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CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The University of Virginia will not sign the Trump administration’s ‘Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,’ the school announced Friday, releasing a letter interim president Paul Mahoney sent to the university community that afternoon.
Just hours after hundreds attended a rally at the Rotunda urging university officials to reject the 10-point proposal, UVA became the fifth of the nine schools to receive the letter not to agree to it.
Schools had been given until Monday to respond to the compact. On Thursday, Mahoney said he had formed a working group to evaluate the document and determine whether or not UVA would sign it.
Mahoney pledged that the university would “respond in a way that is true to the Jeffersonian vision that animates the university.”
The 10-point plan demands schools eliminate diversity considerations from admissions and hirings, cut down on international student enrollment, freeze tuition, and share data on earnings of graduates.
“We will continue to work to strengthen free expression and free inquiry, protect academic freedom, ensure affordability , promote intellectual pluralism, and maintain institutional neutrality in an increasingly polarized world,” Mahoney’s letter to the community said. “I am grateful for your continued dedication to the University and I look forward to working with you on these vital projects.”
In a letter to the UVA community released Friday afternoon, Mahoney announced that he had sent a letter to both the Secretary of Education and to White House officials.
“The letter confirms our core values and commitments while expressing our view that federal research funding should be based on merit,” read the letter.