BY MICHAEL FERGUSON
Following is the editor’s introduction to the fall 2026 issue of Academe, “The Brave New World of Higher Ed,” out this week. The full issue and table of contents can be found here.
This issue of Academe arrives at a pivotal moment for US higher education—and for democracy. As midterm elections approach, the federal assault on colleges and universities that began the day Donald Trump returned to office is proceeding on multiple fronts. In August, the Department of Education renewed its efforts to reshape higher education in its “National Call to Action to University Presidents and Government Boards,” a warmed-over version of last year’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” that, like its predecessor, is premised on fealty to an ideological agenda. On a parallel track, the federal government’s push to upend the accreditation system is coming to a head after a public comment period on proposed changes ended in September. The Trump administration continues to seek new ways to prevent colleges and universities from pursuing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals—most recently, by threatening the tax-exempt status of institutions that maintain race-based programming. And it continues to use claims about rooting out DEI as a pretext for seizing control of the federal grantmaking bodies that support academic research and scientific progress.
These are not discrete attacks. The fight for the future of higher education—the central focus of the AAUP’s recent work—has become inextricable from a wider fight against rising authoritarianism. As delegates to the AAUP’s 2026 Biennial Meeting affirmed in Chicago this past summer, “Higher education is not on the sidelines of this struggle”—nor can the AAUP be.
Our fall issue leads off with analyses of two major arenas of that struggle: the defense of noncitizens and research funding. Veena Dubal—who, as general counsel, has guided the AAUP’s legal fight against the Trump administration—situates the attacks on immigrant students and scholars within the frames of the civil rights movement and the model-minority myth. Jenna Chernega, in a dispatch from Minnesota, draws lessons for higher education unions from the solidarity forged in last winter’s “ICE Out” protests. Turning to the ideological capture of federal funding agencies, Wen-Ying Sylvia Chou and her coauthors lay out strategies for organizing in the sciences and a vision for rebuilding research infrastructure.
Other articles consider the deteriorating conditions for academic freedom in a climate of political coercion, surveillance, and narrowing expressive rights. Against the backdrop of this dystopian “brave new world,” Heather Steffen of Faculty First Responders explores new modes of collective action to defend academic freedom, Jeffrey C. Sun and his colleagues offer practical advice for faculty members navigating restrictive state laws, and Jennifer Lundquist and Robert M. Dowling propose factoring academic freedom into college rankings as a way of registering the educational—and reputational—consequences of political interference.
Our print features conclude with an article by Larry Gerber marking the sixtieth anniversary of the Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities. At a moment with so much at stake, the defense of the principles articulated in AAUP policy documents is not just “a self-serving act by faculty,” Gerber reminds us, but “a necessary action for the preservation of the quality and broader purposes of American higher education.”
