OT: Admin and Faculty responses to Trump's Higher Ed Compact

by HCE, Tuesday, October 14, 2025, 09:06 (7 hours, 21 minutes ago)

Here's a Chronicle article that might be of interest to some here, particularly since this week's opponents are among the White House's chosen nine. Thus far, no school has accepted Trump's Compact, but only MIT has rejected it outright; everything else quoted here is more or less on-brand for academia--faculty are adamantly opposed, administrators are noncommittal--though both the faculty and administration responses at Texas are cause for alarm.

The White House Sent Its Compact to 9 Universities. Here’s What Their Administrators and Faculty Are Saying.
By Claire Murphy and Brock Read October 10, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to the media on the South Lawn of the White House.
Tasos Katopodis, Getty Images

Nine universities are currently weighing whether to adopt the Trump administration’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which would require them to make a wide-ranging series of commitments to uphold admissions and hiring practices, foster “viewpoint diversity,” and cap international enrollment, among other items.

By agreeing to the compact, the universities would secure “multiple positive benefits,” including higher overhead payments, “substantial and meaningful federal grants,” and other partnerships, according to a letter from a White House official.

The letter set an October 20 deadline for “limited, targeted feedback” on the compact, leaving university leaders scrambling to evaluate its terms. The Chronicle is documenting official university responses to the document, along with faculty statements, as they are made public.

We will continue to update this reporting. If you have a tip or feedback, please contact us at newseditor@chronicle.com. Here’s what we know now:
Brown U.

What administrators have said: In a message to the university, Brown’s president, Christina H. Paxson, acknowledged that Brown had received the compact. “We need to decide, as a community, how or whether to respond to the invitation to provide comments,” she said. “Brown’s course of action should and will be informed by the perspectives of our community.” | Source: Brown University

What faculty have said: A professor at Brown, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional repercussions, said that at multiple faculty meetings, professors “have been expressing significant concern” about the compact. While there are “a lot of different voices,” the professor said, the “overwhelming message” is that faculty are urging leadership to reject it based on “the way it would compromise academic freedom” and the “role of higher education and its independence from politicization.” | Source: Chronicle reporting
Dartmouth College

What administrators have said: “I am deeply committed to Dartmouth’s academic mission and values and will always defend our fierce independence,” Sian Leah Beilock, president of Dartmouth, said in a statement acknowledging the offer. “You have often heard me say that higher education is not perfect and that we can do better. At the same time, we will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves.” | Source: Dartmouth University

What faculty have said: Hundreds of Dartmouth faculty members have signed a petition opposing the compact, asking university leaders to speak out against “this unprecedented attack on higher education.” | Source: “Concerned Dartmouth faculty”
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

What administrators have said: In a statement to the secretary of education, Linda McMahon, MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth, said the university “cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education,” listing a clear set of values outlined in the compact that MIT has already worked to institute, including rewarding merit and capping international enrollment. “The premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone,” Kornbluth said. | Source: “Regarding the Compact”

What faculty have said: “We urge MIT leadership and the MIT Corporation to reject the compact wholesale,” members of the MIT chapter of the American Association of University Professors wrote in a statement. “Federal funding for higher-education research should be based not on political litmus tests, but on academic, scientific, and intellectual criteria that serve the nation and the world.” The MIT Graduate Student Union, along with 28 other campus organizations, have also signed a letter urging the university to reject the compact. | Source: MIT AAUP, MIT Graduate Student Union
U. of Arizona

What administrators have said: University administrators and the Arizona Board of Regents are reviewing the compact “to truly fully understand what is its content, what is its scope, what are the legal ramifications, what are the potential implications?,” said the provost, Patricia Prelock, at a Faculty Senate meeting. “No decisions have been made,” she said. | Source: Arizona Daily Star

What faculty have said: The university’s Faculty Senate passed a resolution calling on the institution to reject the compact. “This compact contains provisions which endanger the independence, excellence, and integrity of the University of Arizona and infringe on the constitutional rights of members of the University of Arizona community,” the resolution reads. | Source: Arizona Daily Star
U. of Pennsylvania

