AAUP Analysis of Department of Education’s “Compact 2.0”

Secretary Linda McMahon's August 3, 2026, announcement should be read in the context of the administration's 2025 higher education "compact," which offered access to federal benefits in exchange for institutional acceptance of a detailed list of government demands. The AAUP and other higher education organizations opposed that compact as imposing political litmus tests and governmental control over whom universities teach, what they teach, and who teaches.

The new call is rhetorically softer and does not presently specify consequences. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to ask whether the requested statements will later be used to construct a compliance regime. Universities should seek express assurance that responding-or declining to respond-will have no bearing on federal grants, contracts, investigations, enforcement decisions, or other treatment by the government.

Universities should not be made answerable to the political program of a particular administration. The Department of Education may enforce the law and administer programs authorized by Congress. It may not dictate whom faculty hire, what they teach, which research questions they pursue, which scholarly perspectives count as "relevant," or whether institutions publicly endorse the government's preferred conception of their mission. Public confidence in higher education will be restored through affordability, independent research, academic freedom, and shared governance.

The problem here is that the department is asking presidents and governing boards to publicly commit themselves to a federally framed reform program that reaches faculty hiring, evaluation, curriculum, research priorities, student protest, academic standards, and the purposes scholarship should serve. That confuses public accountability with political supervision of higher education.

Read the AAUP's full analysis and response here.