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Submitted by Robin Messing on Fri, 10/24/2025 - 7:54pm

https://www.foxnews.com/us/first-college-offers-join-trumps-academic-exc...

On Tucker Carlson

https://apnews.com/article/republicans-antisemitism-carlson-fuentes-031f...

Tucker Carlson’s Nick Fuentes Interview Divides The Political Right Over Free Speech

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/tucker-carlson-nick-fuentes-intervie...

https://x.com/KevinRobertsTX/status/1983958755613262324

 

https://x.com/NickJFuentes/status/1983980971407110319

 

https://x.com/KevinRobertsTX/status/1984335805192532265

 

Links for education

https://ccecolumbiagreene.org/climate-change-and-the-environment

https://ulster.cce.cornell.edu/climate-change

https://ucanr.edu/site/division-agriculture-and-natural-resources/climat...

https://extension.org/2024/06/12/cooperative-extension-system-unveils-cl...
https://www.almanac.com/cooperative-extension-services

 

https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/10/trump-higher-education-compact...'t%20put%20us%20in,They%20get%20taxpayer%20money.%E2%80%9D

 

 

Judge Burroughs notes on page 29 of her decision

“‘[T]he four essential freedoms’ of a university [are] to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.”  Bakke, 438 U.S. at 312 (quoting Sweezy, 354 U.S. at 263); see also Urofsky v. Gilmore, 216 F.3d 401, 412 (4th Cir. 2000) (“The Supreme Court . . . appears to have recognized . . . an institutional right of self-governance in academic affairs.”).

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

The Trump Administration's Compact For Academic Excellence In Higher Education starts off by spelling out what could be at stake for those Universities that refused to buckle under by signing onto the contract. I will add emphasis throughout this commentary on the Compact.

American higher education is the envy of the world and represents a key strategic benefit for our Nation. In turn, the U.S. university system benefits in a variety of ways from its extraordinary relationship with the U.S. government. These include (i) access to student loans, grant programs, and federal contracts; (ii) funding for research directly or indirectly; (iii) approval of student and other visas in connection with university matriculation and instruction; and (iv) preferential treatment under the tax code. To advance the national interest arising out of this unique relationship, this Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education represents the priorities of the U.S. government in its engagements with universities that benefit from the relationship. Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forego federal benefits.

Translation: Bow to our demands, or else we will cut your university off at the legs.

 

EQUALITY IN ADMISSIONS

...no factor such as sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious associations, or proxies for any of those factors shall be considered, explicitly or implicitly, in any decision related to undergraduate or graduate student admissions or financial support, with due exceptions for institutions that are solely or primarily comprised of students of a specific sex or religious denomination.

 

University admissions decisions shall be based upon and evaluated against objective criteria published on the University’s website and available to all prospective applicants and members of the public.

Institutions shall have all undergraduate applicants take a widely-used standardized test (i.e. SAT, ACT, or CLT) or program-specific measures of accomplishment in the case of music, art, and other specialized programs of study.

 

Forcing universities to admit students based solely on objective criteria is problematic because these tests do not take into consideration how many obstacles a student has had to overcome to achieve the scores that they received. A student from a poor family who went to an inferior high school and has had to work 20 hours a week may score 50 points lower on the SAT than a student from a wealthy family who who went to an elite school and can afford one-on-one tutoring with an SAT coach. The poor student had to overcome more obstacles than the rich one, and her greater grit and determination to succeed may make her a better candidate for success. Yet universities could run afoul of the compact's requirements if they take a candidate's socioeconomic background and obstacles they may have had to overcome into consideration in their admissions decisions. As the following chart from the U.S. Census Bureau shows, 23.4% of those in poverty are Black, wheras Blacks make up only 13.6% of the population. Hispanics are similarly overrepresented amongst the poor, whereas non-Hispanic Whites and Asians are less likely to live below poverty.

Kevin Carey notes the flip side of this arguement.

