The University of Arizona has become the seventh US university to reject a Trump administration proposal that would grant schools funding priority if they agreed to support the administration’s conservative agenda.
The decision follows the administration’s push for nine universities to sign a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which seeks to make sweeping changes to campus culture, hiring and admissions practices and foreign student enrollment. Demands from the Trump administration’s 10-point compact include reforms to the way race or ethnicity are used in admission and hiring practices, as well as a commitment to strict definitions of gender, among others.
The deadline for universities to provide their initial feedback on the draft of the compact is 20 October.
In a letter to the Department of Education sent Monday, Suresh Garimella, the University of Arizona president, said that “principles like academic freedom, merit-based research funding and institutional independence are foundational and must be preserved”.
“We seek no special treatment and believe in our ability to compete for federally funded research strictly on merit,” Garimella said in the letter.
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