The College Fix

No university would speak with The College Fix about the possibility of hosting Trump’s library

Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton may become the host site for President Donald Trump’s library, although the public research institution has not confirmed reported negotiations this week.

Still, questions about the site of the Trump Presidential Library remain, and one professor predicted the library itself will take years to be completed.

Florida Atlantic is believed to be the Republican president’s first choice, according to a Wall Street Journal report over the weekend.

“A person familiar with the negotiations said that Trump’s team is nearing a deal with FAU—which has offered a 100-year lease at no cost—and that Trump expressed interest in the university during a meeting with lawyers at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year,” the report states.

However, the university’s media relations office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Fix in recent weeks asking about being a potential location of the library. It also did not respond to a follow up Monday asking about the reported negotiations.

The National Archives, which oversees 16 presidential libraries, declined to comment, instead directing The Fix to the press inquiry page on the White House website.

Meanwhile, plans for the library are moving forward.

Trump’s son Eric and son-in-law Michael Boulos “recently established a nonprofit to support the library,” according to the report. Furthermore, the Republican president has said he would like to turn “a $400 million Boeing 747 jet—a gift from Qatar—into a tourist attraction at the library.”

A number of other higher education institutions also have been mentioned as potential library sites, including Florida International University and the University of Pennsylvania, Trump’s alma mater.

The Fix contacted University of Pennsylvania’s media relations team for comment by email multiple times, but it did not reply. The media team of U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, also did not reply to The Fix’s emails, asking about a potential library site at the Ivy League campus.

Florida International also did not respond to multiple emails from The Fix over the past two weeks asking about the matter.

However, reports suggest that Florida, which is Trump’s state of primary residence, likely will be the location.

Florida lawmakers are “preparing the red carpet” for President Trump, having passed legislation that “gives the state full regulatory control over presidential libraries—and prevents local governments from potentially obstructing the project,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Fix contacted the office of Daniel Perez, speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, several times over the past week, asking about the possibility of universities in Florida hosting the library, but it did not respond.

However, Jodi Kanter, a theater professor at the George Washington University who wrote a book about presidential libraries as a performance in 2016, did offer some thoughts to The College Fix recently via email.

“The job of a presidential library, for good or for ill, is to present the most positive story of a leader’s presidency,” Kanter told The Fix.

She continued, “Where those stories have been sufficiently consistent with the historical record, the libraries have been accepted into the presidential library system, administered by the National Archives.”

Commenting prior to the report about the Florida Atlantic University negotiations, Kanter said, “It took the Nixon Library 30 years to become part of this system. I suspect it will take the Trump library longer than that.”

Stanley Ridgley, a professor of management at Drexel University, a neighbor to the University of Pennsylvania, said he would “like to see Drexel make a bid, but that’s beyond the imagination of anyone in the hierarchy.”

“[T]his could be a major shot in the arm and bring national luster to the school,” he told The Fix.

When asked, prior to the report of the Florida Atlantic negotiations, why he believes universities are not talking about the library, Ridgley said the likely reason “is that no school wants a target on its back for the next 3.5 years.” He is the author of “Brutal Minds,” a book that raises concerns about the leftist ideological capture of higher education.

“They all want the library and the money it brings, but none want to fend off the Tesla-scrapers and the illegal alien issue and battle with Harvard — reporters would come after any school that says ‘aye’ to the project,” he said.

“At a time of financial crisis for higher ed, getting in front of this would be marvelous for any school,” he said.

In 2021, The Fix also asked several universities about becoming the host site of Trump’s Presidential Library after his first term in office, but did not receive any responses.

Currently, the U.S. has 16 presidential libraries overseen by the National Archives. A few others operate independently.

Several are housed at universities. The Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library, for example, is at Mississippi State University. Lyndon Johnson’s is located on the University of Texas at Austin campus, and Gerald Ford’s library is at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

MORE: Universities still silent on if they would host Trump’s presidential library

IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: President Donald Trump signs an executive order; WhiteHouse/X

Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter