Texas Scorecard by Adam Cahn October 13, 2025
More than a hundred students gathered in front of the UT Tower to “stop the compact.” AUSTIN—University of Texas students staged a protest on Monday in opposition to university participation in the Trump administration’s new higher education reform initiative, the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.
The rally, organized under slogans like “Our Campus Not Trump’s” and “Rally for Academic Freedom,” drew a crowd of around 100 in front of the UT Tower. While decrying President Donald Trump as a “fascist” and comparing conservatives to “Nazis,” protestors called for the university to reject the compact.
Trump has condemned such language, stating, “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today and it must stop right now.”
Announced on October 1, the Trump initiative invited select universities—UT-Austin being the only one from Texas—to join an initial cohort and adopt a series of reforms aimed at overhauling admissions, hiring practices, and campus governance.
This new initiative followed years of revelations of higher education institutions instilling in students pro-LGBT and other left-wing ideologies.
Students for a Democratic Society was leading the protest alongside University Democrats, UT Grad Workers Union, and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas.
More:
https://texasscorecard.com/state/ut-austin-students-protest-trump-initiative/
