Trump's new plan for America's top universities

Summary

Americast — "Trump's new plan for America's top universities"

BBC News | October 10, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Americast focuses on the Trump administration’s newly unveiled "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education"—a sweeping proposal that aims to reshape American higher education through funding conditions and ideological requirements. Hosts Justin Webb and Anthony Zurcher break down the plan's details and its implications, with expert analysis from Inez Stepman, a lawyer and education specialist who has influenced the administration's approach. The conversation explores the complex intersections of free speech, elitism, affirmative action, university funding, and public attitudes toward higher education.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Trump Administration’s New Plan for Universities

• What is the Compact?

  • Newly announced “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” puts conditions on universities receiving federal research grants and funding.
  • Requirements:
    • Guarantee free speech, specifically protecting conservative ideas (03:29)
    • Cap tuition increases
    • Scale back or abolish DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) programs and race-based admissions
    • Limit foreign exchange students to 15%
  • Motivation: Curb “elitism, bias, and discrimination” in both public and private (e.g., Ivy League) institutions (03:29–04:59).

• Leverage through Federal Funding:

  • The administration uses the federal purse (grants, tax breaks, student loans) to enforce these policies (10:04).
  • Notably seeks to reward universities that are “friendly” to the administration’s agenda.

Elite vs. Public Universities: The Cultural Divide

• Private "elite" universities (Harvard, Yale) and large public universities (University of Texas, Arizona, Virginia) are being targeted differently.
• The plan allegedly favors certain public universities (often in red states) over traditionally elite schools (11:12).
• Scarcity breeds resentment: The limited seats in elite colleges fuel public anger and anti-elitism, a phenomenon that underpins the Trump movement (15:39–17:24).

The Impact of Antisemitism and Campus Protests

• Recent controversies (e.g. protests over Israel/Gaza, campus antisemitism) provided political momentum for federal intervention (06:24–08:11).
• Universities were criticized for legalistic, insufficient responses to antisemitism and campus safety concerns, especially affecting Jewish students (06:47).

Academic Freedom, Free Speech, and Government Overreach

• Hosts and guests debate whether federal intervention is at odds with true academic freedom.
• Critics argue the Compact selectively protects conservative voices while threatening viewpoint diversity overall (08:48).

The “Philosopher” Behind the Movement: J.D. Vance

• Vice President J.D. Vance’s blue-collar background and populist critique frame the administration’s push against elite institutions.
• Notable Quote:
  • “You can accept democratic accountability and you can reform, or you can accept that the government is not going to treat you kindly. We’re not going to fund your garbage…” — J.D. Vance (12:56)

Affirmative Action and Racial Preferences

• The ongoing controversy around affirmative action, racial quotas, and Supreme Court decisions frames much of the debate (15:39–17:24).
• Universities now face legal requirements to avoid consideration of race in admissions, shifting attention to other forms of diversity.

Interview with Inez Stepman (17:24–35:58)

Stepman’s Critique

• Overreliance on Taxpayer Funding:
  • "They're heavily, heavily dependent on taxpayer money to the extent that they're over a barrel now." (17:56)
• Ideological Monoculture:
  • Universities accused of being “far left activism centers,” marginalizing conservatives and centrists (23:13).
• Affirmative Action Fallout:
  • Argues affirmative action policies hurt poor white and Asian applicants; calls for colorblind meritocracy (19:59–21:33).
• Spillover Into Society:
  • Campus ideology has "transformed the institutions," extending “woke” culture into corporate America (25:09–27:03).

Law and Policy Position

• Cites the Civil Rights Act as mandating colorblind admissions and hiring policies (27:39).
• Recruitment from minority/disadvantaged communities is acceptable—so long as selection remains merit-based (29:34).

Libertarian/Ethical Concerns

• Admits concern about federal overreach, but insists universities forfeited "independence" by accepting taxpayer funds (30:35).
• Uses Hillsdale College as an example of a truly independent institution, rejecting government money to maintain autonomy (30:35).

Notable Quotes

• "The way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." — Inez Stepman, quoting the Supreme Court (27:39)
• "They're not entitled to billions of dollars of taxpayer money and then to do whatever they want with it without regard to democratic input." (30:35)

Reflections on Charlie Kirk

• Stepman describes Charlie Kirk as a great coalition builder and "peacemaker" on the right, whose success without formal higher education exemplifies the “broken” model of universities (33:37).

Student Attitudes and Social Pressures

• Reference to a study: 88% of college students admit to holding more progressive views in public than in private (24:19).
• Hosts and guest discuss whether this is superficial conformity or evidence of deep ideological capture.

