The university stated in a statement released on Monday that it had chosen not to adhere to the principles of “academic freedom, merit-based research funding, and institutional independence.”
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The University claimed that some of the recommendations merited “thoughtful consideration,” but that “many of the proposed ideas are already in place at the University of Arizona.”
Out of the nine elite institutions that the Trump administration initially approached, Tucson, Arizona-based University is the seventh to decline the compact.
Two of the universities, Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas at Austin, haven’t made a public announcement as a result of the White House’s decision to make a decision on Monday. The university was reportedly engaging in dialogue with the Trump administration, but it had not been given any authority to reject or accept the agreement, according to Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier in a statement.
Brown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Southern California, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, and Dartmouth College are the other six universities that have already indicated they will not be signing the compact.
Universities agreed to treat race and sex when admitting students or hiring faculty, and committed to keeping international students at no more than 15% of undergraduate enrollment, among other things.
Universities who sign on would also need to ensure that they maintain a “vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus” with no dominant political ideology, and abolish departments that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) are concerned about the compact.
The Trump administration’s offer to pay favors to colleges and universities that support the government “smells of favoritism, patronage, and bribery in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological agenda,” the AFT said in a statement.
The White House has significantly reduced federal research funding since Trump’s second term began in January 2025, sometimes citing a desire to curtail political expression on university campuses, including pro-Palestinian protests and diversity initiatives.
Some universities, like the University of Columbia, have chosen to collaborate with the Trump administration, while others, like Harvard University, have made a resolute opposition.
A federal judge ruled in September that the Trump administration had violated the law by denying Harvard research grants worth more than $2.2 billion.
District Judge Allison Burroughs argued in her ruling that the Trump administration “used anti-Semitism as a pretext for a blatant, ideological assault on this country’s top universities.”
Trump has targeted Columbia and other schools because of their prominent roles in the antiwar demonstrations that broke out after Israel declared its occupation of Gaza in October 2023, which resulted in at least 68 and 216 deaths.
Source: Aljazeera
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