The University of Virginia became the fifth school to rebuff a White House proposal to give universities preferential treatment if they uphold a set of White House demands.
The White House offered the proposal to nine universities last week, asking them to sign on to a list of requirements laid out in a 10-page document in exchange for funds. In declining to sign on to the agreement, Paul G. Mahoney, Virginia’s interim president, said that while the university agreed with many principles outlined in the proposal, it wanted “no special treatment” in funding.
“A contractual arrangement predicating assessment on anything other than merit will undermine the integrity of the vital, sometimes lifesaving, research and further erode confidence in American higher education,” Mr. Mahoney wrote in a note to Linda McMahon, the education secretary, and two other administration officials.
Mr. Mahoney’s announcement, which also went out to the campus community late Friday afternoon, followed similar decisions in the past week by other schools that received the government’s offer, including M.I.T., Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California.
Several university leaders who said they agreed with some provisions in the document seemed to be more put off by the “carrot” in the agreement — the special funding considerations.
They voiced concerns that it set up an illegal two-tiered system for doling out federal funding, allowing schools that signed on to the deal to escape merit-based consideration in federal grants.
In a meeting of university leaders last Tuesday in New York, several presidents said they found that idea fundamentally inappropriate. For example, a school with special expertise in research involving a specific type of cancer could, under the provisions, be eliminated from funding for that research unless it signed the compact.
Amid growing signs that many universities would not agree to the provisions in the document, called the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” the White House had been working earlier in the day on Friday to rally support for the idea, holding a conference call with some university presidents.
Eight schools, including Arizona State, the University of Kansas and Washington University in St. Louis, had been invited to talk about the compact at the meeting on Friday, White House officials said. Those three schools were not among those that initially received invitations from the administration earlier this month, but they were invited after others rejected the White House’s offer.
In exchange for the special funding considerations, schools would have to agree to provisions including tuition freezes, caps on international students, the elimination of both race and sex as factors in admissions decisions, and the promotion of conservative views on campus.
Mr. Mahoney’s note to the administration, which came even as his campus is in negotiations with the federal government to resolve investigations, followed opposition from the University of Virginia community.
The faculty senate had voted 60-2 against the compact. And, on Friday, a large group of students rallied against the idea on the campus grounds in Charlottesville.
The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment, but earlier this week, a White House spokeswoman, Liz Huston, warned that “any higher education institution unwilling to assume accountability and confront these overdue and necessary reforms will find itself without future government and taxpayers support.”
Michael C. Bender and Alan Blinder contributed reporting.
Stephanie Saul reports on colleges and universities, with a recent focus on the dramatic changes in college admissions and the debate around diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education.
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