Rising Tuition, Debt, and Resentment

• The soaring cost of attending college, especially at elite institutions, amplifies public anger and anti-elite resentment (36:04–37:37).
• Access to quality public universities has declined dramatically for the middle class since the 1970s.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Anthony: “When Donald Trump calls, they say, ‘Yes, sir, right away, sir.’” (02:06)
• Justin: “What is the nature of academic freedom in Donald Trump’s America? It is a huge cultural question.” (01:08)
• J.D. Vance: “The model is broken, it doesn’t work, and they’re violating the social contract they have with the people of the country.” (12:56)
• Inez Stepman: “Universities have been flouting those laws of the country for a long time…under the guise of essentially left wing ideology, affirmative action, you know, whatever ideological sort of underpinning they want to do.” (17:56)
• Anthony: “That scarcity creates resentment. And that scarcity is something that…is not going to create more seats at Harvard and not going to create more seats at Yale. There’s always going to be a problem of scarcity.” (15:39)
• Inez Stepman: "If they want to go off and do their libertarian way, that's fine. But they're not entitled to billions of dollars of taxpayer money and then to do whatever they want with it without regard to democratic input." (30:35)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:08 – Introduction to the Trump administration’s university plan
• 03:29 – Explanation of the “Compact for Academic Excellence”
• 06:24–08:11 – Antisemitism, campus protests, and pretext for intervention
• 12:56 – J.D. Vance lays out the philosophical case for reform
• 15:39–17:24 – The complexity and scarcity of elite university admissions
• 17:24–35:58 – In-depth interview with Inez Stepman covering affirmative action, the new Compact, university funding, and cultural influence
• 25:09–27:39 – The influence of campus culture on corporate America
• 30:35 – Debate on libertarian anxieties versus public accountability
• 33:37 – Reflections on Charlie Kirk, a higher-ed outsider
• 36:04–38:37 – Hosts' post-interview discussion about tuition, debt, and generational resentment

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Tone and Style

The episode blends sober policy analysis with pointed criticism, staying close to the language and attitudes of the speakers—often skeptical of academic and governmental elites, but consistently focused on the broader social and cultural consequences.

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Summary

Americast’s episode offers a sweeping view of the cultural and political battle over American higher education in the Trump era. With a focus on the new federal compact, the program highlights deep divisions over the role of government, the meaning of meritocracy, the reality of campus free speech, and the price of privilege. Through rigorous questioning and lively debate, the episode captures both the urgency and complexity of the moment—showing how battles over Ivy League policies echo far beyond the campus gates.

Transcript

[Justin]

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[Justin]

What's going to happen to American universities? There is a new deal on the table for them, according to the Trump administration. They say they're going to persuade the universities to address long standing biases, elitism, racial discrimination as well. The universities, or at least many of them, say that that undermines their prestige. It undermines as well their First Amendment rights over free speech. So what is the nature of academic freedom in Donald Trump's America? It is a huge cultural question, but it's also one that's been brought to a head by the Trump administration, one that a lot of Americans feel very strongly about, including the many Americans, most Americans who don't go anywhere near an elite college. We're going to hear in a second from someone who has a very strong view and is a supporter of the Trump administration.

[Saks Off 5th Advertiser]

Welcome to AmericasT, AmericasT, AmericasT from BBC News.

[Anthony]

When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir, right away, sir.

[J.D. Vance]

Happy to lick your boot, sir.

[Anthony]

We are the sickest country in the world.

[Inez Stepman]

Oh dear. Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry? Of course the president supports peaceful protests. What a stupid question.

[Donald Trump]

Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?

[Justin]

Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmericasT in London, England.

[Anthony]

And it's Anthony in the Washington headquarters of AmericasT in Washington.

[Justin]

And we're going to be joined very shortly by someone who the Trump administration has very much listened to on the subject of. Of universities, and indeed is probably fair to say been inspired by when it comes to cutting their funding, sorting them out, as the White House would say. She is Inez Stepman. She's a lawyer, she's an education specialist. And she's going to give us an insight into the conversations that have been going on in the background between people inside the White House and their many supporters outside, who have been long wanting American universities to, as they see it, be brought to heel and change. But I suppose before we get to her, Anthony, we ought to talk about what is going on. There is a plan, isn't there? An actual plan from the Trump administration to the universities which they're being asked to sign up to?

