The University of Arizona’s faculty senate overwhelmingly rejected a "compact" from the Trump administration that would tie federal funding to compliance with certain political goals.
At the Oct. 6 meeting, 40 out of 49 voting members of the faculty senate supported Chair Leila Hudson’s motion to oppose the compact on the basis that it violates constitutional rights, and urged UofA President Suresh Garimella and the Arizona Board of Regents to reject it as well.
Eight voted in favor of the compact, and one abstained.
“Others wiser than I have called it recently a trap, a poisoned apple. Federal funds are not a drug that we need a quick fix of to be forever extortable,” Hudson said. “We need to keep working in the way that we have worked for decades, to advance knowledge with integrity, sovereignty, independence and care for our students and our community.”
According to a copy of the compact AZPM received through public records request, schools that adopt Trump administration priorities like removing race from hiring and admissions, following the administration’s definition of gender, and limiting foreign student enrollment over American students, would gain better access to federal grants and loans, research funding, tax benefits, and visa approval.
Secretary McMahon's Letter to President Garimella
Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education
Faculty members like Professor and Human Development and Family Sciences Katie Zeiders criticized politicizing the merit-based research process.
“Funding agencies support the best and most promising ideas. The compact undermines these principles. It shifts the focus from quality of scholarship to compliance with political directives, and that is not the way forward for research excellence,” Zeiders said.
The faculty had 20 minutes for comments related to the compact before the online voting system opened for 10 minutes.
In the wake of a budget shortfall from two years ago, some faculty said the UofA’s already precarious financial situation makes them much more vulnerable to federal retaliation than the eight other schools that also received Trump’s compact.
Professor of Biogeochemical Dynamics Joellen Russell said she was worried about layoffs, and that the University should stall to see how the eight other schools choose to act.
“I’d shuffle my feet and discuss long, long, long, and wait to see what shakes out,” Russell said. “I know that can sound to some people like cowardice, and to other people, ‘why don't we seize the moment?’ But I gotta tell you, if we go against our much better endowed colleagues, we are going to be left out of the herd.”
The other universities who received the letter and compact include Vanderbilt, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, the University of Southern California, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas, Brown University and the University of Virginia.
Provost Patricia Prelock said the university is in communication with those schools and the Arizona Board of Regents to “carefully review” the compact.
Hudson said she did not know why the UofA was chosen as one of the Trump administration’s nine schools, but said it presented an opportunity.
“We do have, because of that selection, the privilege of educating, debating, dialoguing and, yes, resisting,” she said.
The Secretary of Education Linda McMahon gave the UofA until Nov. 21 to sign the letter. She wrote the letter is “largely in its final form,” but that “limited, targeted” feedback would be accepted until Oct. 20 in writing.
