Higher Education

A Higher Education Union’s Response To Trump’s Attacks

March 7, 2025 Workers World. Resist! Austerity, Free Speech, Higher Education, Trump Administration

Higher education — colleges and post-secondary education — has been a target of right-wing, reactionary attacks for decades, but the Musk-Trump-MAGA grouping has brought a new, vicious intensity to this campaign. The Department of Education has threatened schools with losing all federal funding if they have policies supporting diversity, equity and inclusion. The MAGA assault on DEI is intended to roll back civil rights and other efforts that address historic inequities. Much of the research funds in science, technology and clinical work has been frozen. Research and publishing on cultural and gender issues have been actively suppressed.

Queer Students Fight Back; LGBTQ+ Housing Restored!

February 20, 2025 Fight Back! News. Resist! Florida, Higher Education, LGBTQ Rights, Student Activism

At the start of the Spring 2025 semester, FSU Admin secretly axed LGBTQ+ Housing – which provides much needed accommodations to transgender and queer students living on campus without communicating their decision to any students, or even the Inter-Residence Hall Council (IHRC). This comes amid escalating attacks on the rights and autonomy of queer and trans people by the reactionary Trump administration and the ruling Florida Republican Party. As soon as the student body found out, Tallahassee SDS and other student organizations, including the IHRC and Pride Student Union, condemned FSU Admin for putting queer students in danger by removing this program which was meant to protect them from being forced into potentially unsafe gender-segregated living arrangements that don’t align with their gender.

Students Demand Administration Declare Sanctuary Campus

February 19, 2025 Margo Wilson, Fight Back! News. Resist! Higher Education, Immigration, Louisiana, Sanctuary Movement, Student Activism

Baton Rouge, LA – On Friday, February 14, about 30 Louisiana State University (LSU) students and community members rallied in Free Speech Alley to demand that university administration make LSU a sanctuary campus for immigrant students. LSU’s Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organized the rally to fight back against ICE activity in the Baton Rouge area and Trump's executive order that allows ICE to operate in previously protected places like college campuses, churches and courthouses. Students gathered near the center of Free Speech Alley, their signs turned towards the masses of people in the surrounding area.

Another University Just Ditched Fossil Fuel And Arms Companies

February 16, 2025 The Canary. Resist! Divestment, Fossil Fuels, Higher Education, Student Activism, Victory, Weapons Maker

Arts University Bournemouth has announced it will boycott fossil fuel industry recruitment, implementing a new Ethical Careers Policy. The university has now excluded oil, gas, and arms industries from attending careers fairs or advertising vacancies through the university’s Careers and Enterprise Service. Arts University Bournemouth is now the 11th UK university to end fossil fuel recruitment on campus, following a wave of student pressure for universities across the UK to cut ties with the fossil fuel industry over environmental and social justice concerns.

Trump To Cancel Student Visas For Palestine Protesters

January 30, 2025 Michael Arria, Mondoweiss. Educate! Deportations, Donald Trump, First Amendment, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine, Repression

Donald Trump will sign an executive order to deport non-citizen university students who have participated in protests opposing the Gaza genocide. “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” said the President in a fact sheet. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.” Although the order has not been issued yet, the White House has released materials in support of the order and unnamed White House officials have been quoted in the press saying the announcement can be expected as early as today.

City University Of New York Union Votes To Divest From Israel

January 28, 2025 Olivia Wood, Tatiana Cozzarelli and James Dennis Hoff, Left Voice. Resist! BDS Movement, CUNY, Higher Education, Israel, New York City (NYC), Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Thursday night, delegates of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY), the union representing faculty, graduate assistants, and many staff titles at the City University of New York (CUNY), voted 73-70 in favor of a resolution for the union to divest from Israeli companies and government bonds, identify other potential investments for divestment, and recommend that the Teachers Retirement System (TRS) pension plan also divest its $100 million invested in Israeli companies and bonds. This is an important victory for CUNY workers and the movement for Palestine, setting an example for the broader labor movement.

I Was Suspended From Emory Over My Palestine Activism

January 23, 2025 Umaymah Mohammad, Mondoweiss. Resist! Emory University, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Repression

When I interviewed for Emory’s medical school in 2018, I asked a senior admissions officer, in these exact words, “Will it be a problem that I am Palestinian, one who will be advocating for the liberation of Palestine?” And he replied, “No, of course not, it won’t be a problem.” Now, several years later, when I am holding true to the promise I delivered both in writing and in words, to be a physician who speaks out against structures of violence, I am being disciplined. I was transparent about my commitment to not just protect life on an individual level, but to tearing down systems that take life on a massive scale.

