Aerial view of the University of Texas campus including the UT Tower as seen on Sunday April 23, 2017.

Behold the Texas longhorn: tough, irascible, smart and, above all, independent.

In his classic book, “The Longhorns,” published in 1941, J. Frank Dobie waxes rhapsodic about this apt symbol of the University of Texas: “They could walk the roughest ground, cross the widest deserts, climb the highest mountains, swim the wildest rivers, fight off the fiercest bands of wolves, endure hunger, cold, thirsts and punishment as few beasts of the earth have ever shown themselves capable of enduring.”

Ah, but that was yesterday’s longhorn. Today, boss wranglers on UT’s Forty Acre spread, cowed by a city slicker in red gimme cap and dangling tie, are sharpening the Newberry knife. At his behest, they’re set to make the noble breed a docile, cud-chewing steer.

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The potential transformation comes in the form of a dubious offer from the Trump administration that UT regents dare not refuse, even if these appointees of Gov. Greg Abbott were so inclined. The administration calls it a compact. It’s offered to nine major universities, including the University of Texas at Austin.

The 9-page “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” lays out rules of operation that will allow the nine universities to scurry to the front of the line in their quest for “multiple positive benefits.” Of course, to get the money, they’ll have to give away their independence, not to mention their integrity.

To meet compact requirements, a university must cap international undergraduate enrollment (“foreign entanglements”), ban consideration of race or sex in hiring and admissions, suppress grade inflation and require that applicants pass admissions exams.

Every university........

© Houston Chronicle