The Compact

Woodcut from Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus

THE COMPACT On the evening of October first the Trump administration invited nine Universities to join a “compact.” The “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” offers a devil’s bargain in which Universities agree to ten “requirements.” In exchange, they maybe get preferential treatment for federal funding. The dystopian document would kill Academic Freedom and would give the federal government unprecedented control over universities. The document reads like a greatest hit of MAGA educational fantasy. On October 3 the New York Times reported that Marc Rowan, a millionaire developer, is likely behind much of the compact. The document quotes verbatim portions of a document that Rowan authored called “a university support and eligibility agreement.” Two years ago, Rowan bullied his alma mater the University of Pennsylvania into firing President Liz Maguill, who had previously been the provost here at UVa. The compact and the letter to the UVa interim President are in this article.

IT IS WORTH READING, possibly with a stiff drink or with a bottle of Tums. Here are a few highlights. (Or rather lowlights.). This is a loyalty oath that could kill Academic Freedom. Signatories will have to agree to “grade integrity,” and the use of defensible standards for assessing whether students have met goals. The documents demands that international students make up only 15% of the student body. Universities that rely on foreign students to fund their institutions risk, among other things, potentially reducing spots available to deserving American students, and if not properly vetted, saturating the campus with noxious values such as antisemitism and other anti-American values, creating serious national security risks. Faculty will have to use “public accountability measures…” It says that institutions commit to defining and otherwise interpreting “male,” “female,” “woman,” and “man” according to “reproductive function and biological processes.” And “Signatories commit themselves to revising governance structures as necessary to create such an environment, including but not limited to transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

THE NINE SCHOOLS include Brown, Dartmouth, MIT, University of Arizona, University of Pennsylvania, USC, UT Austin, UVa, Vanderbilt. According to the Wall Street Journal, the White House supposedly selected these nine because it believes they are or could be good actors.

Unfortunately, the people in this Presidential administration are not dumb. They martial a divide and conquer strategy which makes is very hard to build coalitions. These schools make strange bedfellows. (I was a Brown undergraduate, a Penn PhD, and I work at UVa) They include private and public schools and represent nine states. They have different levels of federal funding, different dependencies on revenue from foreign students. They are in different stages of Federal Compliance procedures. UVa has had two closed but five remain open. Penn and Brown entered into “voluntary resolution agreements.” Both agreements were wretched to read. The Brown one was gutting. I would not be who I am today as a scholar/writer/thinker if the school looked then like it looks now.

May Mailman, senior advisor for special projects told the WSJ that “They have a president who is a reformer or a board that has really indicated they are committed to a higher quality education.” She had many fine moments during the first Trump regime. In 2020 she tried to remove CDC guidance telling churches to have virtual services. She wrote Trump’s anti trans executive order that came out on inauguration day. She says despicable things about undocumented immigrants.

 More on Ms. Mailman.

WHY UVA AND THE FACULTY SENATE.

The faculty senate was wild yesterday. It was loud and tense, more like the U.K. parliament where MP’s clap, jeer etc. (Jefferson and Adams did all of that too. Shout out to the students with signs.….) As always, I’m in awe of the chair of the faculty senate who is unfailing in her ability to ask hard questions and control a room. The faculty were smart and fierce.

I do not think the interim President was prepared for the vibe in the room. I think we learned in listening to him one reason why UVa is on this list. At no point did the interim President say anything that indicated he would protect what everyone else in the room thinks of as Academic Freedom. At no point did he seem to understand what would be lost if this compact was even considered much less signed.

He began his remarks by saying. “It’s better to have received that letter than not to have received that letter. We now have an option. We can have discussion presumably with the Department of Education and the White House. We can ultimately decide whether this is in the universities best interest or not.” He did not commit to signing or not signing but did say things like “it is complicated to get to yes.”

He was asked if the compact is in line with his views of UVa. He reminded us of his commitment to viewpoint diversity. Viewpoint diversity is typically code for “we need more conservative stuff.” He said, “there are some things that are I the compact that I believe are congruent with our principles. There are statements having to do with freedom of speech, viewpoint diversity, with nondiscrimination that I think do fit with our values.”

When asked if signing such a compact would sign away the right to appeal to the constitution in legal actions, he reminded us that this is not a contract but is a set of guiding principles. (So he didn’t answer.)

A senator asked if he was concerned that the compact violated the first amendment because it prohibits disagreement with conservative ideas. He said, “we must have read different documents.” 

A senator asked if he was consulting law faculty or lawyers about the constitutional issues.  He has not done this yet. He is taking advice from University Counsel (appointed by the state Attorney General)

A senator from the Medical School asked if there was anything in the compact that seemed to be in violation of U.S. or Virginia law. He replied with, “Aspects of the Department of Education’s interpretation of civil rights laws that have not yet been tested in the courts. One cannot say with certainty what would happen if those interpretations were tested. I didn’t see anything that seems clearly seems to be a violation of law. Some things will be complicated given our status as public.” Many legal experts disagree. See Erwin Chemerinsky in the New York Times or google “compact unconstitutional.”

EVERYONE IN UNIVERSITIES HATES THIS

Thanks to the quick work of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, the UVa faculty senate yesterday passed a resolution opposing the Compact. Almost no one voiced any objection. Even those who often suggest treading carefully did not seem to object. “BE IT RESOLVED that the Faculty Senate of the University of Virginia firmly opposes this Compact as written and calls upon Interim President Mahoney and the Board of Visitors to also reject this Compact outright as well as any similar proposal compromising the mission, values, and independence of the University.”

The American Associate of Colleges and Universities issued a statement here. “Leaders across American higher education welcome the opportunity to engage with the administration’s concerns and consider its proposals for reform. Yet, as stewards of America’s system of higher education, college and university presidents cannot bargain with the essential freedom of colleges and universities to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit and what is taught, how, and by whom.”

The AAUW and the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) issued a statement on October 2 urging Universities to reject Trump’s loyalty oath.

TIMING This dropped on Erev Yom Kippur, the holiest evening in the Jewish liturgical Calander.  Our president had managed to appoint a working group before the sun went down ending the holiday. Since this administration has purported to be so concerned about Jewish people on college campuses, you’d think they could have looked at the calendar… So once again they do not care about Jews; they do care about weaponizing antisemitism to attack higher education.

THE FOOTBALL TEAM WON UVa beat FSU. It was so exciting that even I couldn’t sit down. For the first time in twenty years, UVa beat a top ten team on home turf. The students stormed the football field. It looked on the video like the fastest, most organized storming in history. The coach said it was fun and UVa today published pictures. Evidentially chaos ensued on the field, and the University had to pay a 50K fine. There were 19 injuries. I did listen to the police scanner because the whole thing looked kind of scary. But also, the slightly unhinged youthful joy was a blast to watch.

THE LAW The interim president said the police considered using pepper spray on the students who climbed the goal posts but “fortunately they complied.” He added that “we’ll have to look at this very carefully and come up with additional protocols so that we can assure safety going forward.” That was probably the best thing he said in the faculty senate meeting yesterday.

In September, UC Berkeley turned over about 160 names to the federal government as part of an investigation into antisemitism. The faculty senate and others have asked if UVA has done this or if they will do this. The Interim President said that this has not happened yet and that it’s hard to respond to hypotheticals. (It is not hard to respond to this hypothetical.) He assured us that “we will obey the law and do what is in the best interest of the University.” This does not inspire confidence.