2025 AAUP In the News

“The workers and the unions, faculty, students, staff are leading and developing the fight in how to respond to the Trump administration, and we’re sort of dragging the universities along with us, slowly,” said Todd Wolfson, the president of the AAUP, which has led faculty organising efforts on many campuses and filed four separate lawsuits against the administration over its attacks on universities.

Harvard’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which filed a lawsuit earlier this month to block the Trump administration’s cuts, praised the university for taking legal action.

“It is high time for leading civil society institutions like Harvard to refuse and resist this federal government overreach and abuse,” said Kirsten Weld, a history professor at Harvard and president of the AAUP Harvard faculty chapter.

“College campuses have historically been the places where these kind of conversations, these kind of robust debates and dissent take place in the United States. It’s healthy for democracy. And they’re trying to destroy all of that in order to enact their vision and depraved agenda.”

“Institutions that stood up are remembered for standing up to that power & that coercion, they're remembered for their acts of bravery. Institutions that capitulated are remembered for their willingness to cave to autocratic demands.”

— Risa Lieberwitz, president of the Cornell chapter of the AAUP

"Researchers are receiving a stop work order for wanting to understand things like differences in infant mortality in ubran and rural communities. That's being labeled as DEI. The slash and burn approach to our research is unfair, unlawful, and fundamentally wrong." — AAUP president Todd Wolfson

"Look, this is going to be a long fight. We need everyone on board. This is why we’re developing a multi-pronged approach and building alliances with students, other unions and the public. This is the only way to stop the anti-worker and anti-union policies that are being promoted by Trump and his administration." - AAUP Vice-President Rotua Lumbantobing.

“Billions of dollars in research has been frozen, and that’s research on things that every American depends on,” AAUP President Todd Wolfson said. “Our members  having to lay people off, having to close their labs, having to ask for special circumstances to be able to keep rare supplies, like animals, alive. It’s been a complete, utter, destruction of the United States research infrastructure.”

Labor for Higher Ed, a coalition of unions and advocacy groups, sponsored events that mobilized 10,000 demonstrators across 18 different U.S. cities. The message, AAUP president Todd Wolfson said, was clear: “Impacts [of cuts] for everyday Americans will be deadly. We will lose funding for crucial medical research that can save people’s lives. Treatments for diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and so much more are being gutted so that billionaires can get more tax breaks. They are intent on making America sicker so they can pad their pockets.”

Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, described the letter as “a deep political intrusion into the operations of higher education institutions” that “must be responded to with absolute conviction and force.” 

“I would stand with every inch of my soul against every one of these intrusions and bring all my members with me and put our bodies on the line to stop it,” he said.

“That is textbook viewpoint-based discrimination,” the judge wrote of the Trump administration's order, which the AAUP and partners sued to stop. “The government’s threat of enforcement is not just targeted towards enforcement of federal law. Rather, the provision expressly targets, and threatens, the expression of views supportive of equity, diversity and inclusion.”

“The version of university life depicted in the letter is a gross distortion intended to undermine the public’s faith and confidence in colleges and universities,” AAUP President Todd Wolfson said. “In fact, education is not toxic indoctrination that smuggles illicit topics into the classroom. It is a process of inviting students to reflect on what we think we know.”

Even though there is no clarity on the new policies yet, some projects already have been put on hold amid uncertainty over the future of research touching on issues related to diversity, said Todd Wolfson, president of the AAUP.

Some of the studies already being halted include research on artificial intelligence and how racism can be coded into systems, he said. Other projects Wolfson has heard about getting stopped include research on health equity and studies on the urban literacy rate as it relates to class in places with large concentrations of Black people.

For all its many flaws, the U.S. system of higher education has become well-known across the world for its reputation of research and teaching without government interference. The cornerstone of such a system is “academic freedom.”  And this is what SB 1 would destroy.

“We need our colleges and universities to stand up and fight for their long-held commitments and not fold like deck chairs,” AAUP president, Todd Wolfson, said. If colleges don’t do that now, they “may not be around in four years.”

 “The elimination of DEI programs and initiatives at public academic institutions are a threat to the democratic purposes of higher education as a public good. The AAUP is proud to stand up and defend our campuses and communities from this vague and destructive executive order.”

A coalition of professors, diversity officers and restaurant worker advocates filed a federal lawsuit Monday in a bid to block President Donald Trump’s executive orders that target diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the U.S. government, the private sector and academia, alleging that he exceeded his authority in issuing them.

Sanders’ proposal to fire professors over “indoctrination” drew criticism from civil liberties and faculty groups. Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, called it a “grossly hypocritical false narrative.”

“Sanders is doing a disservice to Arkansas students by suggesting she will deny due process for faculty with ideas she disagrees with,” Wolfson said. “Maligning a system that is an engine of innovation and bedrock of our democracy hurts Arkansas students.”

The American Association of University Professors gets it. In a recent statement, the AAUP explained why DEI statements need not conflict with, and often fortify, academic freedom. Albeit less of a focus, the AAUP also surfaced why anti-DEI laws—including DEI statement bans—exact a double toll on academic freedom.

With power dangerously centralized, the defense of our institutions now hinges on the moral strength of a few wealthy individuals.

That’s a thin shield. Restoring a balance of power on American campuses would be more effective. As our Founders understood, power diffused in a system of checks and balances helps guarantee democracy. Centralized power, on the other hand, is always susceptible to abuse.