The Chris Hedges Report: America’s Academic Gulag

January 16, 2025 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Resistance Report Campus Movement, Gaza, Genocide, Higher Education, Israel, MIT, Palestine, Student Activism, Wars and Militarism, weapons

“You can’t just sit there and build drones and not talk about who it’s serving and who does it help,” says Richard Solomon, PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and member of the Coalition for Palestine at MIT. On this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Solomon and fellow MIT PhD student Prahlad Iyengar detail their battle against the historic institution’s active participation in the genocide in Gaza. Their story exemplifies the repression students face across the country who dare question how their work and labor are used to advance the illegal and morally reprehensible goals of the Israeli military.

Despite Repression, Campus Movement For Palestine Remains Strong

January 12, 2025 Amira Jarmakani, Mondoweiss. Resist! Campus Movement, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Repression, Student Activism

This December and January, 50 protestors are facing arraignment for their May 15, 2024 arrests at a University of California Irvine (UCI) protest opposing the Gaza genocide. The hushed arraignments of student protestors and their supporters is just one node in the network of quiet repression spindling across university campuses this past fall, which includes banning students from campus and using punishments to chill student speech. One of those set to be arraigned is Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, who was arrested while supporting student protests, effectively nullifying her university-required de-escalation training by the violent force of her arrest.

Kenya’s High Court Delivers Blow To Neoliberal University Funding Model

January 5, 2025 Nicholas Mwangi, People's Dispatch. Resist! Higher Education, Kenya, Legal System, Neoliberalism, Victory

The Kenya High Court delivered a landmark ruling on December 20, 2024, that declared the new funding model for higher education unconstitutional. The case, brought before the court by the Kenya Human Rights Commission and other organizations including the National Student Caucus, challenged the legality and fairness of the new model launched last year. In his ruling, Justice Mwita declared the new university funding model unconstitutional for several reasons. The high court noted that it violates Section 53 of the Universities Act by introducing policies that conflict with the law.

Voices From CUNY: Why We’re Voting No On The Proposed Contract

January 4, 2025 Left Voice. Resist! Contract Negotiations, CUNY, Higher Education, New York (NY), Unions

The leadership of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC CUNY) union, which represents more than 25,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York, has once again agreed to a sell-out proposed contract and the membership are none too happy about it. Building a fighting union and winning a good contract begins with rejecting this memorandum of agreement and organizing students, faculty, and staff from the bottom up. Below, we reproduce several statements from members of the PSC CUNY on why they are voting no on this proposed contract.

Higher Education Must Champion Democracy, Not Surrender To Fascism

December 29, 2024 Henry A. Giroux, Truthout. Strategize! Democracy, Fascism, Higher Education, Neoliberalism, Student Activism

For decades, neoliberalism has systematically attacked the welfare state, undermined public institutions and weakened the foundations of collective well-being. Shrouded in the alluring language of liberty, it transforms market principles into a dominant creed, insisting that every facet of life conform to the imperatives of profit and economic efficiency. But in reality, neoliberalism consolidates wealth in the hands of a financial elite, celebrates ruthless individualism, promotes staggering levels of inequality, perpetuates systemic injustices like racism and militarism, and commodifies everything, leaving nothing sacred or untouchable.

Longtime Professor Resigns Over University Support For Gaza Genocide

December 16, 2024 Rochelle McLaughlin, Mondoweiss. Resist! Gaza, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Resignation

Please accept this as my letter of resignation from SJSU effective December 20, 2024. I have been teaching here for the past 20 years and I can no longer ethically or morally consent to use my labor in any way that supports an institution that is explicitly manufacturing consent for the unrestrained, illegal, “apocalyptic” ongoing series of “calculated” genocides to destroy the people of Palestine. I believe that neither our tax dollars nor students’ tuition ought to be funding genocides. Over the last 14 months, SJSU students and faculty along with our local community have been trying to hold up a moral and ethical compass for our university to stand up for humanitarian law, to speak up against killing innocent people, and to disclose and divest from war and weapons.

University Of Toronto Students Score A Win For The Climate

December 14, 2024 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! climate crisis, Divestment, Fossil Fuels, Higher Education, Student Activism, Toronto, Victory

When the University of Toronto’s School of the Environment announced in October that it will no longer accept donations from the fossil fuel industry, the news sent waves through the growing movement to get coal, oil and gas companies off campuses. Among other things, that means banning fossil fuel corporations from financing academic research. “This victory shows students have the ability to enact institutional change,” said Erin Mackey, a leader of the group Climate Justice UofT, which pushed for the fossil fuel money ban. “That’s especially important when, at many universities, students who want to make change are having the door slammed in their faces.”

Universities Continue To Retaliate Against Staff For Gaza Protests

December 11, 2024 Claudia Gohn, Mondoweiss. Educate! Campus Movement, Freedom of Speech, Gaza, Higher Education, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Political repression, student movement

Clara C. began working at Columbia University one month after the start of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023. She was hired in the Germanic Languages Department as a Department Assistant. Like many incoming members of the Columbia community, she had high hopes for her time at the university. Seven months later, the illusion of Ivy League ambition and a rich intellectual environment vanished when she was suspended from her post, ostensibly because of her involvement in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. By early summer, she was terminated.

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