Commentary: A Rotten Compact

October 02, 2025 1 min read

Brendan Cantwell
Ungated, Substack

Excerpt: The Trump administration on Wednesday evening released a memo inviting University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Virginia to enter into a “compact” (henceforth The Compact) with the federal government.

I will say that if the provisions outlined in The Compact were required by law, it sure seems like the administration would not need a special deal that offers preferred client status as an incentive to get what it wants. Read The Compact for yourself. It’s about 10 pages long. In the meantime, here is my assessments for why this is a rotten deal.

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