Ohio State University’s Senate Faculty Council has passed a resolution to join the Mutual Academic Defense Compact (MADC) in a 35 to 11 vote. However, a university spokesperson said the school can't legally join a common defense fund.
The compact urges the university's administration to join a coalition of schools in the Big Ten Academic Alliance.
The alliance has very little to do with sports, however. Created by Rutgers University, the alliance aims to “provide immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement.” This support would include legal counsel, experts and public affairs offices. The compact also creates a common defense fund to offer financial support if funding is threatened.
The vote passing in the Faculty Senate does not mean that Ohio State is part of the MADC yet. The final decision is up to university administrators.
OSU spokesman Chris Booker said in a statement that “The university remains committed to shared governance and respects the role of its Faculty Council.” But added, “It is not legally permissible for the university to participate in a common defense fund.”
The statement continued, “It’s important to remember that Ohio State is a member of the American Council on Education, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the Association of American Universities, the Big Ten Academic Alliance and other organizations who advocate in support of the university mission.”
The Rutgers resolution directly implicates the Trump administration's “willingness to target individual institutions” as the motivation behind it. Members of the university's Faculty Senate who have adopted the resolution have likened the alliance between schools to NATO.
The compact calls on all 18 Big Ten schools to join the alliance. Ohio State, the largest of the Big Ten schools, is the ninth school to have its Faculty Senate vote to join the compact.
Schools that have already voted to join are Rutgers University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Indiana University Bloomington, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Michigan State University, University of Michigan and the University of Washington. The University of Minnesota senate also passed a resolution to join the compact Thursday afternoon.
Notably, the University of Massachusetts Amherst is not a member of the Big Ten. Their resolution, which contains much of the same language, established a similar Public and Land-Grant University Mutual Academic Defense Compact (PLUMADC).
Additionally, Ohio State President Ted Carter was formerly the president of fellow alliance member school the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Several other university senates are also considering joining the MADC. The University of Southern California, University of California Los Angeles, and the University of Wisconsin Madison.
Jill Galvan, associate professor in the Department of English at Ohio State, is a member of the Faculty Senate and voted Thursday. To Galvan, the MADC is not just protecting against the federal government.
“We've seen close to home with SB1, the Ohio bill that's now law, that there is a very homegrown pressure to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion, to make Ohio higher education more exclusionary, which is very alarming,” she said. “We're seeing that kind of effort has also been echoed and magnified at the federal level, and so we're facing multiple pressures here.”
Galvan says that she is unsure about what the administration's decision will be.
“I have been disheartened by the statement that has gone out that this would not be legally possible to pull together,” she said. “I think something as large as this needs to be a much more considered question. And I think if there are issues that technically seem to be in the way, the problem is so large that surely there's a way that we can all work together.”
Lingering questions over legality was also cited as the reason the Rutgers Resolution was unable to pass a required two-thirds majority in Purdue University’s Faculty Senate.
However, Galvan said action to protect universities and students is urgent.
“The other thing is that here at OSU, we have 12 students, international students whose visas have been revoked,” Galvan said. One student, Ahwar Sultan, is now suing President Donald Trump and other officials in his administration over his academic visa being revoked.
Galvan continued: “It's a really urgent moment where we have students living in fear, and whose lives, whose studies are being really materially threatened and they're right here in our community. I think the problems are urgent, they're close to home.”
Ohio State has also been singled out twice by the Trump administration. In early March, OSU was one of 59 schools named as a target of investigations claiming universities failed to properly address claims of "antisemitic harassment and discrimination" against Jewish students on campus. 10 of the 18 schools in the Big Ten Conference were also named, as well as University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Four days later, OSU was named in a second investigation for alleged racial discrimination due to the university's ties with the PhD Project, which encourages Black, Latino and Native America professionals to earn business doctorate degrees. Seven of the 18 schools in the Big Ten Conference were named in the second investigation.
Ohio State’s Faculty Senate also passed two resolutions in March supporting academic freedom and disavowing the preemptive closure of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and other diversity programs.
Despite uncertainty about the university administration's final decisions about the MADC, Galvan is still glad that the resolution passed.
“I'm glad that we're, that we are collectively trying to make a difference at this moment, which again is a very urgent moment, for our students and really for us all,” she said. “I'm glad that as a body we could come together in a special meeting and come to this decision.”