Ximena Solorzano, Head Photography Editor

The Yale chapter of the American Association of University Professors urged faculty members in a Thursday email to pressure the University administration to reject a federal compact reportedly being sent to all universities by the Trump administration.

In an Oct. 13 article, Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration had offered to all U.S. colleges a compact that would provide preferential government funding in exchange for certain policy changes. The offer was initially extended to nine select universities earlier this month. 

Karen Peart, the University spokesperson, did not confirm nor deny whether Yale had been sent the compact.

The compact would require universities to end academic departments or initiatives that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” according to Inside Higher Ed. It would also require the consideration of standardized test scores for admissions, freeze the cost of tuition and cap international undergraduate enrollment.

“In the last ten months we’ve seen dozens of attempts from the White House to impose an ideological agenda on U.S. colleges and universities,” Daniel HoSang, the president of Yale’s AAUP, wrote in an email to the News. “Our AAUP Chapter, together with national AAUP and many dozens of chapters across the country, recognize the danger it poses to academic freedom.”

In an email addressed to the Yale community, the executive committee of Yale’s AAUP called the proposal — formally titled the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” — “extremely dangerous,” arguing it would coerce universities into adopting the Trump administration’s political priorities.

The email urges Yale faculty members to attend an upcoming AAUP membership meeting and to write directly to University President Maurie McInnis and Yale’s board of trustees, offering an email template addressed to McInnis that describes the compact as “a severe threat to academic freedom and to the students and faculty at Yale.” The Yale AAUP’s goal is to have at least 100 faculty members write to McInnis, according to its email.

“Our chapter and members are speaking out against it because it’s unlawful and dangerous to free inquiry and expression,” HoSang wrote to the News. “We have to be vigilant in protecting those principles.”

Peart did not answer the News’ questions about whether the University would sign the compact or if the University shares Yale AAUP’s concerns about political interference in university affairs. She wrote in an email statement to the News that Yale is “open to faculty input and remains committed to advancing its mission.”

The AAUP’s email also asked community members to attend the “No Kings” protest against the Trump administration, which took place across the country, including on the New Haven Green, on Saturday, and sign a petition that demands university leaders to reject the compact.

The petition claims that the “Trump administration is trying to blackmail schools” and “dictate what schools teach.” It accuses billionaires of “kidnapping our neighbors, stripping our rights, and squeezing every drop of money they can out of us to fatten their own wallets.”

In their Thursday email, the executive committee of Yale’s AAUP warned that Trump’s compact would “essentially end the faculty’s role in governance of the university” and “be devastating to academic freedom.”

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Oct. 10 was the first university to announce its rejection of the compact. The University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, Brown University, the University of Virginia and Dartmouth College followed suit. No university has announced that it accepted the compact yet.

In April, Yale AAUP joined the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Science Senate, often called FAS-SEAS senate, in sending a letter to McInnis, Provost Scott Strobel and the Yale board of trustees, urging them to “resist and legally challenge any unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and university self-governance.” 

Yale’s AAUP chapter was revived in November 2024.