[Anthony]

Yeah. And the plan just came out in the past week, and what is called is the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. And I think this is kind of to, as you mentioned, reshape the way higher education in this country functions. Some sort of a framework that universities have to agree with in order to get federal support, federal research grants. And it touches on a number of subjects. It touches on being able to give equal voice, equal protections to conservative ideas. It involves putting some sort of a limit on increases, intuition, which is something I think that will be very popular among most Americans. It also restructures how universities operate, taking away some of the DEI programs or take race into consideration when they're giving their admissions grants. And what the Trump administration has been talking about throughout this year, I mean.

[Justin]

Underlying this, and I think outside the US People tend sometimes not to realize the extent to which universities in America are in a privileged position, including the private ones. So you think of, you know, your Harvards and Yales and all the rest of it being private institutions, which of course they are. But it's fair to say, isn't it, when it comes to tax breaks and particularly property tax. But I know there are other breaks as well when it comes to federal grants for various things. The feeling is that actually they've been given a pretty easy ride for quite a long time.

[Anthony]

Yeah, I think that's definitely the conservative view, that universities have become untethered from American values and are serving kind of the elite, particularly Ivy League colleges and others, that they're not serving the general public, that they become essentially playgrounds or networking grounds for the rich and powerful. And so I think you have to kind of look at this higher education in this country as in two halves. You have the private elite schools, and then you have these larger public institutions that have been founded over the last 100, 150 years by states across the country, institutions like the University of Texas, which is one of the nine colleges that has been asked to sign on to this compact. And they are in theory poised to get more power, more federal dollars at the expense of the smaller private elite schools. Another thing that is a part of this compact, which I think is worth emphasizing, is that it puts a limit on on foreign exchange students coming in to this country, I think capping it at about 15%. So that's another view that higher education as a country should be for Americans, it should be for all Americans and not the wealthy and well connected. And that is a pretty dramatic change from what we've seen in this country over the past few decades.

[Justin]

And is it fair to say that one of the things that has brought this to a head and in a sense allowed the Trump administration to get into this space to do these things, is the antisemitism? And there were those hearings, weren't there, where the heads of some of the greatest universities really found themselves floundering because they tried to give quite legalistic answers to questions about antisemitism on their campuses.

[Anthony]

There were those very high profile protests right after the Israeli attacks on Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel that did become violent, did become very heated, and that did result in rhetoric and actions that made Jewish students on some of these campuses, like Columbia University in particular, feel threatened and not feel safe. And there was the perception among many that the universities were not doing enough to address that and not doing enough to protect their Jewish students. And I think that served as an example that conservatives, when they made this push against universities, could cite and say, here's an example of universities not doing enough to protect all of their students. And that kind of they built on that and expanded it to say conservatives writ large feel unwelcome in many colleges and that they aren't represented. It is interesting to look at this compact and is very directed towards conservative viewpoints and not just kind of a general, you know, there should be free speech on campus kind of guarantees. But they want to make sure that conservatives are treated fairly, which is one of the criticisms of it, that it is kind of tilted towards protecting conservative voices, whereas liberal voices, voices on the left, don't get the same kind of guarantees.

[Justin]

Yeah. And I think another criticism of it, which we'll explore a bit with our guest in a bit, is in practical terms, how does a government impose freedom, as it were? I mean, surely a lot of people on the right would say you should be free. And if you should be free, then you should be free to be left wing if you want to be left wing. And what business does the White House have? If you're a libertarian, a Republican, what on earth business does the White House have getting involved in this kind of thing at all? You might think it's a bad thing that American universities have become very woke and left wing, if that is what you think. But, you know, you might equally think, I suppose, that the solution to it.

[Anthony]

That you're proposing is equally poor right and academic freedom. Independence, the independence of academic thought has been a, you know, a central guiding principle in American higher education, you know, for decades, if not centuries. The idea that professors, they get tenure at universities and they do not feel pressured from external influences to, to shape what they view or how they teach. And that gives them the freedom to fully explore what they view as right and wrong and the way they want to explore their academic areas. That changes if you have the government, in this case the Trump administration, but it could very well be a liberal administration sometime in the future, saying what is and isn't right and what they have to do and what kind of viewpoints they have to make sure that they express.

[Justin]

Yeah, and it's also worth saying, isn't it, that you read out that list of universities that have been written to now, but some have caved, as it were. As some would see it, they feel they could be really roughed up by the Trump administration. And whatever they think the truth or right or wrong of something is, some of them will feel we have to do what we're asked to do.

[Anthony]

And I think this fits in with what the Trump administration is trying to do across the board, which is they realize they have power. They have the power of the federal purse. The federal government spends hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars of grants they give out and student loan support for students who are taking out loans to go to all of these colleges. And that gives them incredible influence over universities. And they have been flexing that muscle, obviously, to pressure universities like Columbia to change their policies. And Harvard has been another big target. And Trump said recently that there's an agreement, he believes they have an agreement with Harvard, hundreds of millions of dollars in a settlement with Harvard to change their view. Let's listen to Trump talk about that right here.

