Secretary of Education Linda McMahon recently issued a letter titled “A National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards.” For some, McMahon’s statement marks “a softer approach,” not a stick but a “carrot,”and a “significant departure” from last October’s bullying “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” Some were less sure; The Chronicle of Higher Education wondered if the “National Call” was “an olive branch” or “a gloved fist.”

I think it’s potentially a gloved nuke.

In its own perhaps inadvertent way, Monday’s “National Call” is quite clever. Whether McMahon and her Department of Education crew of Canadian-born America Firsters, anti-trans activists and financial aid fraud investigators knew it or not, her most recent salvo will expose and exacerbate various divides in the American higher education sector. 

In October 2025, McMahon asked nine schools to sign the since-failed “compact” letter, thereby  committing themselves to aligning their policies with MAGA’s transphobic views on biological sex. The signatories would also have to cap enrollments on international students and freeze tuition. Most importantly (and alarmingly), the compact demanded that the universities agree to “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” 

Then came the stick: The letter threatened to withhold federal funds unless the schools got in line. Law professor Erwin Chemerinsky called this demand “unconstitutional” (the delegation of funds is Congress’ job, not the president’s unilateral prerogative) and “extortion, plain and simple.” 

The directive flailed. None of the nine universities flinched (Brown, Dartmouth, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Arizona, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Southern California, the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt and the University of Virginia). Meanwhile, McMahon’s push to inoculate conservative ideas from criticism outraged free-speech advocates. Sensing defeat, the Trump administration quickly expanded the list of potential signatories. But the damage was done; McMahon’s compact was in tatters.

This new letter tones things down a bit. It lacks the anti-trans animus of its predecessor. It does not allude to withholding federal funding. Nor does it try to mandate a safe space for conservative ideas on campus. Crucially, it is directed not to nine elite universities but to every postsecondary school in America — a stratagem the DOE tried belatedly last October with the compact letter after its botched rollout.

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What McMahon’s new missive does do is make a pretty funny request, although whether the joke was intentional is beyond my powers of comprehension. Instead of dropping ultimatums on American colleges and universities, it effectively assigns them a term paper. 

McMahon, the former president of World Wrestling Entertainment, “call[s] on every postsecondary institution to describe to the American public your commitments to rigorous teaching, pathbreaking research, and national service.” She even provides discussion prompts. No word limits were stipulated — as a seasoned professor, I say rookie mistake there, Linda — and the paper is to be posted “prominently on institutional websites.” The deadline is “before the end of 2026.”

This is clever. The DOE turned a conversation with a few universities into an open forum with the nearly 4,000 Title IV degree-granting schools in America. Even if only 3% of the schools submit the assignment, it will invite all sorts of far-flung stakeholders into the conversation — a conversation that will highlight the aforementioned divides. 

And believe me, some schools are going to pull all-nighters. I anticipate three types of response to McMahon’s prompt. First, there will be the MAGA-compliant. Their websites will simulate confetti drops and proclaim, “We are thrilled and honored to answer President Donald Trump’s call.” I expect public universities in deep-red states to respond in this way — Texas A&M, I’m looking at you. (The October compact already garnered responses from Valley Forge Military College and, of course, New College of Florida.) Private conservative institutions, especially the ones that are religiously chartered, will also likely make the DOE very happy (though even Christian colleges were spooked by the compact’s demand for a tuition freeze and international student caps).

In category 2 are those who will blow off the assignment. They risk learning the profundity of the French adage “les absents ont toujours tort” (“those who are not present are always in the wrong”). Their delinquency will be decried by conservative pundits. The schools will be accused of thumbing their nose at the American people and parents who pay $100,000 a year in tuition. They will also signal that they are not MAGA-friendly.

It’s the third tranche, however, that I find most narratively compelling. This would be universities whose students and faculty want no part of this circus. Nevertheless, their craven administrators and board members will submit, so to speak. I’d love to read the minutes of the committee entrusted with answering “the national call.” (Ditto for those universities that respond with defiance.)

MAGA runs on division. The divisiveness is the mechanism through which this president pursues his radical agenda. Even though Trump’s true target is elite universities, his people have found a way to drive a wedge between the latter and every other school in the country. American higher education is too big and diverse to stand united against such a threat. 

This isn’t to say that the sector doesn’t need a radical overhaul. I and countless other professors  have been arguing that for years. It’s just that Trump’s higher education intervention isn’t about education at all. It’s about stifling all critique of MAGA orthodoxy. 

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