Although the conservative movement won a landmark legal victory when the Supreme Court abolished affirmative action in 2023, the compact expands the list of qualities that can’t be considered in admission to include “sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious associations, or proxies for any of those factors.” One wonders whether the White House realizes that elite schools routinely give admissions advantages to men, or that legacy status has a strong statistical correlation with being a white person, which arguably makes preferences for legacies an illegal racial “proxy.” The ability to donate large amounts of money to boost your child’s admissions chances is also correlated with being a white person, again suggesting that preferences for the children of rich families could be illegal.

Now ask yourself this question: Which universities are the Trump Administration more likely to accuse of violating the compact? Those that give a boost in their admissions decisions to candidates who have overcome poverty--or those that give preference to candidates whose rich alumni parents have given generously to them?

 

MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS & CIVIL DISCOURSE

The Compact's section on the Marketplace of Idas & Civil Discourse is so important that I will quote it in its entirety. It seems very nice and reasonableupon first reading. How can anyone object to requirements to teach alternative viewpoints and to maintain an environment of civil debate? And under an ordinary and even-handed Administration, the language in this section might not be so problematic. But keep in mind that the Trump Administration is exceptionally malevolent and hyperpartisan, as are many of its supporters. Exhibit A for this is the way that Donald Trump has weaponized the Justice Department to vindictively prosecute Trump's political enemies. And see what Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Trump Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had to say right before the second No Kings Day protests between 0:20 and 1:16 of this next video.

Mike Johnson: The No Kings rally will “bring together the Marxists, the socialists, the Antifa advocates, the anarchists, and the pro-Hamas wing of the far left Democrat Party. That is the modern Democrat Party. That’s where they’ve gone. And the Hate America Rally is the common theme among all those groups.”

Karoline Leavitt: The Democrat Party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals. That is who the Democrat Party is catering to…They don’t stand for anything except catering to their far left base, which as I said, includes anti-Semites, includes Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals who they want to let off freely to roam in American streets.

And Trump's Veteran's Day post oozed more malevolence than Mordor.

 

You might have been shocked to see Trump call his political enemies "vermin". But this was no accident. Trump used nearly identical language at his rally the next day.

Yikes! Trump referring to his political enemies as vermin and saying that “The threat from outside forces” are “far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within.” is the type of dehumanizing language that Hitler used to prepare the German population to accept unspeakable atrocities. Trump also told more than 800 admirals and generals at a required meeting in Quantico Virginia that they may be called upon to fight the "enemy from within."

What does a war on "the enemy from within" look like? Well, according to the fever dream that Trump posted on Truth Social, it looks like an attack on Blue Cities under the guise of deporting undocumented immigrants.

Keep all this in mind as you read through the section on the marketplace of ideas and civil discourse and ask yourself, "Who will be the ones deciding whether the Universities are keeping up their share of the bargain? Will they evaluate university compliance in good faith, or will they be political hacks eager to exaggerate even the tiniest of missteps by the universities. Do they REALLY want a free and fair marketplace of ideas, or will they use the requirement of civil discourse as a weapon to silence opinions they don't like? Let's start reading the compact before trying to answer this question.

Truth-seeking is a core function of institutions of higher education. Fulfilling this mission requires maintaining a vibrant marketplace of ideas where different views can be explored, debated, and challenged.

Therefore, signatories to this compact commit themselves to fostering a vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus. A vibrant marketplace of ideas requires an intellectually open campus environment, with a broad spectrum of ideological viewpoints present and no single ideology dominant, both along political and other relevant lines. Signatories commit themselves to revising governance structures as necessary to create such an environment, including but not limited to transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas. Given the importance of academic freedom to the marketplace of ideas, signatories shall adopt a policy protecting academic freedom in classrooms, teaching, research, and scholarship. Such policies also shall recognize that academic freedom is not absolute, and universities shall adopt policies that prevent discriminatory, threatening, harassing, or other behaviors that abridge the rights of other members of the university community.

