Official Statement on Compact 2.0

Approved by the UCWAZ Executive Committee and released publicly on August 14th, 2026.

Donald Trump has returned to his series of seemingly unending attacks on higher education. This time, posing a set of questions that give the illusion of collaboration in reforming higher education. The questions in the “National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards⁠”, now nicknamed Compact 2.0, call for college administrators to spell out how they plan to “reaffirm their commitment to the American people” by cracking down on protestors and blaming our institutions of higher learning for continuing to raise tuition prices. Compact 2.0 makes no mention of the decades-long history of a slow but steady defunding of public education in this country. Campus workers know that these questions are just revisions of the original ten-point compact, which was sent first to nine, and later all, US colleges, and asked for compliance with the federal government’s partisan agenda. Compact 1.0, defeated by higher education workers last year, demanded that universities pledge fealty to the federal government in exchange for ill-defined benefits, which may include access to student loans, research funding, approval of student and worker visas, and preferential tax treatment. 

We, the United Campus Workers of Arizona, are not falling for it. Michael Crow, ASU president, has once again engaged with the Trump administration behind our backs to undermine worker power and student rights. Compact 2.0 is yet another thinly disguised attempt to curtail free speech and academic freedom in our colleges and universities.

We are calling on all institutions of higher education in Arizona, and nationwide, to resist the Trump Compact 2.0 as part of our fight for free public education, academic freedom, and the right for anyone to learn and work in institutions that prioritize their well-being. We urge administrators not to answer Trump’s coercive questions. Instead, we encourage decision-makers to trust campus workers and students with more promising questions that actually attempt to rebuild higher education. We call on community members to respond to the following:

1. How would you, your family, and communities benefit from free college for all funded by the taxes we already pay?
2. Why do you think it’s important for colleges and universities to protect students' First Amendment rights to protest and to free speech?
3. Given that the compact explicitly calls for hiring conservative professors in the name of ‘ideological diversity’, what reassurance is there that this won’t subvert the ‘meritocratic hiring’ urged elsewhere in the document, and that it won’t turn into affirmative action for right-wing hacks or nepotism for friends of the administration?
4. Why is President Michael Crow expecting an administration that, at best, considers research and higher education a frivolous waste of time, and at worst, is actively hostile towards it on a deep, ideological level, to ever act in the interest of the universities? Or that Trump will not later betray whatever deal he has purported to make, as he frequently does?
5. How have you benefited from courses that emphasize the experiences and histories of historically marginalized communities? 
6. What do you wish to communicate to university and college administrators about the use of AI in the workplace and classroom?
7. Is such a strong pivot to AI wise, particularly when ASU’s existing AI resources, such as the ASU AIR Platform, remain extremely underutilized due to a lack of use cases? 

Real change has always come from workers. That is as true today as it has been throughout history. Our universities and colleges run because workers show up each day to tend to the learning needs of our communities. Change does not come from veiled threats and an undereducated working class. Together, we defeated Compact 1.0, and together, we can defeat Compact 2.0. When we fight, we win!

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