What administrators have said: President J. Larry Jameson confirmed in a statement that the university had received the compact and that a response “will rely on a set of principles drawn from Penn’s values and mission: freedom of inquiry and thought, free expression, nondiscrimination, adherence to American laws and the Constitution of the United States, and our own governance.” Jameson said Penn will seek input from deans, faculty, administrators, and the Board of Trustees. | Source: U. of Pennsylvania

What faculty have said: More than 1,000 faculty members, staff members, and students have signed a petition opposing the compact distributed by the Penn chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “Penn’s Latin motto, Leges Sine Moribus Vanae, translates to ‘Laws Without Morals are Useless,’” the petition states. “It is time to put that principle into practice.” | Source: AAUP Penn
U. of Southern California

What administrators have said: Beong-Soo Kim, the interim president, said in a statement that the compact “covers a number of issues that I believe are important to study and discuss,” and that he would consult with groups including the Board of Trustees and the university’s task force on academic freedom. “The university has not made any kind of final decision,” he told attendees at a virtual meeting of the Academic Senate. “That’s because I wanted to make sure that I heard from the community and received your input.” | Source: Los Angeles Times
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What faculty have said: At a virtual meeting, members of the USC Academic Senate decried the compact as “egregiously invalid,” “probably unconstitutional,” “antithetical to principles of academic freedom,” and “a Trojan horse.” | Source: Los Angeles Times
U. of Texas at Austin

What administrators have said: “The University of Texas system is honored that our flagship — the University of Texas at Austin — has been named as one of only nine institutions in the U.S. selected by the Trump administration for potential funding advantages under its new ‘Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,’” Kevin P. Eltife, chair of the University of Texas system’s Board of Regents, said in a statement. “We enthusiastically look forward to engaging with university officials and reviewing the compact immediately.” | Source: The Chronicle

What faculty have said: No reports of faculty petitions or resolutions have circulated. “There’s lots of room for higher ed to improve,” David DeMatthews, a professor of education, told the student newspaper. “I just don’t see a 10-point memo that treats human thought and perspective and viewpoints as a binary as being very helpful.” | Source: The Daily Texan
U. of Virginia

What administrators have said: The university has established a working group to review the compact. “It would be difficult for the University to agree to certain provisions in the compact,” the interim president, Paul G. Mahoney, said in a statement. “Our response will be guided by the same principles of academic freedom and free inquiry that Thomas Jefferson placed at the center of the University’s mission more than 200 years ago, and to which the University has remained faithful ever since.” | Source: The Chronicle
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What faculty have said: Faculty members of the College of Arts and Sciences held a virtual emergency meeting to approve a resolution urging campus leaders to reject the compact. According to a faculty member present at the meeting, 97 percent of attendees supported the measure. Days earlier, the UVa Faculty Senate passed a resolution calling on leaders to “reject this compact outright as well as any similar proposal comprising the mission, values, and independence of the University.” UVa’s AAUP chapter also issued a statement “vehemently opposing” the compact.

“It really is something that, at least in my department, is galvanizing people who don’t normally speak out on political issues,” said Susan Fraiman, a professor in the English department. “We really see this as just a threat to our livelihood, not just in financial terms, but in intellectual terms.” | Source: UVa Faculty Senate, UVa AAUP
Vanderbilt U.

What administrators have said: Chancellor Daniel Diermeier told the university’s student newspaper that the “university is reviewing the compact,” but he declined to comment further. | Source: The Vanderbilt Hustler

What faculty have said: In a statement, the Vanderbilt chapter of the American Association of University Professors urged leadership to “reject this Trump loyalty oath and any other that seeks to commandeer Vanderbilt’s institutional autonomy.” “We cannot sincerely ask our students to ‘dare to grow’ in the environment of fear and mistrust that this compact would produce in our community,” it said. Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United created its own petition opposing what the document calls a “fascist takeover of higher education.” More than 800 people have signed. The Vanderbilt Faculty Senate also passed a resolution opposing the offer, calling on university leaders to do the same.
| Sources: Vanderbilt AAUP, Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United, Vanderbilt Faculty Senate

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