Do they REALLY mean it when they say that no single ideology should be dominant? What about the ideology that capitalism is better than communism? They don't want THAT ideology to be dominant??? Remember, their Dear Leader posted that he was going to “root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs.” Of course, communism has little hope of being anything other than a fringe element on college campuses or anywhere else for that matter given its poor historical track record. I am just using this as an example to show that this compact is not very well thought out.

Note also the one-sidedness of the compact. It protects only conservative ideas from being punished and belittled, but apparently the authors of this pact have no problem with conservative colleges or universities mocking or discriminating against liberal ideas. You might dismiss this observation by saying, "There is no reason to protect liberal viewpoints because they are already protected and promoted at colleges and universities." Well, maybe they are protected at most universities, but try to establish a pro-choice organization or an organization that advocates for LGBT rights on Liberty University. You might respond to this by saying that conservative colleges and campuses don't get much funding from the government, so there is no need to consider what happens on their campuses. Whatever terms that other colleges and univerities must satisfy in order to get government funding won't affect them since they do not get government funding in the first place.

NOT SO FAST! Liberty may not receive grants for research like other universities do, but their average student receives $4100 in Pell Grants from the federal government to help them pay for their education. And Liberty is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization which would make them just as vulnerable to government threats to yank their tax-exempt status as any other university. The Trump Administration DOES have economic pressure points that it could use to ensure those promoting left-wing ideology are as protected on at least some conservative campuses as it wants conservative ideology to be protected on liberal campuses, but it is only interested in protecting conservatives, and liberals can go to hell.

Let's continue reading the compact.

Signatories commit to rigorous, good faith, empirical assessment of a broad spectrum of viewpoints among faculty, students, and staff at all levels and to sharing the results of such assessments with the public; and to seek such a broad spectrum of viewpoints not just in the university as a whole, but within every field, department, school, and teaching unit.

How exactly does one present a broad spectrum of viewpoints in EVERY field and department? Does the Astronomy department have to teach classes on flat earth theory? Does it have to teach that the moon landing was a hoax? Do medical schools have to teach that Ivermectin reverses aging, gives you the ability to regenerate limbs, and cures bad breath if enough of the public, or more specifically, if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. comes to believe it? Does the math department have to teach alternate arithmetic where 2 + 2 = 5?

Okay. Maybe I'm being a little flippant. But here is a real question that will help us explore how broad a spectrum of viewpoints must be tolerated at universities to satisfy the requirements of the pact. Nick Fuentes is a Neo-Nazi. He says he is not a Nazi, but he refuses to call Hitler a bad guy. His views on many subjects are as vile as they can get. Watch this video and then answer the question that follows. 

Though he is vile, it would be a mistake to ignore him completely--just as it would have been a mistake to ignore Hitler after he was elected in the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. Fuentes has a million followers on Twitter, and his influence has been growing since the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Now, suppose a student organization invited Fuentes to speak on campus. Could the university's administration bar him from speaking without risking its government funding under the compact? The answer is not straightforward. Being against Nazis is a dominant philosophy on college campuses and society as a whole. Yet the compact states there may be no dominant philosophies on campus. My gut feeling is that the compact would allow universities to ban neo-Nazis like Fuentes and would not require tolerance of their views. But the world is not run by my gut, so let's consider a few more points before we leave this topic.

First, Donald Trump checks every box for being a fascist, but he is not a Nazi. However he has used language that would attract Nazis to his party. Nazis get excited when their Leader calls his opponents "vermin." And they, like other fascists, love talk about outsiders poisoning the blood of the nation.

And there appears to be a small Nazi wing of the Republican Party, as evidence by the virulently racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic chat logs that Politico obtained of young Republicans.  Politico reports that "Epithets like 'f----t,' 'retarded' and 'n--ga' appeared [in the chat logs] more than 251 times combined."  Peter Giunta, who was the chair of the New York State Young Republicans and who was the chief of staff to New York state Assemblymember Mike Reilly, texted, "I love Hitler." Those in the group chat were widely condemned by most of the members of the Republican Party, and at least three of them, including Giunta, either lost their jobs or didn't get a job that they were likely to get. (Donald Trump and J.D. Vance were noticeably absent from the Republicans condemning those in the chat.)

Unfortunately, this wasn't the only chat log to expose someone who was at least Nazi-adjacent within the Republican Party. Donald Trump praised Paul Ingrassia as a “highly respected attorney, writer, and Constitutional Scholar.” when he nominated him to lead the Office of the Special Counsel. However, Ingrassia withdrew his nomination after it became evident that it would not pass the Senate after it was revealed that he told a group chat that, "“I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time."

Maybe I am making too much of a handful of Republicans with Nazi-adjacent views. Maybe there aren't enough to be called a small wing of the Republican Party. But there are enough to be at least feathers on a wing of the Republican Party. And there are enough to cause a conference of Jewish Republicans to call on the Party to do more to fight against anti-Semitism within the Party.

The fact that there are some neo-Nazis in the Republican Party hints that maybe universities that sign the compact would be required to give  Fuentes a platform to spew his bile, but it is FAR from conclusive. We need more evidence. And recent events have given us additional data for our consideration. Tucker Carlson's two-hour interview with Fuentes that he posted on X deeply divided the right. Some criticized Carlson for allowing Fuentes to use his platform to air his views, while free speech advocates defended Carlson's decision to host Fuentes. The video posted by Kevin Roberts defending Carlson is particularly noteworthy, partly for what it said and partly for who said it. Roberts is the president of the Heritage Foundation--the organization most responsible for developing Project 2025. Russel Vought, Trump's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, was a key architect of Project 2025. And several other authors of Project 2025 have become high level officials in the Trump Administration as well. What Roberts says could influence members of the Trump Administration and its attitude towards coercing universities that sign the compact into hosting someone like Nick Fuentes.

So what dod Roberts say? Watch the video in this tweet. He condemned those attacking Carlson who he characterized as a dear friend of the Heritage Foundation, and he said Fuentes should not be cancelled while simultaneously saying he abhors Fuentes's ideas.

Fuentes thanked Roberts for defending Carlson's decision to give him a platform.

And to his credit, Roberts took Fuentes to task for his odious and dangerous views.

There was severe backalsh against Roberts within the Heritage Foundation for his support of Carlson's interview with Fuentes. He apologized for calling Carlson's critics a "venomous coalition"--a phrase which many would Jews could interpret as an anti-Semitic trope. He said he didn't know much about Fuentes and blamed his former chief of staff for writing the script of the video and tricking him into believing that his colleagues in the Heritage Foundation had approved it. He walked a fine line between saying that what Fuentes was pushing was beyond the border of acceptable speech and condemning Carlson for hosting Fuentes. There are three things to keep in mind when evaluating Roberts' walk-back.

  1. It is clear Roberts regretted making the video, but he never actually condemned Carlson as an anti-Semite, even though he had asked Fuentes softball questions and gave him little pushback in the interview.
  2. Most of the members of the Heritage Foundation were appalled by Roberts's original statement, 
  3. There were still some within the Foundation who supported the statements made by Roberts in the original video.
  4. If the Heritage Foundation had its way, we would never have known about Roberts's walkback or the division within the Foundation over Roberts's video. Roberts made his apology in a closed-door meeting, and we only know about this meeting because someone leaked a video of it to the Washington Free Beacon. We know that leadership of the Heritage Foundation wanted to keep this all under wraps because the chief operating officer of the Foundation said ""If we see someone leaking, you’re fired," during the question and answer session of the meeting.

So we can conclude that most on the right are appalled by Fuentes. But ultimately, it would be Donald Trump who would decide whether a university was violating the compact by refusing to let Fuentes speak on their campus. Of course, you would expect Trump's Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon to make the call, but Trump could override anything she decides. So what would Trump do if a university prevented Fuentes from speaking on their campus?

