The University of Southern California rejected Thursday the Trump administration’s offer to join its Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, becoming the latest elite college to stiff-arm the agreement aimed at combating left-wing groupthink in academia.
USC Interim President Beong-Soo Kim said in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon that the university has already embraced many of the compact’s provisions, including institutional neutrality and promoting “civil discourse across the ideological spectrum.”
Even so, he said, “We are concerned that even though the Compact would be voluntary, tying research benefits to it would, over time, undermine the same values of free inquiry and academic excellence that the Compact seeks to promote.
“Other countries whose governments lack America’s commitment to freedom and democracy have shown how academic excellence can suffer when shifting external priorities tilt the research playing field away from free, meritocratic competition,” Mr. Kim said in his Thursday letter.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom had previously urged the university to “do the right thing” and decline the administration’s offer.
Mr. Kim said in a note to his campus that “I appreciate the various points of view shared with me by many members of our community,” which include faculty groups, labor unions and student organizations that denounced the compact.
“Although USC has declined to join the proposed Compact, we look forward to contributing our perspectives, insights, and Trojan values to an important national conversation about the future of higher education,” he said.
USC has declined Trump’s compact today, interim President Beong-Soo Kim announced, rejecting an offer of preferential federal funding so long as the university implemented a number of right-leaning policies.
USC joins MIT, Brown and UPenn in rejecting the offer this week.
— USC Annenberg Media (@AnnenbergMedia) October 16, 2025
USC was one of nine universities invited Oct. 1 by the Trump administration to join the compact, which offers expanded access to federal funding in exchange for signing onto the document’s anti-DEI priorities, including merit-based admissions and faculty hiring.
The compact also calls for reducing “foreign entanglements” by keeping foreign undergraduate enrollment below 15%; adopting biological definitions of “male” and “female” for purposes of private facilities and sports; and implementing a five-year tuition freeze.
At least four of the universities have rejected the compact: USC, Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The deadline to respond is Monday.
Kevin Eltife, chairman of the University of Texas System Board of Regents, said the system was “honored” after the University of Texas at Austin received the offer, but the college has not yet made a decision on whether to join.
Mr. Trump has since thrown open the invitation to all universities, warning that his administration will continue to investigate and penalize universities that discriminate based on race and sex.
“But for those Institutions that want to quickly return to the pursuit of Truth and Achievement, they are invited to enter into a forward looking Agreement with the Federal Government to help bring about the Golden Age of Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” said the president in an Oct. 12 post on Truth Social.
The decision to offer the compact comes with the Department of Education investigating more than 60 universities over potential violations of federal civil-rights law based on accusations of antisemitism, racial preferences, and allowing males to access female facilities and sports based on gender identity.
