Faculty and student leaders interviewed by The Dartmouth expressed support for College President Sian Leah Beilock’s decision not to sign the Trump administration’s higher education compact.
Of the nine schools initially sent the compact, Dartmouth was the sixth to reject it, following fellow Ivies Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania. Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas at Austin are the only schools that have not yet declined the proposal, which President Donald Trump then opened up to all universities.
In her email to campus, Beilock wrote that signing the compact “would compromise our academic freedom, our ability to govern ourselves and the principle that federal research funds should be awarded to the best, most promising ideas.”
The compact — which the White House sent to Dartmouth and eight other universities on Oct. 1 — would have required the College to cap the number of international students, freeze tuition costs and not consider gender identity, race or religion in admissions, among other provisions, in exchange for privileged access to federal funding.
Her decision not to sign came after a faculty petition urged the College to reject the compact, claiming that it would undermine the College’s “academic freedom and self-governance.” The petition received 529 signatures as of Oct. 13.
Writing program lecturer and N.H. State Rep. Ellen Rockmore, D-Grafton, said it was a “terrific decision” not to sign the compact.
The rejection “sends a message that the top priorities for an institution of higher learning should be scholarship and independence,” Rockmore said.
Other faculty members expressed similar appreciation for Beilock’s decision. Economics professor Bruce Sacerdote wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth that he was “very pleased” with Beilock’s response.
“Input from the faculty and Trustees was sought and incorporated into the response” in a “thoughtful manner,” Sacerdote wrote.
History professor Bethany Moreton said she hoped Beilock’s decision would “make it more possible for other campuses in New Hampshire to stick to their own principles.” She said a compact would not stop the College’s “flow of money” from being “illegitimately restricted.”
“We’ve seen over and over now with this extortionist administration: there’s not a path of safety where if you agree to one illegitimate exercise of power you’ll be rewarded,” Moreton said.
Students also expressed support for Beilock’s response. Angela Zhang ’28, an international student from China who attended a protest against the compact, said she believed the compact was “part of Trump’s continuous infringement on academic freedom in this country.”
“With Dartmouth’s endowment, we are able to resist,” Zhang said.
Roan Wade ’25 said they were concerned about the way the compact “institutionalizes transphobia.” The compact would have required universities to define gender “according to reproductive function and biological processes.”
The document “eliminates the possibility of gender non-conforming, non-binary and trans students from being able to receive adequate resources and acknowledgment here,” Wade said. “It also prevents us from learning and educating ourselves about queer studies and queer theory, which would gut the women, gender and sexuality studies department.”
Dartmouth Conservatives president Jack Coleman ’26 said he was personally “supportive of efforts to increase meritocracy on campus” and that he “would have supported President Beilock signing the compact.”
“The federal government has every right to institute requirements contingent upon receiving federal funds,” Coleman said.
He disagreed with the idea that signing the compact would have been “the death of higher education.”
“The minute you rely on federal funds is the minute you open yourself up to, at some point down the line, having a requirement put on those funds that you’re not supportive of,” Coleman said.
Student representatives from the Dartmouth Democrats declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
Moreton said she does not believe the compact is “the last time we will experience an attempted abuse of power” by the Trump administration.
“What worked this time was fast mobilization by students, faculty, staff [and] alumni,” Moreton said. “If every single institution of civil society were able to mobilize that degree of refusal, I would sleep a lot better at night.”
Jack Coleman ’26 is a member of The Dartmouth’s podcast team. He was not involved in the writing or editing of this story.
