About 200 students chanted “do not sign” in front of the Main Tower on Monday, as they protested the compact the Trump administration offered the University earlier this month.
The compact would prioritize universities for federal funding in exchange for meeting certain requirements, such as limiting the number of new international students and ensuring they support “American and Western Values,” according to the compact published by The Washington Post. It also creates rules restricting the suppression of conservative voices and prohibits transgender students from using spaces designated for their preferred gender identity.
Although the University has not signed on to the compact, Kevin Eltife, chairman of the UT System Board of Regents, said the system was “honored” to be selected by the Trump administration upon receiving the offer.
The demonstrators gathered speakers from student organizations, such as Students for a Democratic Society and UT Graduate Workers Union, to urge the University not to sign the compact. Their concerns ranged from fear of immigrants being targeted in admissions from vague language, to fear of executive overreach on academic freedom and safety of the transgender community.
History and civil engineering junior Parker Oehler, a member of Students for a Democratic Society, said the compact targets immigrant communities who are in search of a better life. The document caps international student enrollment at 15% for universities that sign on. The University already has a cap of limiting out-of-state enrollment to 10%. Oehler said even with this existing cap, he opposes the ability of the Trump administration to propose this cap.
“I have so many friends, so many people who are close to me, who come from other countries, who come here for education, to build better lives for themselves, to learn, to be able to make the world a better place,” Oehler said. “Trump wants to keep those people from doing that. He wants to restrict education. He wants to isolate our country from the rest of the world.”
Physics graduate student Bethany Epstein said the compact uses claims of left-wing disruption to restrict the academic freedom of these groups.
“Conservatives hallucinate a left-wing conspiracy to kill them and point to isolated instances of violence against them,” Epstein said in a speech. “Their most damnable crime of all, though, is having imagined an epidemic of trans violence, which simply does not exist.”
Humanities and Theatre and Dance senior Kira Small said the compact is executive overreach, wrongfully intervening in academic freedom for the purpose of restricting faculty speech and governing the admissions process.
“This is clearly a continuation of a trend in Texas higher education, of professors being targeted and persecuted for their speech,” Small said. “It’s horrifying. When my kids ask about this time of history, I want to be able to tell them that I did something.”
Oehler said he initially could not believe the compact’s contents. He worries the document’s requirement for universities to restructure rules to protect “conservative” ideas could inhibit academic freedom, Oehler said.
“The fact that the president could even enforce these rules in exchange for more funding is horrendous,” Oehler said. “It is blatant corruption. It is blatant nationalism, and it has no place in our country.”
