The Graduate Student Government Assembly passed a resolution Friday urging ASU officials to reject the Trump administration’s higher education compact.
The decision was made despite arguments from some GSG officers and an adviser that the University was not currently considering the compact. There were also concerns that the resolution was placed on the agenda improperly, and there should have been more thought put into the ways the compact affects students.
READ MORE: President Crow says signing higher education compact is not ‘viable’
Twenty-two Assembly members voted in favor of the resolution, while seven voted against.
Alberto Plantillas, the Assembly member who introduced the bill and a graduate student studying public policy, said the resolution would show the organization’s commitment to its constituents, especially international students.
“By passing this resolution, we as a graduate student government would take a stance against limiting international enrollment,” Plantillas said in a speech during the Friday meeting. “That’s something most of us morally stand behind.”
Plantillas referenced the University’s charter as a rationale for opposing the compact.
This document is a PDF from the Graduate Student Government Assembly meeting agenda published on Friday, Nov. 21, 2025, by Alberto Plantillas, an assembly member. It shows the resolution introduced in the Graduate Student Government Assembly to urge the university to reject the Trump administration’s higher education compact.
International students make up 4.7% of the University’s 2024-25 undergraduate enrollment, according to ASU’s website. The White House’s compact would require participating universities to cap undergraduate international student enrollment at 15%.
“For now, that component of it, in my personal opinion, belongs as an issue to be considered by the undergraduate assemblies,” said Assembly member Danielle Hall, a doctoral student studying counseling psychology.
Hall said they would support a similar bill if it encompassed more issues, such as the compact’s demands that universities change admissions requirements and adopt political neutrality policies.
GSG President Bhagvan Reddy Vemula, a graduate student studying information technology and management of technology, told the Assembly that the University was not considering the compact.
“ASU’s position remains unchanged,” a University spokesperson said in a written statement. “There is nothing for the university to accept, reject, or negotiate.”
Adviser Cassandra Aska said she didn’t want the organization’s officers “to expose yourselves in a way in which you are presenting yourselves as not being informed.”
“It is a null and void conversation, even within higher education,” Aska said.
Aska urged the Assembly to gather more information before deciding how to proceed and said members should raise their questions at an upcoming student forum with ASU President Michael Crow.
After the meeting, Plantillas called Aska’s point “a little misleading,” as the Trump administration indirectly offered the compact to all American universities, and University officials were in talks with the White House about the document.
Moy Briones, a GSG director of campus support and a graduate student studying health care administration and policy, said the compact impacts international students regardless of whether it was officially offered to the University.
“It would be unfair to not release anything,” Briones said.
Enrique Gutierrez Carreras, another Assembly member and a graduate student studying educational policy and evaluation, said the resolution didn’t account for the University’s current position in regards to the compact and needed further development.
“As an international student, I would like to have a more complex acknowledgement of our situation there,” Gutierrez Carreras said.
Assembly Member Justin Zyla, a doctoral student studying political science, also raised concerns that Assembly leadership improperly placed the resolution on the meeting agenda. Zyla expressed concerns regarding whether the resolution obtained a majority of the support of the Assembly Operations Committee, which reviews legislation before it goes to the full Assembly.
“Basically, the committee talked through the bill and thought it could use some revision work, exercised it’s power to make that happen, and assembly leadership ignored the committee’s decision to do what they preferred and without communicating to us,” Zyla said in a statement.
READ MORE: GSG resumes Assembly meetings amid leadership vacancies and rule changes
In response to Zyla’s concern, Assembly Speaker Cole Cloyd, a graduate student studying religious studies, asked for patience as leadership continues to figure out the organization’s procedures and bylaws.
Cloyd said he shared many of the concerns surrounding the compact and said the document would endanger international students and the LGBTQ+ community in particular.
“These are issues that should raise our concern,” Cloyd said. “It is our stance as an Assembly body, and that’s where we stand.”
Edited by George Headley, Senna James, Sophia Braccio and Ellis Preston.
Reach the reporter at coyer1@asu.edu and follow @carstenoyer on X.
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Carsten OyerPolitics Editor
Carsten Oyer is a sophomore studying journalism and mass communication, as well as public service and public policy. This is his second semester with The State Press, having previously worked as a politics reporter.