Agreement here. It includes some original bad stuff:
• $ 50 million to “state workforce development organizations” in recognition of the university as a “regional economic engine and career catalyst.” I guess that means “we’ll pay ransom but we can pretend the ransom is part of our institutional commitment.” And we see where Brown falls compared to Harvard and Columbia in the Trump Rankings.
• Like Columbia, Brown gets to say the federal government does not dictate curriculum or academic speech. It then surrenders control on a range of issues. Those getting attention include:
• ¶ 12: The university (that is, the hospital and med school) agrees not to provide gender-affirming care to minors.
• ¶ 13a: Support research and education about Israel and a robust Judaic Studies program; outreach and efforts to recruit students from Jewish Day Schools; renewed partnerships with Israeli academics and national Jewish organizations; and a program celebrating 150 years of Jewish students at Brown. As in the Columbia agreement, agrees not to engage in programs to benefit any other groups in admissions or programming.
• ¶ 13c. Comprehensive “climate survey” with specific stuff about feeling “welcome” or “safe,” over-includes terms that sweep in instances where someone encountered protected speech they did not like, in-person and on social media.
• ¶ 13e. Student course evaluations will be reviewed (and shared with DoE) to identify reports of antisemitism. (Update: There is some confusion about this one. The agreement says share evals with OECR. I–and many others–assumed this was a typo and it meant DOE. It appears to be Brown’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights. Still, it means an anonymous “He treats Jews worse than other students” will trigger an investigation.)
To review: Brown must cease medical procedures that its faculty and the learned profession see as safe and medically appropriate. It must spend money on one area of programming, without regard to actual interest in that programming (the supposed driver of the assault on the humanities and liberal arts). It must target recruiting efforts at one group defined by identity, while precluded from doing the same for other groups that could use “information about applying to Brown.” It will create a mechanism for students to anonymously complain to the federal government about teachers they do not like (which surely will expand beyond looking for antisemitism to looking for and attacking other “prohibited” classroom content).* It agrees to take particular sides on certain Jewish issues, likely to the exclusion of competing views; the ADL (the national Jewish organization the agreement probably has in mind) is not exactly known for intellectual diversity. But yeah, Brown, no one is telling you all what to say or teach.
[*] I should add: This piece exacerbates the existing problems with anonymous evals, particularly as they disfavor women. By all means, let’s give students more ways to attack professors.
As for the prospect that this protects Jews: The agreement carves out for Jewish students a unique status as favored minority–a group the university must go out of its way to support and celebrate, while prohibited from acknowledging other groups.** On that point: 1) Those who complained about the antisemitic nature of campus protests insisted that no other group would face similarly offensive speech; while most framed this as a call to protect Jews as much as schools had protected other groups, this agreement flips it. 2) The perception that Jews enjoy some special favoritism beyond our numbers has not historically ended well. (Update: My original post speculated about the likely political valence and beliefs of Day School students and the students Brown has agreed to recruit and support–a reader suggests that I am wrong about that. In deference to that reader and his points, I have deleted that portion of it).
[**] Other than in ¶ 17, when it must report the race and color of every student it admits, teeing up future complaints that it admitted too many Black students.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on July 31, 2025 at 08:44 AM