[Donald Trump]

Linda's finishing up the final details. And they'd be paying about 500 million and they'll be operating trade schools. They're going to be teaching people how to Do AI and lots of other things. Engines, lots of things. You know, we need people. And then their sins are forgiven. So we have a good chance of getting that close. Yeah, please.

[Anthony]

Right. Their sins are forgiven if that happens. And there are going to be a lot of people at Harvard and a lot of people who have been kind of celebrating Harvard as the university position to resist this pressure from Trump, who will be very critical if there's some sort of a deal is struck. You mentioned the universities that received this compact letter, and I don't think we've actually ticked through all of them. They're Arizona, Brown, Dartmouth, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Penn, as you mentioned, Southern California, Texas, Vanderbilt and Virginia. It's an interesting kind of a mix of private universities like Southern Cal and Dartmouth and Penn and mit and public schools like Arizona and Texas and Virginia. And the off the record justification explanation from the administration is that these are universities that have shown an amenability and openness to changing how they operate. Some of these big public schools are in red states. Arizona is reddish. Texas obviously is, is very red. And some of them are private schools that have played nice with the administration like Dartmouth. And they're the reasons to kind of make an example for the rest of these schools and universities across the country that this is how things are going to operate. And if you play ball with us, you're going to be first in line for federal grants. And again, it's the power of the purse. They're being able to divvy up this research money based on what they say are the most, most, the friendliest universities.

[Justin]

And there is a sort of, if there is a guiding philosophy and a guiding philosopher behind it, then it's not Trump himself, is it? It's the vice president, JD Vas. Let's listen to what he's been saying.

[J.D. Vance]

I am not anti university, I'm not anti Harvard. What I am is a person who recognizes what should be obvious to every single person and every, every elite university in the country, which is the model is broken, it doesn't work, and they're violating the social contract they have with the people of the country. And the people are now saying, we need you to change. And these institutions are really going to be confronted, and thanks to President Trump, have already been confronted with a choice. You can accept democratic accountability and you can reform, or you can accept that the government is not going to treat you kindly. We're not going to fund your garbage and we're not going to support you unless you do the job. The American people need you to do.

[Anthony]

When you listen to Donald Trump, I think he kind of likes Ivy League schools. I mean, he went to Penn, transferred into Penn after going to Fordham undergrad. Whenever he talks about his appointees, he always brags about whether they went to Harvard or Yale. He seems to celebrate that Ivy League pedigree. But Vance is someone different. I mean, he grew up, as we know, he grew up in a middle class, lower middle class family. He went to Ohio State University, which is the big public university. Massive, tens of thousands of students go there in undergrad each year. Massive university in Ohio. And then went to law school in, I believe, Yale, the pinnacle of the ivory tower. And that experience going from Ohio State to Yale, as he writes about in his book, I mean, it's eye opening for him and he, you know, it educates how he views these, these Ivy League universities.

[Podcast Host/Outro Narrator]

Yeah.

[Justin]

And if you're, you know, if you live in, I don't know, Normal, Illinois or Wichita, Kansas, or somewhere, somewhere in the middle and you go to an ordinary school, but you're a bright kid, your chances of getting frankly to an Ivy League school and being able to afford it, and particularly if your parents have some money. And this is the crucial thing, I suppose, and also the challenge from the Trump administration is particularly if you're of Asian heritage or to an extent white heritage, your chances of getting there are pretty slim, actually. I mean, that's another thing we haven't really brought up, we ought just to talk about before we get to our guest. There has been this real row about who gets to these places and the way in which they choose their people. And actually a Supreme Court case as well, which kind of suggests to me that part of what the Trump administration wants from them is anyway, now the settled law of the land. They're not allowed to. Or am I getting this wrong, Anthony? I thought they just weren't allowed anymore to have a kind of racial preference system.

