Faculty at CU Boulder are urging university leaders to form a statewide alliance that would pool resources to push back against what they describe as growing federal threats to higher education funding and independence.
The statewide effort, launched in April and led by faculty unions, has gained momentum in recent months. Earlier this month, CU Boulder’s Faculty Assembly approved a resolution supporting the initiative, and on Oct. 23, CU’s Faculty Senate, which represents the entire CU system, voted to consider two related resolutions at its Nov. 20 executive meeting.
The first resolution calls for creating a Mutual Academic Defense Compact among Colorado universities. The second urges CU to reject “loyalty oaths” requiring schools to align their policies with the Trump administration’s priorities. If passed, both resolutions would go to the CU president and Board of Regents for consideration.
The proposed compact would allow universities to respond collectively to federal pressure by pooling financial, legal and lobbying resources, and by treating threats “to any Colorado higher ed institution as a threat to all,” according to Aaron Schneider and Steve Mumme, co-presidents of the faculty union Colorado Conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
In response, CU officials said the university “welcomes all faculty input,” and is already taking steps to safeguard its academic mission.
“CU leadership understands the concerns that motivated faculty resolutions around collaborative work to protect our scholarship, research and creative priorities as a university,” university spokesperson Michele Ames said, adding that the university has been doing this work for months. “We are already part of a collective of 23 public institutions in Colorado who are represented by the Attorney General’s Office.”
As examples of what they call recent federal attacks, Schneider and Mumme cited a $20 million federal funding cut to CU Colorado Springs and a complaint against Colorado State University for allegedly failing to remove DEI practices. Under the compact, CSU could draw on a shared legal defense fund to fight such cases.
“The only way to respond to this kind of threat is to refuse to acquiesce,” Schneider said. Mumme added that the compact “would encourage administrators to collectively offer a full-throated, unequivocal defense of DEI and academic freedom.”
CU Boulder has also been affected by federal actions under Trump. Tens of millions of dollars in research funding has been delayed or canceled after projects containing terms like “climate science,” “vulnerable populations” or “women” were flagged by the administration.
In one example, NCWIT, formerly the National Center for Women & Information Technology, based at CU Boulder, removed the word “women” from much of its website in an effort to preserve major federal grants after losing $10 million in funding. CU Boulder also took down its DEI webpage shortly after Trump took office.
The Faculty Senate’s reference to “loyalty oaths” stems from a “Compact on Higher Education” circulated by the Trump administration to nine colleges and universities this month. It has since been extended to all higher ed institutions. The proposal offers preferential access to federal funding if schools agree to align with White House priorities.
The compact would require universities to bar transgender women from women’s restrooms and sports teams, and to apply the same restrictions to transgender men. It would also freeze tuition for five years, limit international student enrollment and reinstate standardized testing, among other provisions, according to NPR. The University of Virginia this week reached a separate settlement agreeing to stop considering race in admissions.
“If our institution is considering [signing the administration’s compact], they need faculty voices around the table,” said Deb Palmer, a Faculty Assembly representative, co-president of AAUP Boulder and professor in CU’s School of Education.
In a Sept. 25 Colorado Sun op-ed, Schneider and Mumme warned that complying with federal threats would “retard scientific discovery, impair competitiveness, and slow the march of decency and progress.”
The effort to form a defense compact began at CSU Fort Collins’ AAUP chapter, which brought the proposal to the statewide AAUP, followed by CU Boulder and CU Colorado Springs.
Two other unions — the United Campus Workers Colorado and CWA 7799 — have also endorsed the compact.
Mumme and Schneider said state legislative approval may be needed for universities to share resources. “We hope to place this issue on the General Assembly’s agenda next year,” Mumme said.
Schneider added that faculty acted now because “under threat from those who would like to politicize higher education, administrators do not always have the courage to fight back.” The compact, he said, is meant to “strengthen the will of our administrations.”