On October 1st, the Trump administration sent out a 10-point letter titled the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” to nine major universities around the country, with the threat of withholding preferential funding if their demands are not met. Seeing the poor reception the compact received by some of those universities that are still driven by academic integrity, the administration pivoted, and now the compact is being offered as an open invitation to all universities around the country.

These Demands Include:

• Commitment to an inaccurate, conservative definition of gender and excluding transgender students from using the correct facilities.
• Disallowing the consideration of marginalization in admissions, financial aid, or hiring
• Restricting free expression on campus under the guise of protecting campuses from disruption
• Commitment to the use of force and “swift, serious, and consistent sanctions” against student activists
• Requires faculty to abstain from speech related to politics in their official capacity
• Abolishing “institutional units” that cause perceived harm to conservative ideas
• Limiting undergraduate populations to having no more than 15% of students on foreign visas, and no more than 5% coming from any one country

This is a blatant attempt by the Trump administration to take control of our academic institutions and use them as a tool to spread dangerous right-wing policies that seek to oppress or eliminate everyone who isn’t a cisgender heterosexual white male.

Any university that signs this compact is handing over the academic freedom and freedom of expression of its students to the Trump administration and is allowing their academic institutions to become nothing more than tools for the spreading of the ruling party’s political propaganda.

Trump has already been escalating his attacks on education and LSU Administration has already been pursuing backwards policies toward people of color, LGBT students, and freedom of expression. They have shown that if they are not resisted, they will continue to make life on campus more and more difficult for students of color, LGBT students, and activists.

If Trump sees that he can bully our universities into forfeiting the crucial rights of any functioning academic institution by merely threatening their funding, it only encourages the administration to continue accelerating their attacks on all of our rights—both on and off campus.

We have to act now before it is too late. LSU Students for a Democratic Society demands that this university reject the compact agreement so that students can still get the education that they are paying for and that they deserve! Sign our petition to support our struggle against Trump's backwards agenda!