[Anthony]

Right. That was the Supreme Court case, a challenge to Harvard and their admissions program, their admissions criteria, which didn't look at race, but it took in a variety of extracurricular activities and your background and what you did as a student. And it mixed all that in. They called it a holistic view of admissions. And the Supreme Court said, no, you really have to look at their academic record and you cannot make these kind of judgmental determinations on their background and the environment they came from, even if it isn't specifically targeted to race. I think it's worth emphasizing here that Harvard undergrad has 800, 900 students in their incoming freshman class, everyone who gets in is top of their class. I mean, it's like winning a lottery ticket to get in, no matter whether you just only go based on SAT and grades, because most of the kids who get in have 1600 sats. Perfect source on their sats. It's just there are very, very few seats in Ivy League schools compared to the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of American high school seniors who are applying to colleges. And that scarcity creates resentment. And that scarcity is something that if there's instances where they say, oh, well, this person got in and this person didn't, or, I have a really good SAT score, but look at this person who got in. I mean, it's changing. It is not going to create more seats at Harvard and not going to create more seats at Yale. It's just there's always going to be a problem of scarcity in higher education in this country because there are just a lot of kids and Ivy League, just. Just a handful of seats to be in.

[Justin]

Okay, let us welcome Inez Stepman to the pod. She's a senior policy and legal analyst for the Independent Women's Forum and Independent Women's Law center, but she is very much a specialist in education policy. She's someone who's very much influenced, inspired, I think it is fair to say, the Trump administration's position on universities. So, Inez, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining us.

[Inez Stepman]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Justin]

Set out your stall. Tell us what you have been saying for years now is wrong with the American university sector.

[Inez Stepman]

Well, the university sector has a very simple problem, and you guys have been discussing it already. They're heavily, heavily dependent on taxpayer money to the extent that they're over a barrel now. And they felt very, very comfortable both flouting federal law for decades when it comes to civil rights, when it comes to discrimination, both in admissions and in hiring at these universities. And we know the data underlying it, and we see massive discrepancies on the basis of race, whether he were an Asian or white applicant or a black and Hispanic applicant. Right. So we know that race has factored heavily into this. So they have been flouting those laws of the country for a long time. There are a lot of private businesses that have been flouting them as well under the guise of essentially left wing ideology, affirmative action, you know, whatever ideological sort of underpinning they want to do. But they've been violating the law, and they've become much more expensive over time. The degree, the Value of a degree is decreasing. We have two generations now of students and heavy student loan debt. Something had to change with this model that universities have been using, which is basically to, you know, be far left activism centers. That has lost the confidence of two thirds of the country, not just Republicans, independents, totally in the tank in terms of what they think in terms of trust in the university system. And yet the prices were ever higher. And those bills were funded primarily by taxpayers who also issue the loans that students are now struggling with. So the whole model had to change. It was, I think, a great. It was at a tipping point anyway because of a lot of the financial issues. But I'm very, very happy with what the Trump administration has done, so.

[Anthony]

But isn't it in Harvard's interest and other universities, isn't it in their interest to have a rounded student body? These are the elite schools. And to have access to a wider variety of people, geographically, racially, rather than kind of, you know, a monoculture on a different. Of a different kind?

[Inez Stepman]

Yeah. I mean, first, I'd say it's laughable that elite universities like Harvard are creating actual diversity with their student bodies. They're creating a rainbow of race, but they're not creating actual diversity, for example, of political view, or for that matter, of socioeconomic background. Right. So the federal government got involved with student loans and giving grants to universities most heavily in the 1970s, a little bit before that. But primarily the big taps came on in the 1970s as part of, you know, LBJ and the Great Society. And the idea was to extend an opportunity to bright young kids from all over the country. If they were poor, they would be able to go to university. Right. What's happened since then, in the intervening 50 years is that although many more people are going to college and getting degrees, a smaller percentage of the student body is coming from the lower half of the income spectrum than in 1970 when we turned on those taps explicitly to help them out. So obviously, you know, the current model was not serving actual diversity, socioeconomic diversity. Right. And anyway, schools are free to build a diverse class. They're completely free to do that. They're just not free to do it on the basis of race. They're not free to put their thumb on the scale and say, well, we're going to privilege this applicant because he's black or Hispanic, and we're going to downgrade this applicant because he is white or Asian. That is not, you know, that is one metric upon which they are not allowed to put their thumb on the scale. And that's right. That's the law of the country. Right. That's should be the thing that Americans strive for, which is a colorblind meritocracy.

[Anthony]

How does this improve things? How does this make universities more diverse? We saw with California when they did away with racial preferences in higher education. Basically, you're changing these schools demographic makeups, but I think you're making them more homogenous, not less.

