BY CATHERINE D’IGNAZIO As a professor at MIT, I find myself navigating strange waters these days. Last semester, I advised the thesis of a student who left the country because she did not feel welcome in the United States (and she is a citizen). I listened to exceptional students from around the world tell me…
BY AARON NISENSON The Trump administration has successfully buried a key component of the Columbia settlement agreement. The focus on monetary damages paid by the university and restrictions on campus protests and diversity policies obscures the Trump administration’s imposition of the right to interfere directly in university admissions, hiring, and promotion decisions. The Trump administration…
BY HILTON OBENZINGER Dear Claire Shipman, President, Columbia University. I received your letter and other notices about Columbia’s settlement with the Trump administration, and I’m disappointed and angry. I know you have a tough job, but perhaps unwittingly you harmed me. By agreeing to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, you have turned…
BY AN ANONYMOUS IRANIAN STUDENT On June 4, 2025, the Trump administration issued a proclamation that restricts or denies entry to the United States of foreign nationals from a list of specific countries, including Iran. In the weeks since then, the AAUP has received numerous emails from current and prospective students affected by the travel…
BY JENNIFER LUNDQUIST AND THE STAND TOGETHER FOR HIGHER ED LEADERSHIP TEAM I, along with the undersigned leaders of Stand Together for Higher Ed, a national faculty-led movement to defend US higher education, are deeply concerned by reports that Harvard University is engaged in negotiations with the Trump administration to settle ongoing legal disputes. While…
BY MIKE STEVE COLLINS The Trump administration is waging a highly successful war on knowledge and its pursuit and dissemination, disguised as a war on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); antisemitism; and lack of viewpoint diversity. This war on knowledge has dealt potentially crippling blows to Harvard University and has enabled the brushing aside of…
BY HANK REICHMAN The all-but-finalized departure of University of Michigan President Santa Ono for the same, yet even more lucrative, position at the University of Florida, where his apparent hostility to student protest (even when expressed via democratic referendum) and eagerness to abandon DEI programs made him an ideal candidate to serve Governor Ron DeSantis,…
BY ANNA FEDER This blog post will also be published in the Academic Freedom on the Line newsletter, a project of the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom. In August of last year, I was fired from my staff position at Emerson College for screening the documentary film Israelism and for supporting the…
BY RICK WINSTON Editor’s note: Back in 2017, at the start of Trump’s first term, I put together for this blog a pair of Trump YouTube playlists (see here and here, but, alas, some links no longer work). My second list included Bob Dylan’s anthem “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” performed here at the Obama White…
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…