University of Arizona declines to sign onto Trump administration ‘compact’

The University of Arizona has cited academic freedom as it becomes the seventh elite institution to decline a Trump administration proposal offering nine schools preferential consideration for federal funding in exchange for agreeing to a set of policies.

Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas at Austin have yet to announce whether they will sign the proposal, for which the administration gave a Monday deadline.

Brown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Southern California, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, and Dartmouth College previously rejected the proposal.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the White House has targeted what it deems liberal-leaning institutions and tried to withhold funding from colleges and universities over issues such as protests against Israel, transgender policies, climate initiatives and diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

The administration has canceled federal contracts worth millions of dollars with numerous schools to pressure them to drastically change their admissions and hiring policies, among other issues. Courts have ordered many of the federal cuts be restored. The compact, sent to the nine universities early in the month, marked a new approach.

“A number of the proposed federal recommendations deserve thoughtful consideration as our national higher education system could benefit from reforms that have been much too slow to develop,” University of Arizona President Suresh Garimella wrote in a statement addressed to the campus community.

“In fact, many of the proposed ideas are already in place at the U of A. At the same time, principles like academic freedom, merit-based research funding, and institutional independence are foundational and must be preserved.

“As a result, the university has not agreed to the terms outlined in the draft proposal,” but instead has submitted to the US Department of Education its existing Statement of Principles enumerating such university policies as merit-based hiring and prioritizing admission of qualified Arizona students and applicants from US tribal nations, Garimella wrote.