[Inez Stepman]

Only if you're looking at the metric of race. And that's the underlying premise of what you just said when you're talking about, oh, like the ethnic makeup of these schools are gonna change. Yeah. Because they have essentially, even though that's not what they say they're doing, they've created a quota system whereby there's a certain number of seats set aside for each racial category. And I'm sorry, that's not something that Americans are going to support. It's something that the Supreme Court blessed for a limited amount of time to try to sort of undo. That was Sandra Day o', Connor, Justice San Sandra Day o', Connor, saying, well, you can do this for a couple decades because maybe it's a way of undoing some of the discrimination of the past. And what we've seen is actually it's just creating a new set of racial classifications and racial discriminations, whereby if you're an applicant like J.D. vance, for example, which you guys who brought up the vice president before, if you're a poor Appalachian kid who has high test scores, you're not going to Harvard because there's this limited number of seats for white males set aside at Harvard. That's how they've been operating behind the scenes. And that's what's been very clear from the data that came out in that Students for Fair Admissions case.

[Justin]

So when we talk about race, it's sort of just one aspect of a wider sense that individuals in universities, there isn't a feeling that individuals are responsible entirely for their own behavior.

[Inez Stepman]

Yeah, I mean, I think that's very true. I think it's one of several reasons that universities have lost so much trust with the American public and why so many people are questioning whether we should be sending $800 billion right to universities. So first of all, there is this creep of ideology. Universities have leaned left forever. But what has been relatively new phenomenon is two things. One, the extent of the monoculture. You used that word before. But the extent to which anybody of even centrist views, let alone conservative views, has been totally marginalized on university campuses. They really are activism training camps for the far left. And then why shouldn't the two thirds or more of the country that doesn't subscribe to that ideology say, well, why are we sending our tax dollars here? And then on top of it, why is our daughter gonna have to take out, you know, $150,000 in loans, you know, to attend this kind of institution where a lot of what's happening there is far, far to the left, like two, three standard deviations to the left.

[Justin]

I wonder though whether the students themselves have kind of caught onto this because there was this, I mentioned this study that was done by psychologists at a couple of universities, Northwestern and Michigan. So 88% of the students they surveyed said that they held more progressive views in public than they truly felt in private. And I wonder actually whether an entire generation of youngsters is actually kind of just learned to say things to fit in. And it doesn't terribly matter because they'll still be the same, you know, they'll still go into, I don't know, Goldman Sachs or whatever when they finished university. In other words, whether the Trump administration is actually over emphasizing for its own purposes the damage that is being done because the students themselves don't believe this stuff.

[Inez Stepman]

Well, I think first of all, I think there's been a change just in the last couple years among very young Gen Z, but let's leave that turn right aside for a moment. Among very young voters. I, I think that the damage has been enormous. By the way, they're going into the newsrooms at the New York Times, they're going into all of these, these major businesses in America. And lo and behold, what we've seen is not that these kids have sort of forgotten their blue haired ways and gone on to do the American capitalist dream of making money. They've made plenty of money. But what they've done is transformed the institutions. And sure enough, we've seen all of America's corporate structure move far left culturally on a number of issues. Of course they didn't move far left on making money. So that's a little convenient for them. Right? But, but we've seen America's corporate structures move far left and start to play in politics, right? We've had corporate boycotts of states because they, for example, introduce voter ID laws, right? We've had Delta weighing in on Pride Month every year. All of these major important institutions in American corporate life, these companies that are Fortune 500 or Fortune 100 companies, all of a sudden, you know, they're having struggle sessions and they're hiring on the basis of race In a very open way. A bunch of these companies, for example, in 2020 announced that they were going to have 30% people of color as their employees by 2025. And then they went ahead and did it. They made hiring decisions based on race. I have friends in the legal. Legal field, in big law firms in New York City that were told explicitly they've been taken off of cases because they're white men and they need more diversity on the case. So, no, it didn't stop at the campus. We didn't see people sort of grow up and take their nose ring out. What happened is that campus politics moved into all of the institutions of American life, right?

[Anthony]

And the response to that would be that these institutions were dominated by white men for centuries and that these were problems that had to be addressed and had to be addressed more aggressively in order to overcome what the critics would say is the institutional racism that kind of permeated this. And as private companies, they saw that as a problem. They saw that as their goal was to become better businesses and to become more effective in a diverse society. And that's why they were doing this. So, I mean, you know, that's. That's the flip side of that, isn't it?

[Inez Stepman]

In answer to that, I would just quote the Supreme Court, right? The way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. The way to rectify past discrimination on the basis of race is to provide a level playing field for the individual job and hire based on merit and not take race into consideration. And by the way, this is not just my opinion, right? This is the law of the country since 1964. Now, if the left wants to repeal the Civil Rights act, they're welcome to try to do that in the democratic process. But I think the Civil Rights act is very popular. And the underlying policy or idea behind the Civil Rights act, in other words, that is illegitimate to take race into account when you're talking about hiring decisions, when you're talking about admissions to universities, when you're talking about things that are not substantively connected in any way to the color of your skin or your racial background. I think that that's the principle that Americans believed they were upholding all of these years since the civil rights era. And so now we've found in the last, you know, whatever decade, the left completely abandoning that position. And in the last few years, especially all these institutions in American life now making decisions that are really critical to both, you know, students, future, you know, young kids, coming out of high school, what school they end up in, then what job they get after college. You know, these are things that obviously affect the rest of your life and these are decisions that were made on race.

