A group of University of Pittsburgh professors is asking Pitt leadership to publicly reject a Trump administration proposal to give colleges and universities easier access to federal dollars if they agree to a list of conditions furthering the president’s agenda.
Several universities have already rejected the White House’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which was presented Oct. 1 to a set of nine schools around the country. Seven of those schools have repudiated the compact, saying it would infringe on academic freedom.
The compact promises enhanced access to funding and other “benefits” to schools that agree, among other things, to limit campus demonstrations, protect quote “conservative ideas” from belittlement, freeze tuition for American students for five years, and restrict international students to 15% of undergraduates.
The document was sent to nine universities this month that were asked to provide “feedback” by Oct. 20 and given a deadline of Nov. 21 for signing on. The seven who have rejected it include MIT, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California. Rejection letters were addressed to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.
Vanderbilt and the University of Texas have not announced their decisions about the compact, though some officials at the latter have expressed enthusiasm about it.
The Trump administration says any school, not just those nine, is free to sign on to the compact, and at least one appears ready to do so.
Meanwhile, a couple schools outside the initial group have also rejected it. Pitt’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors wants their employer to follow suit.
‘Antithetical to higher education’
This week, AAUP Pitt released a statement calling on Chancellor Joan Gabel and Pitt leadership “to unequivocally reject” the nine-page compact. The statement said the compact “inappropriately limits academic autonomy, seeking instead to place universities under unprecedented federal oversight, in exchange for vague and unenforceable promises of favoritism in federal funding.”
“We think it’s important for universities including our own to be explicit about the fact that this compact is antithetical to the values not just of higher education but of a democratic society,” said AAUP Pitt acting president Michael Goodhart, a political science professor.
“Clearly the thing is intended to have a chilling effect on educators by making them wonder, ‘Well, wow, can I say that? I wonder if I can be critical of this idea? Am I going to get accused of belittling or demeaning or creating a hostile environment to people who hold these views?’”
A Pitt spokesperson declined to comment.
In a statement issued earlier this month, AAUP national president Todd Wolfson and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten wrote, “The Trump administration’s offer to give preferential treatment to colleges and universities in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological agenda stinks of favoritism, patronage, and bribery. It is entirely corrupt.”
The American Council on Education also issued a statement opposing the compact.
WESA also reached out to other large local universities seeking comment on the compact. A spokesperson at Point Park University declined to comment. Spokespersons at Carnegie Mellon University and Duquesne University did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
‘The envy of the world’
The compact is the latest in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to influence institutions of higher learning by restricting access to resources, sometimes on the pretext of targeting schools for things like alleged anti-Semitism in connection with protests against Israel’s war in Gaza; diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; or allowing transgender athletes to compete.
The document begins, “American higher education is the envy of the world and represents a key strategic benefit for our Nation.” It goes on to list the ways the U.S. university system benefits from its relationship with the federal government, including “access to student loans, grant programs and federal contracts,” research funding, “approval of student and other visas” and “preferential treatment under the tax code.”
It adds, “Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forego federal benefits.”
Schools assenting to the compact would be required to forgo using “sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious associations, or proxies for any of those factors” in granting admissions or financial support. (The compact, however, carves out “due exceptions for institutions that are solely or primarily comprised of students of a specific sex or religious denomination.”)
Participating schools would be required to prevent anyone who represents a university from “actions or speech relating to societal and political events” that don’t directly affect the school.
Schools would also have to commit to defining gender “according to reproductive function and biological processes.”
The compact argues that such provisions would eliminate “discrimination” in admissions and nurture a “vibrant marketplace of ideas” and “student equality.”
The New College of Florida — subject of a right-wing remake a few years ago by Gov. Ron DeSantis — seems to agree.
Other schools, including the University of Kansas and Washington University, in St. Louis, have indicated they won’t sign.
“I don’t think anyone, regardless of their political affiliation, thinks it’s a good idea for the government to dictate what can be taught and studied and investigated and thought about,” Pitt professor Goodhart said.
He said he considers the compact a “trial balloon” for Trump administration in its efforts to create an academia more to its liking.
“I think that the more resoundingly that trial balloon is shot down, then the better off we’ll be for what comes next,” he said. “Because this won’t be the last attempt to influence or reform higher education.”