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The University of Texas at Austin hasn’t said whether it will sign an agreement with the Trump administration that would tie preferential access to federal funding to a series of campus policy changes, even as other universities have rejected the administration’s offer.
The proposal, known as the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” would require UT-Austin to define sex as male or female based on reproductive function, cap international enrollment at 15%, freeze tuition for five years and ensure that academic departments include a mix of ideological perspectives among their faculty and programs.
Provost William Inboden said in an interview last month with The Chronicle of Higher Education that “we align with the principles of conduct that they want,” though he added that “some of the procedural enforcement of the compact would clash with state law and some of our other institutional prerogatives.”
UT System Board of Regents Chair Kevin Eltife, who initially expressed enthusiasm about the proposal, told The Texas Tribune last week that “nothing has changed. It’s a work in progress.”
UT-Austin is trying to navigate competing pressures from a White House seeking to reshape higher education in its image; from Texas elected officials who have already imposed limits on diversity, equity and inclusion and faculty governance; and from faculty and students who say the compact threatens their freedom to teach and learn.
The university is also staring down a deadline: The Trump administration has said it wants initial signatories by Nov. 21. UT-Austin and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
The Trump administration sent the compact offer to nine universities last month, describing them as “good actors” that could help model reforms for the rest of higher education. The compact doesn’t promise more federal dollars, but it would give priority to participating schools for federal grants, contracts and other benefits.
On Oct. 10, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology became the first to reject the offer, calling it “inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.”
The University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia later issued nearly identical statements, saying federal funding should be based on merit. Dartmouth College, Brown University and the University of Southern California have also rejected it.
Vanderbilt University says it is open to discussion and the University of Arizona says it has not signed but has not ruled it out. Only UT-Austin has not said anything at all.
What UT-Austin would have to change under the compact
UT-Austin already meets some of the compact’s requirements. It does not use race or sex in admissions, it reinstated the requirement that freshman applicants submit standardized test scores last year, and it has frozen undergraduate tuition under a directive from Gov. Greg Abbott through at least the 2026-27 academic year. The university’s international undergraduates make up just 4.5% of the student body, well below the compact’s 15% cap.
But signing the compact would still require major changes: It bans using “proxies” for race or sex in admissions — meaning any admissions criteria that tend to correlate with a certain race or sex. Some faculty worry that could put Texas’ Top Ten Percent law at risk because class rank often tracks with the racial and economic makeup of high schools, which could be interpreted as a proxy.
It would also require UT-Austin to reorganize or eliminate academic units that the Trump administration deems as dominated by a single ideology and to submit plans showing how courses promote civic values and Western civilization.
The university is already weighing a major restructuring of its College of Liberal Arts. Emails obtained by the Tribune show that administrators created a committee this fall to explore consolidating several language, ethnic studies and area studies departments into larger units because they believe the college has become “overly fragmented” and needs more “critical mass.”
Some faculty worry the internal reorganization and the Trump compact could weaken or erase long-standing programs rather than strengthen them. UT-Austin already has a school that focuses on Western civilization and the American constitutional tradition: The School of Civic Leadership, which opened in 2024 and received a $100 million investment from the Legislature this year to renovate a campus building into its permanent home by 2028.
The compact also demands stricter limits on campus protests. It requires universities to prevent “disruptive demonstrations,” stop so-called “heckler’s vetoes” — where protesters shout down a speaker — and impose swift discipline for students who disrupt classes, block access to campus areas, or intimidate or harass others.
UT-Austin already tightened its protest rules in September under Senate Bill 2972, the state’s new Campus Protection Act. But several student groups sued the UT System claiming some of the law’s limits violate the First Amendment. A federal judge temporarily blocked the system’s schools from enforcing key parts of the law, writing that he “cannot trust the universities to enforce their policies in a constitutional way” while the case proceeds. The UT System is appealing the ruling.
Signing the compact would add a new layer of federal oversight by tying protest compliance to federal funding.
It would also change how UT-Austin handles international students. In addition to capping their numbers, the university would have to “screen out” applicants who show “hostility” to the United States or its allies and would be required to share certain student records with the federal State Department and Department of Homeland Security, which could conflict with federal privacy laws.
