By Betsey Piette
October 23, 2025

Following President Donald Trump’s tactics of dangling the promise of giving or the threat of withholding federal grant monies in exchange for compliance with his reactionary policies, nine colleges and universities were sent a memo called the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” in early October. The colleges receiving it were Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, University of Pennsylvania (Penn), University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University.

Conditions laid out in the 10-page document called for these colleges to agree to ban the use of race and sex in hiring, admissions, and financial support for students; to limit international undergraduate enrollment to 15%; and to require applicants to take the SAT or other standardized admissions tests. Colleges would have to commit to “defining and otherwise interpreting ‘male,’ ‘female,’ ‘woman,’ and ‘man’ according to reproductive function and biological processes.”

Additional conditions were that “colleges had to freeze tuition for American students for five years, prevent grade inflation, and make conservative students feel more welcome on campus.”

Colleges had until Oct. 20 to give feedback on the compact, and until Nov. 21 to sign it, or forgo priority federal funding. MIT, Brown, USC, Dartmouth, U of A and UVA have all rejected Trump’s offer.  Under intense pressure from faculty, graduate student workers, post-doctoral researchers, the undergraduate assembly, and state and local politicians, on Oct. 16, Penn president J. Larry Jameson announced that the university was rejecting Trump’s ultimatum.

The pact had drawn criticism from Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which on Oct. 2 said: “When an invitation is accompanied by consequences for not accepting it, it is in fact a threat, not an invitation. Decisions about hiring, tuition, admissions, grades and discipline are made according to shared governance procedures that are essential to the independence of the university.” (AAUP-Penn.org)

The professors noted, “Whatever the consequences of refusal, agreeing would threaten the very mission of the university.”

The national AAUP and American Federation of Teachers also urged the universities to reject what they called Trump’s “entirely corrupt” offer. (Inquirer.com, Oct. 2) As of Oct. 18, only the University of Texas has indicated it may accept the plan.

Setting up pattern of concessions

Bowing to political and financial pressure over Palestinian protests in 2024, Columbia University made major concessions after a series of threats from the Trump administration to revoke millions of dollars in grants in 2025.  The university paid over $220 million to resolve multiple federal investigations concerning civil rights and anti-discrimination laws.  Columbia increased security and banned face coverings during demonstrations.  The administration created a special force authorized to make arrests and prohibited protests inside and directly outside academic buildings.

The concessions didn’t stop there. In July, Columbia took disciplinary action against 70 students involved in protests. It placed its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Africana Studies departments under special administrative review. To restore $400 million in canceled federal funding, the university agreed to adopt the controversial definition of antisemitism that erroneously conflates it with anti-Zionism.

Brown, Cornell University, Duke University, Harvard, Northwestern University,  Princeton University and UCLA have all had funds frozen or suspended due to untrue allegations of antisemitism in connection with student protests against U.S.-funded Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Penn had started a similar pattern of bowing down to Trump’s demands in order to secure or protect the $1 billion in federal grant funding it was set to receive.  In July, in a deal to secure $175 million in funds, the university agreed to adhere to a Trump executive order defining “male” and “female” in regard to athletics. Part of the concession involved taking away women’s swim team transgender athlete Lia Thomas’s medal and giving it to the swimmer with the next-best times.

The pressure on Penn isn’t just from Trump. The Daily Pennsylvanian reported on Oct. 6 that billionaire donor Marc Rowan, a pro-Zionist Wharton alumnus, helped draft Trump’s higher-education compact. Rowan was a vocal critic of the September 2023 Palestine Writes Festival held on Penn’s campus. (www.workers.org/2023/09/73535/)

Coincidence or pattern?

The universities may not be alone in pushing back against pressure from the Trump administration. Whether just a timing coincidence or part of a growing pattern, on Oct. 15, over 30 news outlets, including the Associated Press, Bloomberg, CNN, Politico, Reuters, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and others rejected War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s new guidelines sharply restricting their ability to report on the U.S. military.

Even conservative outlets like Fox News and Newsmax declined to sign the new rules. Dozens of members of the Pentagon press corps walked out of the Pentagon en masse after turning in their press credentials in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 15.

So, the question remains: If Trump’s program keeps being rejected by more and more forces, will he be forced to back down?