[Anthony]

Are you okay with universities, private companies, doing outreach to minority or disadvantaged communities to say, okay, you know, we're not going to hire people or give them a seat in Harvard based on their race, but we want to be able to reach out to communities and try to expand our reach in order to get a more diverse student body or workforce that we're going to try to put effort into recruiting or just showing up and do that because it is in our interest to have a diverse organization.

[Inez Stepman]

The law has already worked through all these questions in the 60s and 70s. It's funny that they are coming back around, but that is actually the one thing that you're permitted to do under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. You're not allowed to put the slightest thumb on the scale when you actually hire. The thing you're allowed to do if you want to diversify your workfor for us is to go out and try to recruit more applicants from perhaps places that wouldn't normally apply or people wouldn't see the job opening? Right. It's much less of a problem with the Internet, I think, but even so, right, you're absolutely allowed to expand the applicant pool, but once they're in the applicant pool, you can't make hiring decisions on the basis of race. You have to make them on the basis of merit.

[Justin]

If you're a libertarian, as a lot of Americans are, in their hearts, aren't they? Would you not be a little bit nervous about the idea of the White House, of the federal government at all kind of mandating to universities how they should behave, even if you think they're behaving really badly? I'm just wondering whether the cure is worse than the illness. Potentially.

[Inez Stepman]

Yeah. You know, I'm sympathetic in some ways to that argument, but the big rejoinder here is that universities business model is entirely dependent on taxpayer money and it doesn't have to be that way. Hillsdale College, for example, operates completely without taking federal loans and without taking federal grants because they wanted to be free of any strings that might be attached to that money. What's happening now is the strings that were always attached to that money are being enforced. That's the only thing that's happening. Right. So universities taking federal money have always had an obligation to follow the Civil Rights Act. Well, now it's being enforced. Right. So if they want to go off and do their libertarian way, that's fine, but they don't. They're not entitled to billions of dollars of taxpayer money and then to do whatever they want with it without regard to democratic input. And here, I mean small d, democratic input and control. That's the deal they took when they took billions in taxpayer money. Yeah, but I think it'd be great if we had an actual private sector in. In higher ed. But that. That's not the case for the overwhelming percentage of universities. I mean, 99% of universities.

[Justin]

I take your point. But. But seriously, should. Should the White House be involved in who the geography faculty are at Yale University and what they all think? And I mean, it just feels to me like you're almost going in an equally un American direction to the one that the universities themselves seem to have gone in.

[Inez Stepman]

I don't know if you think about the university, the purpose of the university system from colonial times. Right. It always had. It had content. Right. And what we've seen is that universities have departed from their central mission, which is the inquiry into truth. And there's a democratic correction to that. Because they are creatures of the state. They are not independent from the state. Again, if they want to be independent from the state, they're more than free to do that. Harvard has a $53 billion endowment. That's more than the GDP of many countries. These are not weak institutions. These are institutions that have become incredibly wealthy, not because of the particular learning that they're imparting to their students. Right. But because they. They serve. And increasingly, what they've served as are networking institutions for already wealthy, already elite people.

[Anthony]

Yeah. And I think you get at something. The cost of higher education. I think that's. That's at the root of all of this. I mean, when I was growing up in high school and before people could go to a big public school and pay much less pay hundreds of dollars a semester compared to tens of thousands of dollars, and that the financial burden, I think, increases the pressure on everyone. But I wanted to ask you really quickly here at the end, because I hear that you worked with Charlie Kirk, that you did podcasts with him. Could you tell me a little bit about your relationship with him and what his views on higher education, how they kind of melded with yours?

