Last month, the Trump administration gave the University of Texas at Austin and a handful of other universities until Nov. 21 to decide whether they would agree to a series of policy changes in exchange for preferential access to federal funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That deadline has now passed, and UT-Austin still hasn\u2019t indicated publicly whether it will sign the agreement, even as other universities have rejected the administration\u2019s offer.<\/p>\n
UT-Austin and the White House did not respond Friday to inquiries about whether the university plans to accept, reject or seek revisions to the agreement.<\/p>\n
The proposal, known as the \u201cCompact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,\u201d would require UT-Austin to define sex as male or female based on reproductive function, cap international enrollment at 15%, freeze tuition for five years and ensure that academic departments include a mix of ideological perspectives among their faculty and programs.<\/p>\n
UT-Austin and UT System leaders have previously spoken favorably about the compact. UT-Austin Provost William Inboden\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0last month that \u201cwe align with the principles of conduct that they want,\u201d though he noted that some enforcement measures would conflict with state law and university prerogatives.<\/p>\n UT System Board of Regents Chair Kevin Eltife initially expressed enthusiasm about the proposal and praised it as an opportunity for reform. The board met Wednesday and Thursday without discussing it.<\/p>\n UT-Austin is trying to navigate competing pressures from a White House seeking to reshape higher education in its image; from Texas elected officials who have already imposed limits on diversity, equity and inclusion and faculty governance; and from faculty and students who say the compact threatens their freedom to teach and learn.<\/p>\n The Trump administration sent the compact offer to nine universities on Oct. 1, describing them as \u201cgood actors\u201d that could help model reforms for the rest of higher education. The administration requested they provide feedback by Oct. 20 and said it hoped to have signatories by Nov. 21.\u00a0The compact doesn\u2019t promise more federal dollars, but the Trump administration said it would give priority to participating schools for federal grants, contracts and other benefits.<\/p>\n On Oct. 10, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology became the first to reject the offer, calling it \u201cinconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.\u201d Most of the other invited universities have since issued similar rejections, including the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, Dartmouth College, Brown University and the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n Vanderbilt University says it is open to discussion and the University of Arizona says it has not signed but has not ruled it out. Only UT-Austin has not said anything at all.<\/p>\n What UT-Austin would have to change under the compact<\/p>\n UT-Austin already meets some of the compact\u2019s requirements. It does not use race or sex in admissions, it reinstated the requirement that freshman applicants submit standardized test scores last year, and it has frozen undergraduate tuition under a directive from\u00a0Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a>\u00a0through at least the 2026-27 academic year. The university\u2019s international undergraduates make up just 4.5% of the student body, well below the compact\u2019s 15% cap.<\/p>\n But signing the compact would still require major changes: It bans using \u201cproxies\u201d for race or sex in admissions \u2014 meaning any admissions criteria that tend to correlate with a certain race or sex. Some faculty worry that could put Texas\u2019 Top Ten Percent law at risk because class rank often tracks with the racial and economic makeup of high schools, which could be interpreted as a proxy.<\/p>\n It would also require UT-Austin to reorganize or eliminate academic units that the Trump administration deems as dominated by a single ideology and to submit plans showing how courses promote civic values and Western civilization.<\/p>\n The university is already weighing a major restructuring of its College of Liberal Arts. Emails obtained by the Tribune show that administrators created a committee this fall to explore consolidating several language, ethnic studies and area studies departments into larger units because they believe the college has become \u201coverly fragmented\u201d and needs more \u201ccritical mass.\u201d<\/p>\n Some faculty worry the internal reorganization and the Trump compact could weaken or erase long-standing programs rather than strengthen them. UT-Austin already has a school that focuses on Western civilization and the American constitutional tradition: The School of Civic Leadership, which opened in 2024 and received a $100 million investment from the Legislature this year to renovate a campus building into its permanent home by 2028.<\/p>\n The compact also demands stricter limits on campus protests. It requires universities to prevent \u201cdisruptive demonstrations,\u201d stop so-called \u201checkler\u2019s vetoes\u201d \u2014 where protesters shout down a speaker \u2014 and impose swift discipline for students who disrupt classes, block access to campus areas, or intimidate or harass others.<\/p>\n