The president tried to bribe colleges into ending trans rights. Most... said no

[Jessica_Rose]

The president tried to bribe colleges into ending trans rights. Most have said no.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/10/the-president-tried-to-bribe-colleges-into-ending-trans-rights-most-have-said-no/ 🔗

Greg Owen (22 Oct 2025)

Four more schools have rejected an offer the White House thought they couldn't refuse, signaling the collapse of a so-called "compact" undermining academic freedom and LGBTQ+ rights that the presidential administration offered several universities earlier this month.

The discriminatory "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" extortion scheme, promising preferred access to federal funding in exchange for submitting to the administration's demands over how to run the schools, was pitched to nine colleges and universities in a letter sent at the beginning of October.

The 10-point plan demanded the schools' submission to the president's "gender ideology" obsession, effectively erasing trans identity in higher education, along with a cap on international undergraduate enrollment at 15% and banning the use of race or sex in hiring, among other diktats.

Over the last week, the University of Arizona, the University of Southern California, Dartmouth College, and the University of Virginia joined Brown University, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania in rejecting the administration's academic shakedown.

"A number of the proposed federal recommendations deserve thoughtful consideration as our national higher education system could benefit from reforms that have been much too slow to develop," University of Arizona President Suresh Garimella said in a message to the campus community on Monday.

But "principles like academic freedom, merit-based research funding, and institutional independence are foundational and must be preserved," she said.

"As a result, the university has not agreed to the terms outlined in the draft proposal."