UW-Madison Faculty Vote to Join Big Ten’s ‘Mutual Defense Compact’

University of Wisconsin-Madison professors have joined their colleagues at Big Ten schools to formally say they’re frustrated by the Trump administration’s cuts to research funding and efforts to dictate policy on campus.

This week the university’s Faculty Senate, a group of more than 2,200 professors on campus, voted to approve a “Mutual Defense Compact.” The vote followed similar efforts by faculty on other Big Ten campuses.

The resolution urges Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin to help establish a “Mutual Academic Defense Compact.” Under the compact, all participants would “commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund.”

The money would provide support to any member under direct political or legal infringement.

The resolution is nonbinding, and any financial commitment would have to come from the UW-Madison administration.

UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas said the university is collaborating with other institutions through groups like the the Association of American Universities, Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, the American Association of Colleges and Universities, as well as Big Ten peers

“The university will continue to explore and pursue these collaborations, within the bounds of Wisconsin law,” Lucas said.

On April 22, Mnookin was one of about 300 college and university presidents to sign a letter opposing “the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.”

The Faculty Senate compact was drafted last month by two Rutgers University professors as a statement of solidarity among schools in the Big Ten athletic and academic conference.

At least 10 of the 18 institutions in the Big Ten Conference had endorsed similar resolutions including the University of Illinois, Indiana University, Ohio State University, the University of Nebraska, Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, the University of Maryland and the University of Washington.

Last month, UW-Madison and several of the other Big Ten universities were included in a letter from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights warning that there would be potential action concerning alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination.

During a faculty meeting April 25, UW-Madison political science professor Mark Copelovitch suggested public universities ban together to share legal and financial resources if the Trump administration targets them.

Copelovitch called it a “Big 10 NATO.”

“Harvard is doing it a little bit, and Harvard can afford to do it, but the leaders of any individual public institution are not going to do that,” Copelovitch said. “I think the public universities should be banding together, whether that’s, you know, geographically or through athletic conferences or what not … But I think that that really is the key.”

WPR’s Anna Marie Yanny contributed to this report

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UW-Madison faculty joins Big Ten schools in vote for ‘Mutual Defense Compact’ was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.