The interim President of the University of Virginia and the school’s rector say they will not sign an agreement with the Trump Administration. The so-called Compact for Academic Excellence offered preferential consideration for federal funding if UVA and eight other schools agreed to change their policies to conform with conservative views.
In a letter to faculty, Paul Mahoney said they had written to the White House to confirm the school’s core values, noting that in their view federal research funding should be based on merit.
“The integrity of science and other academic work requires merit-based assessment of research and scholarship,” they wrote. “A contractual arrangement predicting assessment on anything other than merit will undermine the integrity of vital, sometimes lifesaving research and further erode confidence in American higher education.”
They pledged UVA would continue to strengthen free expression and inquiry, to protect academic freedom, ensure affordability and maintain institutional neutrality.
The news came after hundreds of people filled the lawn at the University of Virginia to protest the proposed compact.
The noon-time bells at UVA were drowned out by the sounds of protest as students, faculty, staff and alumni gathered on the lawn. Professor Susan Fraiman wondered why interim President Paul Mahoney had set up a task force to consider what the school should do.
“Do we need to weigh the pros and cons of whether to cede our free speech?" she demanded.
"No!" the crowd shouted back.
"Do we need to mull over the effects of having our admissions and hiring monitored, out teaching and research vetted for conformity with conservative views, our budget commandeered as a means of control?"
"No!" came another response.
"We have a consensus!" Fraiman concluded. "Our message to the interim president and BOV must be: Do not hesitate.Do not negotiate. Do not pass Go. Do not sign!”
If the president and Board of Visitors did not comply with the wishes of faculty and students, she warned, the price would be high.
“The compact is just the Trump administration’s latest gambit in its effort to muzzle speech and stifle critical thinking at universities around the country. Its concerted attack on higher education has already toppled multiple college presidents including our own.”
Student council president Clay Dickerson echoed her opposition.
“We are not a dog. We are not to be leashed up by the federal government and dragged around where they want to take us. We will take ourselves where we want to go.”
Undergraduate Sarah Ahmad, Managing Editor of the Virginia Review of Politics, recalled how students had influenced past policies involving the war in Vietnam and UVA investments in South Africa. Now, she said, students should oppose the compact.
"Trump tells us this compact will protect truth and free expression, but what he wants is not truth. It’s loyalty. What he desires is not free speech. It’s the right to punish dissent."
The group then marched to the administration building where it delivered a letter from 40 faculty members at the law school, and a petition bearing more than three thousand signatures from alumni opposing the compact.
Four schools – MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown and the University of Southern California, had already said they will not agree.
Meanwhile, the Chronicle of Higher Education says the Trump Administration has offered the deal to other colleges and universities. The federal government had asked schools to respond by Monday.
