OPEN LETTER: MIT Campus Organizations Stand Against White House Compact to MIT

Open Letter to President Sally Kornbluth

On October 1, the Trump administration proposed a ten-point compact to nine universities, including MIT. This proposed compact demands that universities pledge loyalty to the Trump administration and implement numerous unprecedented policies in exchange for federal favor and preferential funding.

This compact fundamentally violates core principles of higher education and academic freedom. It would effectively enable unprecedented control by presidential administrations over admissions, research, and classroom discussion and opens the door to further targeting of our international workers and students; LGBTQ+ community members; and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and programs across campus. Accepting such a compact would effectively destroy the institutional culture of MIT as we know it.

MIT must stand in defense of our campus, academic freedom, and civil rights. Extensive engagement with this compact plays into the administration’s hands and opens the door to further government control of MIT as an institution. We, the undersigned, call on MIT to firmly refuse to negotiate or comply with these demands.

Signed,

Leaders of 

DUSP for Palestinian Liberation

G@MIT

Generational African American Student Association

iHouse

Latino Cultural Center

Latinx Graduate Student Association Executive Board

MIT Asian American Initiative

MIT Black Graduate Student Association

MIT Black Student Union

MIT Chapter of American Association of University Professors – Leads

MIT Chinese Students and Scholars Association

MIT Coalition for Palestine

MIT Democrats

MIT Divest

MIT Educational Studies Program

MIT Faculty & Staff for Palestine

MIT Grads for Palestine

MIT Graduate Student Council Executive Board – Members Teddy Warner and Molly Warndorf

MIT Jews for Collective Liberation

MIT Life on Stage Theater

The MIT Musical Theater Guild

MIT Reading for Revolution

MIT SEDS

MIT Student Information Processing Board

MIT Taara

Next Bake

TransMIT

UE Local 256 – MIT Graduate Student Union

Undergraduate Women in Physics

Queer Grad @ MIT

If you as an individual are interested in signing onto the open letter, please reach out to your department steward or find an organizer tabling in Lobby 10 the week of October 6, 2025. If you are a leader of an MIT campus organization and would like to sign on as such, please fill out the form here.

Interested in collecting signatures? Fill out this form and we will follow up with you.