One Month Since the Trump Compact and Still Nothing from Jones or UW Admin
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By: The Nightly Crew
11/22/2025
UW President Robert Jones pictured in Red Square, photo creative domain on the University of Washington website.
What is the Trump Compact?
On October 1st, 2025, officials of the Trump Administration sent out a letter called “The Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” also known as the “Trump Compact,” to nine U.S. universities.
At the time of writing, seven of the nine original invitees have rejected the compact; The University of Texas at Austin and Vanderbilt have yet to outright reject the compact but are yet to sign on. By October 14th, according to Bloomberg News, “The Trump administration is inviting all US colleges to participate in a compact." Which seems to suggest that the UW is welcome to consider the proposal, but has not received any formal invitation.
The Trump Compact lists out various reactionary criteria for potential signatory universities to abide by. These demands include prohibiting equity based admissions practices and demanding merit based hiring practices, while ironically including a provision for “fostering” other non-merit based practices in balancing their campus of students and faculty, on the basis of “ideological viewpoint:”:
“Therefore, signatories to this compact commit themselves to fostering a vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus. A vibrant marketplace of ideas requires an intellectually open campus environment, with a broad spectrum of ideological viewpoints present and no single ideology dominant, both along political and other relevant lines.” (Trump Administration, Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, October 1st, 2025).
Notably, as you may have predicted, they said the quiet part out loud. Signatories will be “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” Protection of bigoted or reactionary ideas is a concerning development in institutions that are otherwise meant to advance our society and create well rounded people.
Other requirements include “single-sex spaces, such as bathrooms and locker rooms, and fair competition, such as in sports.” As well as “commit[ing] to defining and otherwise interpreting “male,” “female,” “woman,” and “man” according to reproductive function and biological processes.” In an apparent disconnect with modern medicine and biological understanding, the Trump Administration is interested in schools “defining” various genders and sexes. This, to us, seems to be a provocation of the current climate of capitalist exploitative identity political practices. Instead of otherwise providing learning opportunities with institutional resources, we believe that the Trump administration is ultimately advocating for universities to continue dividing students on social issues manufactured by the ruling class.
The Trump administration also seeks for signatories to “control their costs, including by eliminating unnecessary administrative staff, reducing tuition burdens, engaging in transparent accounting and regular auditing for misuse of funds, and cutting unnecessary costs.” While this seems appropriate, we reckon we differ with much of what the Trump Administration sees as “unnecessary,” or “misuse.”
This letter outlined various benefits for signing universities.
“... access to student loans, grant programs, and federal contracts; (ii) funding for research directly or indirectly; (iii) approval of student and other visas in connection with university matriculation and instruction; and (iv) preferential treatment under the tax code” (Trump Administration, Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, October 1st, 2025).
University of Washington with compact text superimposed photo creative domain on the University of Washington website.
Where does the University of Washington administration stand on the Trump Compact?
Our guess is as good as yours.
At the time of writing, we are aware of three formal actions undertaken by University of Washington students and staff to demand rejection of the Trump Compact. On November 7th Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) UW Chapter rallied in the quad in opposition to the Trump Compact. Later on November 7th, the Institutional Climate Action (ICA) UW Chapter organized a letter delivery demanding a meeting with UW President Robert Jones and rejection of the Trump Compact; they were joined by the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) UW Chapter, and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) UW Chapter. According to ICA, they had previously attempted to reach President Jones over email but received no response. And on November 12th, as a part of a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local 925 rally demanding fair contract practices from the university, they demanded rejection of the Trump Compact. In both of the latter instances, Provost Office Chief of Staff Jason Johnson told demonstrators that President Robert Jones was not present to receive these letters and meetings, respectively, in person.
To us, this seems like a continuation of the concerning pattern of student organizers attempting to reach President Jones with little to no response. A trend some student organizers have observed since President Jones has taken office as president of the university.
We do offer a voice of caution. Because this compact has seemingly not been formally extended to the University of Washington, some argue that by openly rejecting the letter, we present ourselves as a target to Trump. There is no pressing need to either accept or reject this compact, so why make it clear to the federal government that we should be a victim to attack? Some of us here at The Nightly give President Jones the benefit of the doubt here, and theorize that his silence is a possible act to not draw the attention of federal persecution to UW.
What is clearly apparent to all of us here at The Nightly, is that UW, as an institution that prides itself in terms like compassion, equity, and integrity, would be completely out of line for capitulating to overbearing federal demands on American education. The autocratic tendencies of the current federal government to spread reactionary ideology have not stopped at influencing or controlling private industry to meet its ideological goals, but have now extended to the previously independent nature of American higher education, which has historically been a global role model in terms of Western elitism. If the University of Washington, for better or for worse, wants to continue to be seen as a “progressive” institution, it must not accept these ridiculous demands from Washington D.C. While we continue to believe that tyranny imposed upon independent academia has been an issue throughout American history, for a variety of reasons, this overt behavior by the Trump administration is, in our eyes, yet another step to increase capitalist state control over our lives.
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