Riana Mahtani

From the Oval Office to courtrooms, several Penn alumni made national headlines this year — repeatedly tying the University to high-profile controversies.

All Penn faculty and staff — including student workers and postdoctoral students — will be required to complete the training.

Penn professors attributed the heightened Democratic turnout to voters’ opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies, while cautioning against over-interpreting the implications of the results for elections in 2026 and 2028.

The Nov. 10 brief was principally authored by Penn Carey Law professor and CERL Faculty Director Claire Finkelstein.

The three faculty members set to teach the classes described the process of adapting their curriculum to an “unprecedented” political landscape in interviews with The Daily Pennsylvanian. 

Until Friday, Penn was the only university that had declined to sign the compact but did not publicly disclose its response to the government.

Two days after the Oct. 20 deadline to provide feedback, seven of the nine universities initially asked to sign the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” have rejected the proposal.

Amid lower, off-year turnout, they argued, individual voters will have an outsized impact on several notable local and state races. 

Experts told The Daily Pennsylvanian the compact could reshape the relationship between institutions of higher education and the federal government, posing a significant risk to academic freedom.

In today’s political environment, faculty members argued, isolated acts of violence can reverberate far beyond those directly involved — and foster distrust in public institutions while deepening polarization.