Fuentes was an enthusiastic supporter of Trump's during his first term, and Trump always punishes his enemies and rewards his allies. Had this compact been in effect during Trump's first term, I think Trump might have insisted that universities give a platform to Fuentes. I could be wrong about this. Trump had invited Kanye West to have dinner with him at Mar-a-Lago on November 22, 2022, and West unexpectedly showed up bringing Nick Fuentes as his guest. Trump received severe backlash from both his critics and supporters for dining with Fuentes, and Trump's advisors urged him to condemn Fuentes. Trump distanced himself from Fuentes at first by saying he did not know who Fuentes was, but he refused to condemn him. Finally, after after a week of backlash for not condemning Fuentes, Trump provided the mildest condemnation possible when he told Fox News "I had no idea what his [Fuentes'] views were, and they weren't expressed at the table … or it wouldn't have been accepted."

While Trump might have coerced universities to let Trump speak on their campuses during his first term, he definitely would not do so today. Fuentes turned against Trump some time after the Mar-a-Lago incident and is now a harsh critic of Trump. He is upset about Trump's cover up of the Epstein files and his defense of Israel. He doesn't think Trump is racist enough. In March he called Trump a "populist demagogue" who was just "stirring up the rubes" to empower himself, and he recently called Trump “a weird guy” who’s “not right in the head.” Trump won't go to bat for Fuentes after Fuentes turned on him. If anything, Fuentes is now on Trump's enemies list.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Fuentes is not on Trump's enemies list because Trump doesn't know what Fuentes has been saying about him recently. Trump recently refused to condemn Carlson for giving Fuentes a platform, and then he said something most pecular. He said he didn't know much about Fuentes. How he could not know much about Fuentes and what he stood after all the flak he received from his 2022 dinner with West and Fuentes is beyond me. Make of this what you will.

Fuentes showed gratitude for Trump's statement..

Here are some questions we must ask ourselves when trying to determine whether Trump woud force univeristies that signed the compact to host Fuentes. What if Fuentes hadn't turned on Trump? What if Fuentes or someone like him had started complaining about Democrats stealing the 2020 election from Trump? What if he blasted the Nobel Prize committee for not giving Trump a Nobel Peace Prize AND a prize for Trump's groundbreaking accomplishments in physics? What if Fuentes was a billionaire who had secretly funnelled $10 million into Trump's pocket by buying Trump's meme coin? Remember, Trump is the guy who pardoned or commuted the sentence of every violent cop beater on January 6.

Let's finish discussing the section on the Marketplace of Ideas * Civil Discourse..

Signatories acknowledge that the freedom to debate requires conditions of civility. Civility includes protections against institutional punishment or individual harassment for one’s views. Universities shall neither support nor permit a heckler’s veto through, for example, disruptions, violence, intimidation, or vandalism. Universities shall be responsible for ensuring that they do not knowingly: (1) permit actions by the university, university employees, university students, or individuals external to the university community to delay or disrupt class instruction or disrupt libraries or other traditional study locations; (2) allow demonstrators to heckle or accost individual students or groups of students; or (3) allow obstruction of access to parts of campus based on students’ race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Signatories commit to using lawful force if necessary to prevent these violations and to swift, serious, and consistent sanctions for those who commit them.

While universities should protect debate and academic freedom, harassment falls outside permissible bounds. Signatories shall adopt policies prohibiting incitement to violence, including calls for murder or genocide or support for entities designated by the U.S. government as terrorist organizations. All signatories shall adopt policies consistent with all legal requirements, including those of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

The university shall impartially and vigorously enforce all rights and restrictions it adopts with respect to free speech and expression.

This sounds great in theory. Who wants to allow a heckler's veto that would prevent the exchange of information and idea? But again, what is great in theory may not be so great in practice, especially if the ultimate arbitrator of how this compact will be administered and enforced is a malevolent Trump Administration. Certainly, the Administraiton sent a giant message of "FUCK YOU" to free speech when it arrested Rümeysa Öztürk, a PhD student at Tufts University for being the coauthor of an op-ed calling for the University to honor a student senate resolution to divest from companies that supported plausible Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. If this doesn't look like a heckler's veto, I don't know what does.

