UA professors, Tucson leaders urge school to reject Trump’s ‘academic compact’

While University of Arizona President Suresh Garimella said Thursday he would act “the
best interests of our students, faculty and staff, and our state,” pressure mounts for the UA to reject a “compact” for higher education laid out by the Trump administration.

Earlier this month, the White House gave nine universities — including  UA — until Oct. 20 to send “limited, targeted” feedback on a “compact” for higher education, agreeing to suppress campus criticism of conservatives and abandon DEI efforts in exchange for preferential treatment in federal funding.

Telling university leaders the document was “largely in its final form,” the White House sent UA officials a letter on Oct. 1 along with a nine-page document labeled the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”

UA officials were tight-lipped about how they would respond to the compact, saying originally only that they were “reviewing it carefully” and refusing to provide the document for days. A week later, UA leaders sent an email to staff and faculty with little more.

“We recognize that this proposal has generated a wide range of reactions and perspectives within our community and beyond,” wrote UA leadership. “Working with the Arizona Board of Regents, we are thoroughly reviewing the compact to understand its full scope and implications.”

“We are also engaging shared governance leaders representing faculty, staff and students, and other leaders across the state and nation to gather their input,” they said. “As Arizona’s keystone, land-grant university guided by our strategic imperatives, we will act in the best interests of our students, faculty and staff, and our state. We will continue to keep our community informed as this process moves forward.”

ABOR, which includes Gov. Katie Hobbs and oversees all of the state’s universities, said only they “engaged with university leadership and evaluating the letter.”

While the UA continues “reviewing” the issue, two other
universities rejected the White House’s
proposal, while officials with the University of Texas announced they were
“honored” to join the compact.

Kevin P. Eltife, the head of the University of Texas system Board of
Regents, wrote he was “honored” the Austin campus was asked to sign on.
“We look forward to working with the Trump Administration on it,” he
wrote, reported Inside Higher Ed.

However, Dartmouth’s president Sian Leah Beilock rejected the compact on Oct. 3.

“I
am deeply committed to Dartmouth’s academic mission and values and will
always defend our fierce independence,” Beilock wrote. “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.”

On Friday, Sally Kornbluth, the president of MIT, published a letter she sent to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, arguing the compact “would restrict freedom of expression” and the university’s independence.

She said MIT’s own values and practices “meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent.

“We
freely choose these values because they’re right, and we live by them
because they support our mission – work of immense value to the
prosperity, competitiveness, health and security of the United States.
And of course, MIT abides by the law,” she wrote.

She added
the compact also “includes principles with which we disagree, including
those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as
an institution.” 

“And fundamentally, the premise of the document
is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be
based on scientific merit alone,” Kornbluth wrote. “In our view,
America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent
thinking and open competition for excellence.”

‘Why did he take so long to say anything?’

The statement drew sharp reactions from UA staff and students, including
one UA professor who worried the university is “dithering in the face of real
trouble.”

“They seem to be hoping this will go away, or most
of the other universities will say no and give them cover,” said a UA
faculty member, who asked not to be named because she is not protected
by tenure. “No one knows why the UA got picked, but I’ll say this: our
leadership shows when it comes to a fight, they’ll roll over.”

“We gave up the students in China,” she said. “Who else are we going to give up? Who’s next?” 

In late September, the UA shuttered four micro-campuses in China following criticism from a Republican-led House committee, the Arizona Daily Star reported. The move faced widespread criticism and a potential lawsuit.

The UA also agreed to consolidate its own cultural resource centers in March following demands from the Trump administration, which said universities must end diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs — known as DEIA — or face a loss of federal funding.

On Friday, a day after the UA’s statement was published, more than 60 professors and faculty members criticized the compact during an event at the Women’s Plaza of Honor on the UA campus. 

Lars Fogelin, an associate professor of anthropology, said professors with tenure have “an obligation” to speak up against the compact.

“We are not asking people who are in a precarious situation to stand up here and name themselves and make themselves a target. Be safe. But if you feel compelled, if you feel you have something to say about this compact, come up.” 

Fogelin told the Tucson Sentinel during a Saturday interview there are some good things in the compact, including a moratorium on tuition and the reduction of administrative bloat, but he said these good parts were there to make the document “seem more reasonable than it is.”

