The Trump Administration sent the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” offering preferential treatment to nine universities, providing that they were willing to adopt a specific set of policies. The proposal would require institutions to make sweeping commitments, including but not limited to: freezing tuition for five years, capping international student enrollment at 15 percent, adopting narrow definitions of sex (“male” and “female” only), barring transgender individuals from using facilities consistent with their gender identities, and implementing institutional neutrality on societal and political issues. In return, the administration offered unspecified benefits, but did state that adherence to the compact is subject to review from the Department of Justice. The controversial approach has sparked confusion, outrage, and significant debate across the higher education community about scientific rigor, academic freedom, and federal influence in university governance.
The initial communication to nine institutions—without explanation for how they were selected—requested feedback by October 20. To date, seven institutions have declined to sign the compact. The University of Pennsylvania cited an “unprecedented” governmental intrusion on academic freedom that could constrain the pursuit of evidence-based knowledge. Similarly, the MIT President emphasized that scientific funding must remain grounded in scientific merit alone. Other institutions who declined include Brown University, Dartmouth College, University of Arizona, University of Southern California, and University of Virginia. University of Texas at Austin and Vanderbilt University have yet to publicly respond. Texas had initially expressed an appreciation for having received the opportunity to comment.
The conditions proposed in the compact seek to reshape university policies, in effect, intimidating institutions. The compact outlines the supposed “benefits” universities receive from the federal government—a thinly-veiled attempt to persuade universities to comply without offering any increased, or real, benefits; it is not an offer for a mutually-beneficial relationship. The White House threatened that universities declining to embrace these reforms “will find themselves without future government and taxpayer support.”
According to a White House official, some universities—which remain unknown—were invited to attend a meeting about the compact late last week. It is unclear the content of the meeting, which universities actually attended, or if common ground was found.
FABBS is watching closely, awaiting the administration’s next steps and working to better understand both the implications for rigorous science broadly and our disciplines specifically.
