Penn’s recent rejection of the White House’s preferential funding compact marked a notable shift in the University’s negotiations with the federal government and its communications with the campus community.
In the two weeks leading up to his refusal of the compact, Penn President Larry Jameson authored two emails to the Penn community and met with student and faculty leaders who reported that their advice informed his decision. The messages marked a higher level of transparency with the University's stakeholders in comparison to Penn's prior dealings with the government — including its July resolution with the Department of Education.
A University spokesperson did not respond to The Daily Pennsylvanian’s request for comment.
On Oct. 5, Jameson acknowledged receipt of the proposal, writing in an email that the University had initiated a “review and response” process in advance of the White House’s deadline for feedback on Oct. 20.
Jameson wrote that the University’s response would “rely on a set of principles drawn from Penn’s values and mission.” He pointed specifically to the ideals of free expression and non-discrimination, along with an “adherence to American laws” and the Constitution.
The message added that Penn’s next step as an institution — although not finalized at the time — would take into account the input of a variety of campus representatives, including from deans, the Faculty Senate, and the University Board of Trustees.
On Oct. 15, Penn’s Faculty Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution urging the University to reject the compact. The resolution described the importance of “educational excellence,” emphasizing the compact’s threat to the "liberty of individual faculty, trainees, and students to pursue facts and truth.”
The language of the resolution — which underscored the benefits of an “honest exchange of ideas” — mirrored the values described in Jameson’s email, including the “freedom of inquiry and thought.”
Representatives of Penn’s Undergraduate Assembly also met with Jameson to discuss the compact. UA President and Wharton junior Nia Matthews previously told the DP that the president and vice president of Penn’s Graduate and Professional Student Assembly were also present.
Jameson concluded his initial message to the Penn community with a pledge to “communicate further as we continue to manage this process.” On Oct. 16, in a follow-up email to the University community, he made good on that promise with an announcement that Penn had rejected the initially proposed compact.
“At Penn, we are committed to merit-based achievement and accountability,” Jameson wrote while explaining his decision to “respectfully” decline the proposal.
He also mentioned his reliance on the voices of “faculty, alumni, trustees, students, staff and others who care deeply about Penn.”
The University’s approach to the compact, however, is noticeably different from how Penn’s administration has approached negotiations with the federal government in the past.
In April, the Department of Education found Penn in violation of Title IX for allowing 2022 College graduate and transgender woman Lia Thomas to compete on the University’s women’s swimming and diving team during the 2021-22 season.
At the time, the White House gave Penn 10 days to “voluntarily” respond to a set of three demands or risk losing federal funding.
Penn never publicly acknowledged the announcement. As the Education Department’s deadline passed, the University continued to remain silent.
According to a University spokesperson at the time, Penn quietly submitted its response “on time,” but neither the University nor the Education Department divulged what the response consisted of.
In July, following 10 weeks of silence from Penn, the University entered into a resolution agreement with the White House to settle the violation.
Penn quickly complied with all three demands outlined by the department earlier that year. The University removed Thomas’ individual records and issued a public statement specifying that Penn Athletics “will adopt biology-based definitions for the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ pursuant to Title IX and consistent with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
The University — according to several officials familiar with the matter — had been involved in closed-door negotiations in Washington for months. The conversations ultimately concluded in Penn’s settlement agreement, which was accompanied by the first public acknowledgement of the demands by the University.
“Yesterday, Penn and the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) resolved a February 2025 investigation into Penn's compliance with Title IX for women’s athletics,” Jameson wrote. “This is a complex issue, and I am pleased that we were able to reach a resolution through the standard OCR process for concluding Title IX investigations.”
Unlike his response to the White House compact, Jameson made no reference to consulting members of the Penn community prior to the University’s decision.
Soon after the announcement, History professor and Penn's Faculty Senate Chair Kathleen Brown told the DP that she "was not part of the negotiations with the federal government" and, as a result, could not speak in her capacity as Faculty Senate chair.
The decision to settle with the Education Department and comply with its demands faced widespread condemnation from Penn faculty members.
Despite increased transparency from the University regarding the compact, Penn’s communication has lagged behind that of its peers.
Of the seven universities that have declined to sign the document, Penn is the only institution that has not publicly disclosed its letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.
“Earlier today, I informed the U.S. Department of Education that Penn respectfully declines to sign the proposed Compact,” Jameson’s Oct. 16 email to the Penn community read. “As requested, we also provided focused feedback highlighting areas of existing alignment as well as substantive concerns."
A University spokesperson declined repeated requests from the DP to disclose Penn's letter. Requests for comment were left with a White House spokesperson.
While the six other universities have made copies of their communications with the federal government public, the DP could not determine at the time of publication whether there have been additional private communications between the universities and the Education Department.
Jameson’s email announcing Penn’s rejection of the compact echoed concerns outlined by several other university presidents in their letters to the federal government and respective communities.
In an Oct. 18 statement, Dartmouth College President Sian Beilock wrote that the compact would compromise the institution's principle that “federal research funds should be awarded to the best, most promising ideas.”
University of Virginia President Paul Mahoney also wrote to McMahon that the school seeks “no special treatment in exchange for our pursuit of those foundational goals.”
“The integrity of science and other academic work requires merit-based assessment of research and scholarship, Mahoney added. “A contractual arrangement predicating assessment on anything other than merit will undermine the integrity of vital, sometimes lifesaving, research and further erode confidence in American higher education.”
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology — which was the first university to reject the compact on Oct. 10 — addressed a similar concern.
“Fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth wrote.
In total, all seven institutions that declined to sign the agreement labeled the compact’s insistence that federal funding replace “merit” as a key concern.
In a Monday interview, senior White House official May Mailman addressed the universities’ concerns over meritocratic funding.
“Who are those universities that have the values that, therefore, will produce meritorious research?” Mailman asked. “Like, non-discrimination in faculty hiring. Like, non-discrimination in student admissions. If you don’t have those, it’s very unlikely you’re going to have high-merit research."
While several of the universities that declined to sign the compact indicated their openness to collaborating with the federal government in other ways, many of them wrote that they were fundamentally opposed to signing a preferential funding compact.
“As I shared on a call yesterday with the White House, I do not believe that a compact—with any administration—is the right approach to achieve academic excellence,” Beilock wrote.
In MIT’s letter to McMahon, Kornbluth wrote that “fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief.”
Brown University President Christina Paxson told the Education Department that the university “remain[s] committed to the July agreement and its preservation of Brown’s core values in ways that the Compact — in any form — fundamentally would not.”
A Penn spokesperson declined to answer if the University would consider signing a revised version of the proposal.
