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Higher Education

What’s At Stake: USC And LMU Push Back Against Untenured Faculty Unions

October 1, 2025 Julia Barajas, Portside. , , , ,
Last summer, after nearly two years of organizing, hundreds of untenured faculty at Loyola Marymount University celebrated the certification of their newly formed union. In a message to the campus community, Thomas Poon, who served as LMU’s executive vice president and provost, wrote: “We honor the will of our [non-tenure track] faculty and the perspectives they expressed throughout the election campaign.” The university, he added, “will continue to engage the union in good faith and with transparency.” Poon is now president of LMU and, earlier this month, he changed his tune. Poon announced Sept. 12 that the university’s board of directors decided to invoke a religious exemption to the National Labor Relations Act.

Tom Alter’s Firing Marks A New Front In Campus Political Repression

September 26, 2025 Victor Harlan, Left Voice. , , ,
Many people in the United States and around the world were watching the news very intently on September 10, but they could be forgiven for not knowing that a Texas professor was illegally fired for his political views, as it wasn’t much reported on, even in Texas. History professor Thomas Alter was terminated after being accused by Texas State University president Kelly Damphousse of “conduct that advocates for inciting violence.” This politically motivated firing, while outrageous, is sadly becoming less and less unprecedented — it’s part of a new McCarthyism in American higher education. The university said the illegal firing was the result of comments made by Alter at the virtual Revolutionary Socialism Conference. The conference was organized by Firebrand, Socialist Horizon, and the International Socialist League in early September, and was geared towards the formation of a revolutionary party.

Research And Public Service Professionals Vote To Form Union

September 25, 2025 Josephine Murphy, Portside. , , ,
Research and public service professionals across the UC voted Tuesday to form a new union that will represent 7,200 workers. The union, Research and Public Service Professionals-United Auto Workers, will represent workers who run “core facilities,” administer grants and analyze data, among other services. About half of those who the union will represent voted in the election, with 83% voting “yes” for the union’s formation. RPSPs have cited multiple reasons for the formation of RPSP-UAW, including stagnant salaries amid increasing workloads and a lack of administrative transparency. “In the face of federal funding cuts to higher education, many RPSPs also want a union to gain a stronger political voice,” a RPSP-UAW press release said.

UC Berkeley Hands Over Private Staff And Student Information For Trump’s ‘Antisemitism’ Probe

September 18, 2025 Michael Arria, Mondoweiss. , , , , ,
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) has provided the federal government with the private information of more than 150 students, staff, and faculty. The move comes in response to the Trump administration’s investigation into alleged campus antisemitism, which is widely viewed as a means to crack down on campus Palestine activism. The Daily Californian reports that the school’s Office of Legal Affairs sent emails to those impacted on September 4. “As part of its investigation, OCR required production of comprehensive documents, including files and reports related to alleged antisemitic incidents,” the email read.

A Public Call For Accountability At The Harvard Education Publishing Group

August 26, 2025 Open Letter, Mondoweiss. , , , , ,
We, the undersigned scholars, educators, and education practitioners write to express our alarm at the Harvard Education Publishing Group’s (HEPG) cancellation of a special issue on Palestine and Education in the Harvard Educational Review (HER). Such censorship is an attempt to silence the academic examination of the genocide, starvation and dehumanisation of Palestinian people by the state of Israel and its allies. As reported by The Guardian, contributing authors of the special issue were informed late into the process that the publisher intended to subject all articles to a legal review by Harvard University’s Office of General Counsel. In response to this extraordinary move, the twenty-one contributing authors submitted a joint letter to both HEPG and HER, protesting this process as a contractual breach that violated their academic freedom.

Columbia Tries To Undermine Its Unions, Hire Scab Instructors

August 15, 2025 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Imagine you get a letter from your manager a week before you are set to teach classes, removing you from teaching duties but saying you’ll get paid anyway. This odd experience has happened to around 137 graduate students at Columbia University in New York City who teach core curriculum, language, and writing classes. They are members of Student Workers of Columbia (SWC), Auto Workers Local 2710. Getting paid to not teach might sound pretty good, but in fact the university is hiring adjuncts with no union contract to do the work of union members. “I spent all summer not knowing if I was going to teach or not, and then they finally were like, ‘No, your class is canceled,’” said a core curriculum teacher who asked not to be named.

Argentine Public Universities Stage Nationwide Protest Over Funding Cuts

August 13, 2025 TeleSur. , , , ,
More than 50 public universities in Argentina held a 24-hour strike on Monday, combining walkouts with open classes and public forums to demand increased state funding and wage adjustments. The mobilization will continue Tuesday with activities across faculties, institutes, and university hospitals. Organized under the slogan “No more wages below the poverty line,” the action brought together faculty, non-teaching staff, and students. The University of Buenos Aires Teachers’ Association (Aduba), the University of Buenos Aires Staff Association (Apuba), the Federation of University of Buenos Aires Teachers (Feduba), and the University Education Workers’ Union–CTERA coordinated the protest, pressing for salary increases, expanded budget allocations, and the approval of the University Financing Law.