The compact also requires universities to refund tuition to any student who withdraws within their first academic year, which is something UT-Austin does not currently offer. The university does not appear to publish how many students leave during that period, but federal data show that 96% of full-time, first-time degree-seeking students who started in the fall 2022 returned for their second year.
Finally, if UT-Austin were to fall out of compliance, the compact gives the Department of Justice wide authority to penalize the university. UT-Austin could not only lose preferential access to federal funding for a year or more, but be required to return “all monies advanced by the U.S. government during the year of any violation” as well as any contributions made by private parties during that period upon request.
Reaction on campus
At UT-Austin President Jim Davis’ state of the university address last month, many listened closely for any hint of how he viewed the compact. His decision not to mention it at all landed differently depending on who you asked.
Some saw his silence as a sign he may be reluctant to sign. Others, including students who protested outside the event, saw it as a warning sign.
“It’s not a smoking gun, but it’s the last piece of an ongoing puzzle showing the political will to become more conservative,” said Mikey Rush, one of the protesting students.
Davis’ remarks about declining public trust in higher education drew particular attention from faculty.
“Some wonder if we have lost our way in how we teach,” he said. “They question whether the modern academic has forgotten the duty to steward curiosity, or to invite students to see broad and varied perspectives. Has inquiry become indoctrination? Has science surrendered to subjectivity?”
Karma Chávez, president of the UT-Austin chapter of the American Association of University Professors, rejected that framing.
“This narrative that faculty are indoctrinating students is a manufactured crisis,” she said. “You can trace it back to a network of right-wing think tanks, but it seems the university is treating it as if it is real.”
She said the compact itself takes the narrative to an extreme by expecting university departments to demonstrate ideological balance.
“What are they going to do — hire 25 Marxists in economics and 25 democratic socialists in the business school?” she said. “It’s an impossible standard that would function as an ideological litmus test.”
For students like Rush, the stakes feel even more immediate. He said he’s watched the university “shift rightward” ever since he arrived as a freshman five years ago. He pointed to the decision to keep “The Eyes of Texas” as the school’s song despite complaints about its racist origins, and what he described as UT-Austin’s overcompliance with the state’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion.
He also pointed to administrators’ recent discussions about consolidating several ethnic and gender studies programs, saying the move fits with that trend and would directly affect him and his peers.
One of his two majors is African and African Diaspora Studies. He said he chose it after an introductory Black studies course revealed how much he hadn’t learned in U.S. history at his South Austin high school.
“Black history is our history whether we like it or not and history is taught from the dominant power structure,” he said. “My major shows how we arrived at the current day racially and also economically. It’s an invaluable degree.”
African and African Diaspora Studies has deep roots on campus. UT-Austin created its first ethnic studies program in 1969 under historian Henry Bullock, the first Black faculty member in arts and sciences.
He worries the consolidation efforts could put the major at risk.
“People fought for decades for this major and these departments,” he said. “It’s sad to think I might be one of the last students to have it.”
What’s next
The UT System Board of Regents will meet on Nov. 19-20. Officials have already said they plan to discuss their review of gender identity courses, but the posted agenda shows the compact is not scheduled to be discussed.
The Tribune filed multiple public information requests to understand how UT leaders have been evaluating the proposal. UT-Austin said it is still working on responding.
A separate request to the UT System sought communications from regents or senior system officials about whether UT Austin should sign, seek clarification on or respond to the compact. The system said it found no responsive records.
So far, the only documents the UT System has released are emails from alumni urging regents to reject the compact.
“The University of Texas was the place where I learned how to engage in meaningful dialogue with those that thought differently than myself and had different life experiences. I never felt invalidated or alienated as a conservative on campus,” said one former student who graduated in 1997.
A 1983 graduate, who said she had donated for years despite not being wealthy, urged the university to stand up to the Trump administration rather than “sell its soul.”
“Anyone who has paid attention to the actions of the federal government over the last nine months knows that if you give this administration an inch, it will take a mile,” the alumni said in an Oct. 10 email to Eltife, Davis and Chancellor John Zerwas.
The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
Disclosure: University of Arizona and University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.