Let's do a thought experiment by taking an event that really happened and twisting it a little bit to examine how a malicious Administration could use the fuzzy boundry of preventing a heckler's veto to thwart Constitutioanlly protected but offensive speech. Cornell University hosted a panel discussion last March called "Pathways to Peace." The panel consisted of former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, former foreign minister of Israel, Tzipi Livni, and former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro. Cornell's chapter of Students for Justice In Palestine objected strenuously to this panel, accusing Livni of being a war criminal, Shapiro of being a consultant who works for a firm that enables Israel's surveillance and suppression of Palestinians, and Fayyad of working for a regime that acted as a pawn for Israel to suppress Palestinians in the West Bank. The SJP said the panel consisted of only  "voices of occupation, surveillance and suppression— voices that have actively contributed to the suffering of Palestinians for decades" and called for a walkout to protest the lack of a voice representing the Palestinians resistance. As you can see in this next video, the SJP protested loudly and disruptively before they walked out of the event.

I do not know how long the disruptions lasted, but this report in the Cornell Daily Sun seems to imply that it was more than just a few minutes. The protesters were warned that they would be escorted out if they continued to interrupt the panel discussion, and they continue to protest loudly as they walked out. 17 protesters were arrested for disturbing the peace, and SJP was banned from campus until they negotiated an agreement with the Cornell Administration.

So here are some questions that need to be clarifies. Did the disruption by the pro-Palestinian protesters amount to a heckler's veto? The protesters would argue that the lack of a resistance voice on the panel combined with suppression of their protest amounted to a heckler's veto of THEIR right to get their points before the audience. Of course, this ignores the fact that they could have gotten their point across during the question and answer session following the discussion. But could they have? This is from the Cornell Daily Sun.

Some attendees who pre-submitted questions for the event were selected to ask their questions live during a 10-minute Q&A session. Three students were selected by event coordinators to ask a question at the event, all of whom posed unscripted questions.

 

The first student started their question by saying, “You espoused a pathway to peace, yet during Operation Cast Lead…” referring to Livni’s support for the 2008-2009 Gaza War that resulted in about 1,400 Palestinian deaths. The rest of the question was incomprehensible as the microphone was taken away by event staff. They were then escorted out and detained, according to a SJP press release.

As I said before, I am not sure how long the disruptions from the protesters lasted before they left, but it would undoubtedly be a heckler's veto if they were disrupting the speakers for more than a few minutes and if it looked like they would continue disrupting the speakers for even longer. The speakers had a right to speak and the audience has a right to hear what they had to say, and there comes a point where extended protest impinges on that right. But let's switch up the facts and ask--What if the protesters had stood up as a group just as the speakers were being introduced and demanded that they be given three to five minutes to read a statement laying out their position. What if they had said, "This panel is unbalanced and incomplete because it includes only the voices of the occupiers and their accomplises and does not have anyone to present the point of view of the resisters. Let us read our statement--and then we will march out and let you proceed with your panel discussion in peace." 

This shouldn't be considered a heckler's veto. Sure, the panel and the audience would have to hear allegations they might find offensive, but the speakers on the panel would have been guaranteed to host their discussion with just a few minutes delay--hence no veto. This is the sort of speech that SHOULD be protected. BUT--and here is the key question: Would the University officials have allowed the protesters to voice their opinion knowing that the Trump Administration could come down on them like a sack of bricks for allowing them to be heard, or would officials err on the side of caution and shut them up?

17 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested for disturbing the peace.

 

 

Would a Student Senate that passed a resolution calling for their university to divest from companies that sell arms to Israel be designated as a supporter of Hamas?

 

 

Can a Student Senate pass a resolution 

 

Students for Justice in Palestine at Cornell | We’re Back (Sort of)

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/10/students-for-justice-in-pales...

 

GUEST ROOM | SJP Response to Pathways to Peace (March 17)

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/03/guest-room-sjp-response-to-pa...

 

17 Pro-Palestinian Protesters Arrested or Detained During University-Run ‘Pathways to Peace’ Panel

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/03/17-pro-palestinian-protesters...

 

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