USC rejects Trump education compact aimed at shifting the university to the right

The University of Southern California had rejected the controversial education compact the Trump administration offered it and eight other schools.

USC interim President Beong-Soo Kim said in a statement that he had sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education turning down the Trump offer, which would give priority research funding access to universities that agree to follow the president’s mostly conservative vision of higher education.

“I appreciate the various points of view shared with me by many members of our community. Although USC has declined to join the proposed Compact, we look forward to contributing our perspectives, insights, and Trojan values to an important national conversation about the future of higher education,” Kim said in a statement.

His letter, which USC provided to The Times, was addressed to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and said that the compact “raises a number of issues worthy of further discussion within both higher education and our nation.”

But, Kim wrote, the university had concerns about the president’s offer.

“We are concerned that even though the Compact would be voluntary, tying research benefits to it would, over time, undermine the same values of free inquiry and academic excellence that the Compact seeks to promote,” Kim wrote. “Other countries whose governments lack America’s commitment to freedom and democracy have shown how academic excellence can suffer when shifting external priorities tilt the research playing field away from free, meritocratic competition.”

Still, Kim’s letter said that the university “fully agrees” with a portion of the compact that says academic excellence requires a “vibrant marketplace of ideas where all different views can be explored, debated, and challenged.”

“To foster such an environment at USC, we have committed ourselves to institutional neutrality and launched a number of initiatives designed to promote civil discourse across the ideological spectrum,” Kim wrote to McMahon in the letter dated Thursday. “Without an environment where students and faculty can freely debate a broad range of ideas and viewpoints, we could not produce outstanding research, teach our students to think critically, or instill the civic values needed for our democracy to flourish.”

The compact — which has already been rejected by MIT and Brown — has roiled higher education and has drawn the ire of Gov. Gavin Newsom with its demands for rightward campus policy shifts in exchange for priority federal funding.

Newsom had aggressively weighed in, challenging USC “to do the right thing” and reject the offer. He threatened to withhold state funding to any California university that agrees to it.

Provided to USC on Oct. 1, the compact requires universities to make a range of commitments in line with Trump’s political agenda. Universities that agree to the terms would get more favorable access to federal research grants and additional funding, as well as other benefits.

The compact calls on universities to accept the government’s definition of gender — two sexes, male and female — and bans colleges from recognizing transgender people’s gender identities. Foreign student enrollment would be restricted. The compact also stipulates a five-year tuition freeze for U.S. students.

It asks colleges to require the SAT or ACT for all undergraduate applicants and to eliminate race, sex and other characteristics from admissions decisions.

As for free speech, schools would have to commit to promoting a wide range of views on campus — and change or abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” according to the compact.

The compact had been strongly rejected by the USC Academic Senate, which on Oct. 6 met and heard from 20-plus professors, department heads and others who spoke out against the document. In forceful speeches during the virtual meeting, participants called the compact “egregiously invalid,” “probably unconstitutional,” “antithetical to principles of academic freedom” and “a Trojan horse.”