[Inez Stepman]

Yeah. I mean, Charlie was a great and really warm person. He had a lot of friends. Right. He made everybody feel like they were a great friend of his. And that was a special, special quality about him. It made him a great coalition builder. It made him A great sort of nexus for all the different pieces of the right who are usually at each other's throats. He was very much a kind of peacemaker between different factions of the right and a synthesizer. I think Charlie's example really shows that how bankrupt the university model is, because he was such a smart guy, was able to understand such large amounts of information and then argue on a huge number of topics. I'm sure people have seen the videos of him arguing with students on every policy topic under the sun, on every cultural topic under the sun. And our generation, I think, really regardless of whether we had no university education at all like Charlie, or whether, like me, we went all the way through law school, and I went to uva, by the way, so one of the schools that is being offered this compact. But it's not that I don't think there's a role in American life, a valued role and in some ways like an exalted role for that kind of teaching and learning. I just don't think it's happening in Harvard or Yale. And Charlie's a great example of somebody who did it on his own, better than anything that's on offer.

[Justin]

Yeah, look, we've got to let you go, Inez, but just on the subject of Charlie, I was talking the other weekend to Mark Kirk. No relation, but Mark Kirk was a senator who was the first person, I think, to employ Charlie on his campaign staff. And he was saying. And actually, politically, I think they've grown apart, but he was saying he was the most sparkling, extraordinary youngster. He would have been 18 or so, I think, when he worked for Mark Kirk. He was an incredible man in many ways, and people will disagree with his politics or agree with his politics, but there was something about him, no question about that. Inez, we've got to let you go. It's such a pleasure to have talked to you. Thank you so much. Because you've shared with us views that I don't think we hear enough, actually, about the American university sector, because a lot of it comes from the White House, and people know what they think about Donald Trump, et cetera. But it is a much wider discussion than that, and I'm really grateful to you for having it with us.

[Inez Stepman]

I'm grateful to you for having me. It was a great discussion. All right.

[Anthony]

That was an interesting conversation. I want to get back to what I said at the end there about the cost of college tuition, because it has gone up extraordinarily and students are in debt, and I think this animates and Energizes this conversation about what is college for and what kind of education are you getting for your money? Maybe it didn't matter as much when it cost $1,000 to a semester. Four years, you're not in debt. But now there's such massive debt that I think it just puts a lot more pressure on how these universities are structured and what people are getting out of it. And that creates everything else we're talking about.

[Justin]

Yeah. And how resentful they feel. Yeah, the resentfulness comes just to double down on that point. If you look at how easy it was in the 1970s for someone who had an ordinary job, manual job, to get their kid into a public university. So that's generally the way up. You get the education. And some, as you were saying earlier, some of the public universities are very, very good. And your ability to do that on an ordinary salary in the 1970s compared with your ability to do it on an ordinary salary today, the change is huge, isn't it? And it's one of those things that's sort of gone under the radar a bit, but it seems to me that it actually does. I mean, you could even make the argument, I suppose, it's what results in the election of Donald Trump.

[Anthony]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, he touched on that as we discussed. He touched on kind of the anti establishment, anti elite resentment through a lot of this country. And I think that resentment directed as much towards higher education as corporations and politics. I mean, I grew up in Texas and most of my college classmates went to the University of Texas or they went to Texas A and M or Texas Tech, these big schools. It's really hard to get into UT now. Most of my friends who have kids, their kids aren't going to be able to go to UT1 because there are just, as I mentioned, there are fewer seats and more kids, so there's more competition. And then the affordability of that is really a challenge. And it is to the Trump administration's credit. I mean, they do put that in there, and I think they put it in there because it's a popular issue that people can really connect with more than maybe having protections for conservative viewpoints.

[Justin]

It's been a fascinating discussion. I really have enjoyed doing this. I think it's such an important thing and it's culturally so interesting as well. So it's been a pleasure as ever, Anthony. Until the next time.

[Anthony]

Bye, y'. All.

[Justin]

Bye.

[Anthony]

Ameracast.

[Saks Off 5th Advertiser]

Ameracast from BBC News.

[Podcast Host/Outro Narrator]

Well done for getting all the way to the end of another americast episode. That makes you officially an americaster. It's not easy navigating your way through the news in America, particularly at the moment, but you did it and we're delighted with to have you with us. So if you do have a comment or a question about any of the stories we've talked about or anything you'd like us to talk about, do please get in touch. You can email us americastbc.co.uk you can WhatsApp us a message on 033-01-2390. And we do answer your questions every single week on the podcast. You can always join the discussion in our online community on Discord. The link is in our podcast description in your app. And we'll be back with another episode very soon. Till then, see y' all later.

[Inez Stepman]

Bye bye. America is changing and so is the world.

[Podcast Host/Outro Narrator]

But what's happening in America isn't just.

[Justin]

A cause of global upheaval.

[Podcast Host/Outro Narrator]

It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Inez Stepman]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Anthony]

Tristan Redmond in London, and this is the Global Story.

[Inez Stepman]

Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Anthony]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.