California Colleges Face Billions in Cuts if They Sign Trump Deal

In a page out of Trump’s operating manual, Newsom is threatening to withhold state funding for what he calls ‘sell-out universities’ that agree to the President’s demands

Governor Gavin Newsom has taken his mimicking of Trump on social media to mimicking his policies in real life.

On Thursday, Newsom warned California schools and universities that he would cut “billions” in state funding, including to USC, from any campus that signs a Trump administration pledge that promises federal funding to any school that adopts sweeping conservative campus policies.

“If any California University signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding — including Cal Grants — instantly,” Newsom said. “California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom.”

This week, the White House sent letters to the University of Southern California and eight other major universities across the nation asking administrators to limit their political bend on gender identity, admissions, diversity and free speech, among other areas. In return, those schools will be on the favorability list for the President’s federally funded research grants and other monies.

University officials who accept Trump’s terms will be asked to commit to what his administration has dubbed the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” Newsom called the proposal a “hostile takeover” of U.S. schools.

“It would impose strict government-mandated definitions of academic terms, erase diversity, and rip control away from campus leaders to install government-mandated conservative ideology in its place. It even dictates how schools must spend their own endowments. Any institution that resists could be hit with crushing fines or stripped of federal research funding.”

Newsom did not address that his move to block state funding for schools that agree to Trump’s plan is essentially the same sort of extortion tactics being employed by the White House.

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