UVA rejected the Trump administration’s Compact for Excellence in Higher Education on Friday, Oct. 17, mere hours after more than a thousand people — including students, faculty, staff, alumni and members of the Charlottesville community — rallied on UVA’s lawn to demand that Interim President Paul Mahoney and the UVA Board of Visitors turn down the offer.
The administration first sent the 10-page Compact to nine universities across the country, including UVA, on Oct. 1, urging them to agree to a list of requests in exchange for priority access to federal research funds.
The requests would have created sweeping changes to universities’ hiring and admissions practices, foreign student enrollment and culture so that they aligned with President Trump’s political agenda.
Friday’s rally was part of a coordinated set of protests hosted across the nine schools that first received the document from the Department of Education. Read more from Cavalier Daily here, and additional background on the Compact here.
After The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) became the first university to decline participation in the compact, the Trump administration expanded the preferential funding offer to all US colleges, but rejections continued to roll in from additional universities who first received the offer, according to reporting from Inside Higher Ed and Arizona Luminaria.
Shortly after the rally on Friday, UVA became the fifth school and first public university to reject the Compact, Inside Higher Ed reported. (View a timeline of recent events at UVA below.)
UVA’s rejection of the Compact followed an outpouring of opposition to the document from university students, alumni, faculty and beyond. Throughout October, UVA’s Faculty Senate, UVA’s Student Council, UVA’s Chapter of the American Association of University Professors and Virginia state senators all released statements or letters urging Mahoney to reject the deal.
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More about federal intervention at UVA
Faculty say UVA is quietly negotiating a deal with the DOJ. Here’s what’s at stake.
A settlement between UVA and the Department of Justice could reshape community partnerships with local nonprofits, enrollment, hiring practices and more.
The federal government cut $64 million in grants at UVA. Here’s what it means for the community
From clean energy and farming to blues music and youth mentorship, dozens of UVA programs tied to federal grants have been abruptly halted — leaving students, researchers, and community leaders questioning what’s next.
‘This is our university’: UVA faculty, lawmakers push back against Jim Ryan’s forced exit
“This is a significant blow to academic freedom at the University of Virginia,” said UVA professor Walt Heinecke. “It was an extralegal process of trying to fire our president for ideological and political reasons. And we intend on resisting it.”
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