Rhode Island Becomes First State To Codify Student Unionization Rights

August 12, 2025 Ethan Schenker, Portside. , , , , ,
A new law signed by Gov. Dan McKee has made Rhode Island the first state to explicitly protect graduate student workers’ right to unionize if the National Labor Relations Board declines to do so.  McKee signed House Bill 5187 on July 2, capping off a monthslong effort by Brown’s Graduate Labor Organization to codify federal labor organizing protections in state law. GLO leaders had worked with the Rhode Island AFL-CIO and state legislators to advocate for the bill’s passage since its introduction in January.  The law, which was sponsored by state Rep. Arthur Corvese (D-North Providence), extends collective bargaining rights and other existing organizing rights for public employees to student workers “when not already protected by the National Labor Relations Board.” 

Student Expulsions Over Palestine Protest Are Extreme And Unjustified

August 10, 2025 Open Letter, Mondoweiss. , , , ,
We write this letter in alarm, as parents of students in the student movement for justice in Palestine at Occidental College. We are responding to the college’s threat against several students with conduct violations which could possibly result in punishments as severe as suspension and expulsion. We strongly object to these charges against the students as ungrounded, and ask that the college immediately drop the charges. We request instead that the college procures an independent and politically neutral investigation into the April 25th incident at issue here, and invite the students into a productive dialogue or restorative justice process with the administration, faculty and campus community to resolve this issue. Expulsion is a drastic punishment and, in this case, fully unwarranted.

As Columbia Capitulates To Trump Over Palestine, Student Activists Regroup

August 6, 2025 Tamara Turki, Mondoweiss. , , , , ,
Over the past two years, Columbia University has become a case study in the growing battle between grassroots movements in the U.S. and the institutions determined to silence them. What began as a student-led call for divestment from Israel escalated into a high-stakes confrontation between students, university leadership, and, eventually, the U.S. president.  That battle now appears to have reached a grim turning point. In trading student rights to free speech and protest for federal funding, Columbia, once known as the “activist Ivy,” has signaled the end of an era of American higher education nurtured political dissent and the beginning of a new one, marked by increased surveillance, censorship, and punishment.

Badar Khan Suri, Georgetown Researcher Abducted by ICE, Speaks Out

August 3, 2025 Badar Khan Suri and Hira Ahmed, Acacia. , , , ,
Dr. Badar Khan Suri was returning home from a campus iftar on March 17 when masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents jumped out of an unmarked car and detained him outside his home. He had not been charged with any crime. Suri is an interdisciplinary scholar focusing on religion, violence, and peace, especially in the Middle East and South Asia, and works as a researcher at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. Over the course of two months, ICE held him in detention centers throughout the South. Since his release on May 14, he has been challenging his warrantless arrest and detention in federal court, bringing claims under the First and Fifth Amendments.

Chris Hedges Report: The End Of Academic Freedom

July 24, 2025 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , , , , , ,
The gutting of public funding for higher education in the United States has led to the takeover of universities by private donors, many of whom are Zionist entities and billionaires. As a result, universities have become, as guest Dr. Maura Finkelstein calls them, “banks and real estate development companies that offer classes.” As demonstrated by Finkelstein’s story, this new paradigm of higher education has pushed aside democratic values and academic freedom. In January 2024, as a result of a McCarthyist-style crackdown on pro-Palestinian faculty, Finkelstein was fired from her position as a tenured associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Muhlenberg College.

Hands Off CUNY: PSC Defends Fired Faculty, Condemns Repression

July 16, 2025 Victor Harlan, Left Voice. , , , , ,
Members and friends of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) at the City University of New York (CUNY), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) held a press conference in front of City Hall today to condemn what they are calling “modern-day McCarthyism” in higher education and to demand the rehiring of the Fired 4. The press conference comes one day before CUNY’s chancellor joins top administrators from University of California, Berkeley and Georgetown University to testify in Washington before the House Education and Workforce Committee.

How Trump’s Proposed Cuts Could Devastate Tribal Colleges

July 12, 2025 Nora Mabie, In These Times. , , , ,
After losing her mother, sister and brother to diabetes, Joilynn Loves Him decided to study health at Northwest Indian College, a tribal college in Washington. Her experience at the school ​“has been life-changing.”  “The teachers make sure we’re successful,” Loves Him said. ​“They’re really there for students, and they understand that life happens. If I were at a normal Western college, I’m pretty sure I never would’ve made it.” Such sentiments about tribal colleges are common among students. Tribal colleges and universities are institutions of higher education, chartered by tribes, that aim to meet the educational and cultural needs of Native communities.

CUNY Escalates Repression Against Palestine Activism

July 11, 2025 Billie Estrine, Mondoweiss. , , , , ,
In a move that activists are saying is an attempt to quell the passionate student and worker movement for Palestinian liberation within the City University of New York (CUNY), student organizer Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik has been suspended for a year. While she is suspended from CCNY, she is not permitted to enroll in any other CUNY college.  Malik is a courageous organizer and leader of CCNY’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter. She has become a public face of the student movement for Palestine in New York City and across the nation since the movement accelerated worldwide to end Israel’s escalated genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. 
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