“The rest of the compact is so clearly written to limit universities, claiming the mantle of free speech when it’s trying to do the opposite,” Fogelin said. “I’ve always run with the idea that you aren’t for free speech, unless you’re for the speech for people you don’t like.”

He said the UA has a “hard decision to make, we’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. They’re going to take away money—in fact the Trump administration already has—but if we say yes, it’s worse.

Fogelin said he had a “great deal of sympathy for Garimella,” but said the UA’s statement on Oct. 9 should have come a week earlier. “Why did he take so long to say anything?”

“We can’t say yes, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be ramifications from the decision,” he said. “Either way, there will be penalties and problems the UA will face. We’re all going to have to work our way through them.”

Marcos Esparza, acting president of the United Campus Workers Union, said Friday the compact would “damage every worker and faculty members; ability to provide the education students here deserve.”

“It is an obvious attempt by the administration to control the curriculum at our university by shutting down classes and research that they don’t approve,” he said, adding the compact’s requirement that students be accepted only through standardized testing was an effort to “remove avenues for those from the most those who are the most marginalized from attending our university.” 

“We’ve already seen our university leadership capitulate to the Trump administration by shutting down cultural resource centers, the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, the woman and gender Resource Center, the writing skills improvement program, and most recently, the closure of UofA’s micro-campuses in China.” 

“It is reasonable to assume the Garimella and the rest of U of A leadership want to sign this compact,” Esparza said.

‘We
are at an inflection point for the ages’ 

On Oct. 6, the UA Faculty Senate voted overwhelmingly
to send a resolution to Garimella and ABOR opposing the deal, which
they said would “endanger the independence, excellence, and integrity”
of the university.

A day later, the Tucson City Council passed
their own resolution urging the UA to reject the compact. Proposed by
Councilmembers Rocque Perez and Lane Santa Cruz, the resolution called
the compact an “unacceptable act of federal interference.” The city also
asked Arizona’s congressional delegation to weigh in and “oppose
federal interference and disinvestment in higher education.”

“The
university’s new administration has spent months over-complying with
partisan demands at the state and federal level,” said Perez. “That
posture of appeasement has left the university more vulnerable, not
less.”

“Capitulation is not in Tucson’s nature,” said Perez.

Meanwhile, more than 80 UA regents professors weighed in, signing onto a 20-page analysis of the White House’s document that concluded the university should not join the compact.

Regents professor is an “honored position” and is awarded to faculty members “who have made a
unique contribution to the quality of the university through
distinguished accomplishments in teaching scholarship, research, or
creative work,” according to the UA.

“There are institutionally significant legal and practical flaws in the compact that we regard as compelling reasons not to sign,” the regents professors wrote. “Among the most serious of these is that the alleged new benefits of compliance are unclear — they are implied, but there is no explanation of how this “priority to federal funds” would operate, or assurance that University of Arizona would actually benefit,” they wrote.

“Without clarification, UA thus could be ceding authority over internal operations and academic policies for no enforceable or concrete new benefits,” they wrote, adding Trump administration officials could simply give the UA a preview of funding opportunities, but not actual funding. “There is no clear ‘quid’ for the requested, institution-altering ‘quo.'”

“Other compact terms are vague, overbroad, and potentially unconstitutional; some may not be easily squared with other laws and policies that already bind UA, including state laws,” they added.

The compact, they wrote, “puts before us fundamental normative and
institution-defining issues.” 

“Indeed, is difficult to
imagine a more important decision for us and for higher education. We
are at an inflection point for the ages.”

On Monday, the United Campus Workers Arizona urged Garimella to reject the compact by Nov. 7.

“We know that if the
University of Arizona folds under pressure, the Trump administration
will not stop its demands,” wrote UCWA. “It is a serious miscalculation
to sign onto or attempt to negotiate a unilaterally imposed deal offered
by a fickle presidential administration, which can be rescinded at any
moment, upon which the university must return ‘all monies advanced by
the U.S. government during the year of any violation.'” 

UA faces November deadline

“Schools that show clear alignment and a strong readiness to champion
this effort will be invited to the White House to finalize language and
to be initial signatories,” said White House officials in the letter to
Garimella, which was also sent to the leaders of the other eight universities.

“We are aiming to have a signed agreement by no later than November 21, 2025,” the White House said.

