Critics of the Trump administration’s university “compact” are warning of a dangerous “slippery slope,” arguing that the plan sets a precedent that could lead to the politicization of all federal grants, far beyond the realm of higher education. If funding for universities can be explicitly tied to ideological compliance, they ask, what prevents the same logic from being applied to science, the arts, and public health?
The proposal breaks a long-standing, albeit sometimes imperfect, firewall between the political process and the allocation of federal research and educational funds. Historically, grants have been awarded based on peer-reviewed assessments of merit. The compact replaces this system with a political litmus test, a move that could fundamentally corrupt the integrity of federal funding.
The slippery slope argument posits that if this model is successfully implemented for universities, it will inevitably be expanded. For example, a future administration could demand that scientists receiving grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) align their research with the government’s public health agenda. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) could be required to only fund artists who produce “patriotic” work.
This would have a devastating effect on innovation and free expression. Scientists, artists, and scholars would be incentivized to produce work that pleases their political patrons rather than work that is truthful, innovative, or challenging. The pursuit of knowledge and creativity would be subordinated to the pursuit of political favor, a hallmark of authoritarian states, not vibrant democracies.
For this reason, opponents argue that the fight against the university compact is about much more than just the autonomy of nine schools. It is a battle to defend the principle of merit-based, apolitical federal funding across the board. If the line is crossed here, they warn, it will be incredibly difficult to re-establish it elsewhere, opening the door to a new era of pervasive political control over American intellectual and cultural life.