his threat to California universities that sign the compact:
He did not indicate which provisions he found “insane” or to be driven by “conservative ideological restrictions.”
According to CalMatters.org, the White House responded:
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson responded to Newsom’s threat in an emailed statement saying the governor should “worry about the disaster he’s created in his own state,” referencing state policies allowing transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports.
“By opposing the compact, Newscum is opposing efforts to cap wild tuition hikes and to protect free speech,” Jackson said, using Trump’s preferred derogatory moniker for the governor.
The compact was reportedly presented to the University of Southern California, among ten public and private colleges nationwide.
It was not clear whether these were the same ten originally investigated for antisemitism by the Trump administration’s special task force, though USC was also on that list.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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