In the latest development in the ongoing combat between universities in the United States and the Trump administration, the Department of Education has presented them with what it calls a “compact.” In exchange for preferential tax benefits and access to federal dollars for research, the schools are expected to make various changes involving the costs of undergraduate education, standards of admission, free speech on campus, and the content of courses that are mostly outside the sciences. The provisions have little to do with how research is conducted, and many are so at odds with the principles of academic freedom and scientific merit that one might expect universities to reject them out of hand. But with one notable exception so far, that is not what is happening. By exploiting the divisions that exist in the US higher education system and its persistent inability to act collectively, the administration is pushing forward with its strategy of divide and conquer.