Linda McMahon's open letter and the Heritage Foundation's new model bill for higher education are reviving the Trump administration's higher ed compact.gettyOne day after Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent an open letter asking the nation’s colleges and universities to commit to several education “reforms” championed by President Trunp, the Heritage Foundation followed up with its own blueprint for a higher education overhaul — a model bill that state legislatures could use to “to codify the principles” of the Trump administration’s “Compact For Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”It’s a one-two punch from the federal government and the conservative think tank, both of which appear to be bent upon resurrecting — in one form or the other — last year’s failed attempt to pressure prominent universities into signing on to the compact, widely panned and almost totally rejected by the nation’s colleges and universities.The new strategies pose different dilemmas for college leaders. How should they respond to McMahon’s deliberately ambiguous letter. Comply or resist? Ignore it and hope it was really aimed at just a few leading research universities rather than the hundreds of two-year colleges, small regional liberal arts colleges and relatively open access public universities that have mostly flown under the Trump team’s radar so far? Do they engage with the administration, believing the letter is a sincere attempt to engage in open dialogue with university leaders about needed changes in admissions, affordability, and campus free speech. Or do they push back against it, convinced that the letter is, as Macalester College president emeritus Brian Rosenberg claims, “a threat packaged as a gift” that differs from the compact “only in the sense that it attempts to achieve through subtlety what it failed to accomplish through direct assault.”And what can college officials expect state legislatures to do with the Heritage Foundation’s model bill that would condition a state’s funding for its colleges and universities on their compliance with the bill’s numerous provisions on admissions, curriculum, hiring, foreign students, and DEI prohibitions? Will blue state legislators and governors protect them from its attempt at more governmental control over institutions, while red state policy makers embrace its far-reaching restrictions and mandates?MORE FOR YOUThe Heritage model bill goes even further than the original Trump compact. For example, it would:require each institution “recognize the Classic Learning Test (CLT) for undergraduate admissions in the same manner and to the same extent as the SAT and ACT."prohibit institutions from using a proxy for race, ethnicity, national origin, or sex in its admissions outreach, processes, practices, or decisions; examples of proxies include neighborhood, school, ZIP code, and family income."require universities to practice institutional neutrality, meaning that they shall “not take official action or express opinions on the political and social issues of the day.”prohibit the establishment or maintenance of a diversity, equity, and inclusion office as well as“any of the programming or practices of a diversity, equity, and inclusion office, whether or not under the auspices of such an office.”prioritize “the hiring of faculty members in academic subfields that are not well represented in an academic unit, in the judgment of relevant academic departments and the chief academic officer of the institution, except where an academic department has intentionally specialized.”require institutions to provide “free expression training” to all newly enrolled students as part of the institution’s new student orientation program.mandate that institutions acknowledge that a university’s governing board and the state’s higher education “regulator” may disqualify courses from inclusion in the state’s general education curricula for any reason, including but not limited to failure to ensure a broad spectrum of viewpoints."require that institutions “immediately suspend or terminate" an individual’s enrollment or employment if notified by a federal agency that the person’s visa had been invalidated.You get the idea. It’s a highly prescriptive bill that the Heritage Foundation believes is necessary — as was Trump’s proposed compact — “since so few institutions demonstrate a focus on these principles.” Now, with the model bill, state lawmakers could force their public colleges to toe the compact’s conservative line.Any hopes by university and college leaders that the goals of Trump’s compact for higher education would quietly go away or be replaced in the face of overwhelming criticisms should be abandoned. The administration’s political priorities remain in place. It’s simply turning to new strategies to achieve them.