OPINION:
Many of President Trump’s first-term accomplishments were instantly erased by the malicious staff of his Oval Office successor. As a second-term president, Mr. Trump has learned the value of permanence, and it shows in his dealings with the Ivy League.
“Big changes to higher ed keep coming under the president. Universities must now report admissions data by race. Americans deserve to know if schools are admitting pupils based on skin color. Under the Trump administration, merit and excellence will define higher ed again,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said on X on Thursday.
A recent legal settlement prevents Brown University from treating White male and Asian applicants as second-class citizens under the guise of diversity, equity and inclusion. The school’s surrender in this matter closely followed last month’s binding agreements with Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania.
In reparation for past racism, Columbia will write a $221 million check to Uncle Sam and Brown will pay $50 million to “workforce development” organizations in Rhode Island that don’t hate Whites or the Jewish people. To further atone for allowing Hamas devotees to run amok, Columbia has to hire 36 extra campus cops to keep order and pledge not to not let student groups commandeer facilities.
The University of Pennsylvania was in hot water primarily over athletics. Paula Scanlan, a former University of Pennsylvania swimmer, exposed the problem in emotional testimony before Congress about her school foisting a 6-foot-4 man onto the women’s team.
“We were told that Lia [Thomas] swimming and being in our locker room was a non-negotiable, and we were offered psychological services to attempt to reeducate us to become comfortable with the idea of undressing in front of a male,” Ms. Scanlan said.
The indoctrination is over. Under the binding pact, the records Mr. Thomas set in the 100-, 200- and 500-yard women’s freestyle were restored to the women who should have walked home with those medals in the first place. Even better, the school can use definitions of “man” and “woman” that are rooted only in biology, not ideology.
Seeing which way the wind was blowing, the NCAA earlier this year dropped its policy enabling cross-dressers to steal trophies from women. Sanity has returned.
Transparency is the key to preventing cultural Marxism’s comeback. Brown and Columbia are obligated to publish semiannual reports to prove their compliance with anti-discrimination laws in hiring and admissions. The feds get access to all “staff, employees, facilities, documents, and data related to the Agreement, to the extent not unreasonable and upon reasonable advance notice.”
Once the public knows what to look for, these institutions won’t be able to reintroduce unlawful preferences based on sex or skin color. DEI can’t be relaunched under a pseudonym. Documentation of past misconduct is equally useful in demonstrating just how bad the discriminatory schemes really were.
Watchdogs will be ready to address any backsliding on the part of the ivory tower, taking advantage of the Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down Harvard’s hateful admissions regime.
As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion: “In the wake of the Civil War, the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment charted a way out: a colorblind Constitution that requires the government to, at long last, put aside its citizens’ skin color and focus on their individual achievements.”
Mr. Trump is using that blueprint to reshape the academy as a place of merit and accomplishment.
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