The
letter signed by McMahon and other Trump
administration officials told universities that signing the deal will
“signal to students, parents, and contributors that learning and
equality are university priorities.”

Further, the federal
government would receive an “assurance that signatory schools are
complying with civil rights law and pursuing Federal priorities with
vigor.” 

In exchange, the agreement will “yield multiple positive
benefits for the school, including allowance for increased overhead
payments where feasible, substantial and meaningful federal grants, and
other federal partnerships.”

The compact would require signatories to agree to a
10-point plan, including a series of demands that squishes together a
litany of conservative bugbears about the nation’s universities.

Among
the requirements is a ban on consideration of race, sex, ethnicity,
political views, or sexual orientation for hiring and student
admissions; policies that protect “conservative ideas”; a freeze of
tuition for the next five years; require students to take standardized
tests like the SAT and ACT; limit the number of international
undergraduate students to 15 percent of students; a commitment to
“institutional neutrality”; and agreeing to allow the Justice Department
to enforce the agreement and financially-punish schools that fail to
follow the agreement.

The document also requires university
leaders to “certify” they are following the compact, and must poll
students, faculty and staff to evaluate their adherence to the rules.

Under
the terms announced by the White House, if Trump officials found any
infraction by a university then it would be forced to pay back all
federal funding, and offer to return private donations. 

The
document allows religious institutions to maintain preferences in hiring
and admissions, while “single-sex” institutions can keep sex-based
preferences. And “any institution may maintain preferences in admissions
for American citizens,” under the outlined agreement.

Universities
are “free to develop models and values other than those below, if the
institution elects to forego federal benefits” according to the
document.

Brown University, Dartmouth College, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University
of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, the University of
Virginia, and Vanderbilt University also received the compact, Inside
Higher Ed reported.

Earlier this year, the Trump
administration sought to slash university funding cutting as many as
4,000 grants at over 600 universities and colleges, while freezing
millions of dollars more.

The Trump administration said it terminated
grants valued as much as $8.2 billion, as part of the so-called
Department of Government Efficiency project dubbed DOGE after a joke
cryptocurrency with a cartoon dog for a mascot.

Those grants
were worth about $209 million for universities in Arizona, including the
UA, according to data from the Center for American Progress.

It remains unclear why the UA was included among the schools targeted by the Trump compact.

While
the UA is land-grant college, many of the requirements were aimed at
the Ivy League schools, including a demand for universities with an
endowment exceeding $2 million per undergraduate student cannot charge
tuition for students pursuing “hard science programs.” 

The UA has
managed to pull together some substantial endowments, but has only
about $30,000 in endowed funds per undergraduate student. UA’s total
endowment fund totals about $1.2 billion. Harvard University has an
endowment valued at more than $53 billion — contributing some $2.4
billion to that Ivy League school’s budget in 2024 alone.

Only
five universities in the nation have endowments valued above $2 million 
per undergraduate, including Princeton University, which has around $4
million, and Stanford University, which has about $2.1 million per
student, according to data compiled by Inside Higher Ed.

The
document also requires tuition to remain stable for five years, arguing
universities “have a duty to control their costs, including by
eliminating unnecessary administrative staff, reducing tuition burdens,
engaging in transparent accounting and regular auditing for misuse of
funds, and cutting unnecessary costs.”

Tuition has largely
followed price increases across the rest of the economy, including
rising health care costs and inflation. However, some tuition increases
are caused by declining public funding, as well as attempts to improve
campus life with new dorms and athletic facilities, as well as
investments in technology, according to the American Council on
Education.

Similarly, the document requires universities to limit
the number of international undergraduate students to around 15 percent
of the student body, and no more than 5 percent can be from a single
country.

Universities are supposed to avoid “foreign
entanglements,” and must provide information about international funding
under Trump’s terms.

Last year, around 3.8 percent of undergrads and 16.7 percent of graduate students were international students at the UA.

However,
because of the Trump administration’s clampdown on student visas, the
number of international students dropped by 3,309 following what the UA
called a “challenging year for students unable to obtain U.S. visas.” 

Through
the spring, at least 1,300 students at more than 210 colleges and
universities had their legal status changed by the State Department,
including at least 50 Arizona State University students and at least 11
UA students.

There are 54,384 students at the UA, including 43,294 undergraduates and 11,090 graduate students.