The University of Pennsylvania has declined to sign the compact proposed by the Trump administration that would have given the federal government influence over the Ivy League school’s operations, including hiring, admissions and tuition pricing, in exchange for funding advantages.
Penn President J. Larry Jameson said he notified the U.S. Department of Education of his decision — and his “substantive concerns” about the compact — Thursday morning.
MORE: Philly Bike Ride and ‘No Kings 2.0’ rally to cause road closures Saturday
“Since receiving the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education on October 1, I have sought input from faculty, alumni, trustees, students, staff and others who care deeply about Penn,” Jameson said in a statement. “The goal was to ensure that our response reflected our values and the perspectives of our broad community.”
The Trump administration offered the proposed agreement to nine schools at the beginning of the month. They have until Monday to sign it. Brown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California have rejected it.
Under the compact, schools would agree to limit their enrollment of international students to 15% of an undergraduate class, ban the use of race, sex and other demographic factors in admissions, hiring and financial aid, and abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas” as part of maintaining a “vibrant marketplace of ideas where different views can be explored, debated, and challenged.”
Schools would have to disclose information about any foreign students to the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State when prompted, commit to defining words like “male,” “female,” “woman,” and “man” according to “reproductive function and biological processes,” and only allow bathrooms and locker rooms to be “single-sex spaces.”
Under the agreement, Penn would be forced to freeze tuition for American students for five years. Schools with endowments greater than $2 billion — like Penn — would not be allowed to charge tuition to most students pursuing undergraduate degrees in the hard sciences.
Schools also would be asked to publish databases and regular assessments on a wide variety of metrics, including grade distributions, the average earnings of graduates from each academic program, and the results of annual surveys of students, faculty and staff. The surveys are intended to evaluate the university’s compliance with the compact.
In July, Penn agreed to apologize to teammates of former swimmer Lia Thomas, a transgender woman who set several school records, in exchange for restoring $175 million in federal funding. As part of that agreement, Penn also revised its record book and said its athletics programs would define “sex,” “female,” “male,” “woman” and “man” in accordance with an executive order issued by Trump earlier this year.
Student and faculty groups had expressed significant concern toward the proposal. The AAUP-Penn Executive Committee, which represents the university’s professors, called it a “threat” to the independence and academic freedom of the university.
“While the loss of federal funding would threaten Penn’s ability to perform its vital education and research work, agreeing to this compact would not forestall that outcome,” the AAUP said earlier this month. “… A concession to threats will simply embolden the Trump Administration to come back for more.”
Student government representatives from seven of the nine schools that received the compact, including Penn, issued a joint statement in opposition to its demands.
“Although the compact’s full implications remain unclear, the document outlines unprecedented expectations universities must meet to receive federal benefits,” the statement said. “This could systematically alter the mission of higher education and erode the independence that has long defined our universities. We must not allow these attempts to control what can be taught, studied or spoken on our campuses.”