April 17 panel event at the University of Michigan. Photo by Andrew Thompson

BY LEILA KAWAR

At the core of the Coalition for Action in Higher Ed (CAHE) April 17 National Day of Action was the insight that addressing the ongoing crisis in higher education requires inclusive, action-based strategies.

The extraordinary combination of online and on-the-ground programming that—through CAHE’s initiative—came together over eleven hours on April 17 generated palpable energy. Equally striking, however, was CAHE’s persistent organizing work in the months leading up to April 17, a planning process that intentionally provided space for academic workers of all backgrounds and located at all kinds of higher ed institutions to build solidarity and momentum for the day of action itself. Taken as a whole, we can see the value in developing and sustaining organizing structures that are highly responsive to local initiatives and that can thus leverage unanticipated opportunities for allyship.

April 17 panel event at the University of Michigan Photo by Andrew Thompson

This long-term commitment to inclusive, action-based strategies was mirrored among the faculty, graduate workers, and staff who participated in a local panel event at the University of Michigan. Several of us had been involved in planning a local Ann Arbor event as part of the previous year’s day of action, while others had participated in the CAHE online planning meetings that were held starting in the summer of 2024.

Our University of Michigan–Ann Arbor AAUP chapter approached the process of bringing the 2025 National Day of Action to our campus as an organizing opportunity that would be helpful for growing our membership. In the summer of 2024, when we first started making plans for the day of action, the chapter had seventy-six dues-paying members. In January 2025, when we reserved space and started to invite speakers for an April 17 local event, our chapter membership had just barely surpassed a hundred members. The following month, seven members of our chapter volunteered to participate in the AAUP’s “Skills to Win” organizer training, which allowed us to more systematically leverage structured organizing techniques to build the chapter’s membership. All of this, in combination with the sense of urgency of the past two months, has contributed to bringing our advocacy chapter up to its current level of more than two hundred and fifty members (and counting).

Aligned with CAHE’s emphasis on inclusive, action-based strategies, our AAUP advocacy chapter has sought to develop and sustain organizational structures that are open to initiatives from newcomer participants and that simultaneously facilitate coalitional partnerships.

In late February the flexible institutional structure of our advocacy chapter allowed a mix of old and new members to convene a “strategic organizing committee,” which has held regular in-person meetings with the reciprocal aims of building our chapter membership and developing a strategic faculty response to the recent federal attacks on higher education affecting our university. This group then took the lead in successfully petitioning for an April 17 university senate special meeting immediately before our planned National Day of Action panel. Through this special hybrid meeting, more than 7,600 faculty senate members had an opportunity to debate and vote on four resolutions that urged our central administration and board of regents to adopt a “stronger together” approach. The overwhelming faculty vote in support of each of the four resolutions contributed to sending a clear message to university leadership that capitulation to the Trump administration, including on cutting our university’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming, is not what faculty want and is not in keeping with core institutional values.

Moreover, in terms of building inclusive, coalitional partnerships, the panel event that our chapter planned for the day of action was part of our long-term effort to facilitate communication and collaboration with members of UM’s tricampus labor movement. In the lead-up to April 17, several of us attended the Michigan Higher Education Labor Summit convened by Higher Education Labor United at Wayne State University. The planning session for the day of action at this event offered tenure-line faculty from the Ann Arbor AAUP chapter an opportunity to collaborate on an equal footing not only with colleagues from the newly recognized tenure-line faculty union at University of Michigan-Flint (AFT-AAUP Local 5671) but also with our colleagues and coworkers in the Lecturers’ Employee Organization (LEO, AFT Local 6244), the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO, AFT Local 3550), and the newly recognized academic staff union organized with University Staff United (AFT Local 284). When we held our April 17 event, the room was full because its planning was undertaken collaboratively with our academic union coworkers. The involvement of the local Huron Valley Area Labor Federation (AFL-CIO) in moderating the panel was also helpful for bringing everyone together towards a common aim of defending the university against external attack.

In sum, just as CAHE is doing at the national level, those of us engaged locally at the University of Michigan are intentionally laying the groundwork for continued collaborations. First, we are engaging our members to further increase the size of our advocacy chapter. In addition, we are committed to continuing our coalitional work with faculty, staff, and students around reinstating DEI programing while also organizing effective pushback against the ongoing repression of pro-Palestine expression on our campus. Last but certainly not least, we look forward to exploring future collaborations with our fellow UM coworkers in the organized labor movement.

Leila Kawar is a Palestinian-American scholar who has been active in a range of grassroots faculty, staff, and student initiatives at the University of Michigan, where she is associate professor in the Department of American Culture and in the Residential College. She currently serves as vice president of the UM Ann Arbor Chapter of the AAUP.

Photo credits: Andrew Thompson