Chancellor says UNC won’t sign Trump’s higher education compact ‘as written’

A few dozen people gathered Friday on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus to push back against an effort by the Trump administration to get universities to do away with diversity, equity and inclusion policies and commit to political neutrality.

In exchange, the colleges and universities that comply get preferential federal funding.

“We’re here today to say, ‘we’re the real UNC,’” said UNC sophomore Kiersten Hackman.

Specifically, the UNC students and staff who gathered Friday at the UNC’s Quad urged the university not to accept President Donald Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”

UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts said in a faculty council meeting on Friday that the university is not signing the compact.

"There are some parts of the compact that we are already doing and there are some parts that would be difficult or impossible,” Roberts said. “There's no way we can sign the compact as written and we don't plan to.”

The compact would require universities to ban any DEI in hiring and admissions, freeze tuition and cap international enrollment at 15%. It would also require universities to curb criticism of conservative ideals and prevent disruptions caused by student protests. 

In May 2024, the UNC System Board of Governors voted to replace its policy on DEI. It led to the elimination of diversity-related positions, programs and grants at universities across the state, including UNC-Chapel Hill.

Related: NC universities eliminate programs, decline grants to comply with Equality Policy

Previous: New memo from UNC System orders schools to prove DEI policies are eliminated

The Trump administration initially sent the proposal in October to nine universities: The University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT], the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University. 

Now, any college can sign the proposal. Hackman said she wanted to see UNC preemptively say “no” to the compact.

“We've seen other universities who weren't part of the initial nine who were asked to accept the compact, and they've come out to say that if they were asked, they would not accept the compact,” Hackman said.

More than a dozen schools have declined to sign Trump’s compact already. It includes Brown University, Dartmouth, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia.

“What we're here today asking is not only reject that compact in its formality, but also stand with students in a way that UNC has not been standing with students in the past,” Hackman said.