‘UMass does not belong to Trump’

AMHERST — Hundreds of students followed the lead of University of Massachusetts junior Sarah Jones on Friday as she led call-and -response chants protesting against the Trump administration’s latest higher education initiative that asks some colleges and universities to sign a list of priorities that align with his political agenda.

“Reject, rise up, UMass does not belong to Trump,” Jones and some 200 other students bellowed outside the Whitmore Administration Building, following a march they made from the Student Union.

The protest was one of dozens that took place across the nation on Friday rallying against Trump’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, and specifically calling on Chancellor Javier Reyes to make a statement condemning the compact.

“Reyes don’t sign the deal, we won’t back down, we will not yield,” they chanted.

The compact was sent by the White House on Oct. 1 to nine colleges, both public and private, though UMass was not one of these schools. The institutions sent the compact include the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia.

According to National Public Radio (NPR), as of the Oct. 20 deadline for schools to sign the compact, Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Virginia and Dartmouth College, had rejected it.

If the schools signed, it would give them preferential access to federal funding in exchange for agreement to the conditions.

UMass sophomore Joshua Rand, speaking at Friday’s protest, said that Trump and colleagues are using the compact to lay out their “vision of a university, not as a independent center, of independent thinking and learning, but as a dutiful pillar supporting his regime.”

“In exchange for preferential funding, the compact demands an end to diversity, equity and inclusion, and affirmative action, and hiring in admissions, the special protection of conservative viewpoints and the quashing of left-wing ones,” they said through a bullhorn at the protest.

Rand is part of the national student activist group Students Rise Up as part of the Sunrise Movement, which organized the protest. Northampton High School and Mount Holyoke College students joined the protest as well. Dozens of these protests took place through the organization across the country.

Language from the compact asks universities that signed to revise governance structures that includes, but is not limited to, “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

The compact — published online by The Washington Post — states that it “represents the priorities of the U.S. government in its engagements with universities that benefit from the relationship,” between the government and higher education.

NPR reported that the compact would require schools to bar transgender people from using restrooms or playing in sports that align with their gender identities, freeze tuition for five years, limit international student enrollment, and require standardized tests for admissions, among other things.

MIT was one of the first schools to issue a public statement rejecting the compact on Oct. 10. MIT President Sally Kornbluth wrote in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, stating the document, “includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.”

UMass senior Rahim Mian said he really loves America for what it can stand for. He feels that the compact opposes the American dream, saying it directly violates freedom of speech.

It is “something that is restricting our academic freedom, it limits what people can teach on campus, how people are admitted on campus, who can be admitted on campus, so we’re fighting against this government overreach,” Mian said in an interview.

While rallying, a group of about six students including Rand entered the administration building and directly demanded that Reyes make a statement condemning the compact.

“What we’re seeing is that, the campus is not really taking a stand …” Rand said in an interview with the Gazette. “The goal for this protest specifically is to get them to … denounce the compact.”

Reyes was not present and the students asked his chief of staff to call him, which she denied saying that is not how they do meetings.