CAHE News:

As the Trump administration continues its all-out war on higher education, college and university faculty, students, workers, and community members across the country – united with the Coalition for Action in Higher Education (CAHE) – are organizing a National Day of Action.

At 12 p.m. (noon), Thursday, April 17, more than 170 actions will take place from coast to coast (as well as Hawai’ii, and Alaska), demanding that our colleges and universities remain institutions of robust thought and academic freedom. 

Students, faculty, staff, and community members will gather at the flagpole in front of Scholes Hall on UNM’s Main Campus

Organized by Committee of Interns and Residents, United Academics, and United Graduate Workers, as well as Faculty for Justice in Palestine, Students for Justice in Palestine, Law Students Against Imperialism, Stand Up for Science, and UNM LEAF. 

Participants will deliver a position statement to UNM President Garnett Stokes and then gather for a rally in front of Scholes Hall with speakers and information about the threats to higher education, at UNM and beyond. 

Higher education has faced pressure for decades, including the corporatization of the university, public funding cuts, rising costs for students, and threats to academic freedom. These pressures have increased in recent years as university administrations have met expressions of freedom of speech with force and outright hostility. Now, colleges face an existential threat from the Trump administration, with changes to the Department of Education, cuts to research grants, changes to student financial aid, revocation of student visas, and attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, among others. Too many institutions are capitulating to these demands, as seen with UNM’s recent changes to its hiring and admission policies. We contend that caving to these demands will only lead to future threats that will further erode the effectiveness and freedom of our universities. 

We are overdue to act. CAHE stands for the principle that education is a public good and a civil right that benefits the whole of society and should be freely accessible to all. To serve this public function, higher education must be a place of free inquiry. The current administration pretends to depoliticize “woke” institutions by doing the most political thing imaginable: placing colleges and universities under direct government control that will dictate research and teaching and the university will become a propaganda factory for state-sponsored ideology. 

April 17, we will stand together for

• Full academic freedom for faculty and students to shape research and teaching in colleges and universities, including on issues deemed “divisive” such as Palestine and divestment, critical race theory, gender and sexuality, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
• Full freedom of speech, conscience and political dissent on our campuses for all members of our communities, including citizens, migrants, immigrants and international students, faculty, and staff.
• Protecting and defending the safety and the right to learn of non-citizens of the U.S. including those who have been involved in campus organizing  for Palestine and other social justice issues. 
• Union rights for all higher education workers, including faculty, so that the people who make the deliverables – who do the research and the teaching – have a voice in their institutions. Faculty working conditions are student learning conditions.
• Increased student aid, including tuition-free public higher education and the cancellation of existing student debt, funded through taxation of the wealthy investor class.

We call on higher education workers and students, K-12 workers, parents, rank-and-file workers in all industries, social justice organizations and community activists to stand together in our common interest and for our common good.  

About the Committee of Interns and Residents

The Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU, a local of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), represents more than 37,000 interns, residents, and fellows in more than 10 states and Washington, D.C.

About United Academics of the University of New Mexico

UA-UNM – American Association of University Professors/American Federation of Teachers Local 6662, AFL-CIO – is a proactive, member-run union that reflects the diversity of our faculty across campuses, departments, and academic ranks. 

About United Graduate Workers of the University of New Mexico

UGW-UNM, United Electrical Workers local 1466, are graduate workers across all departments and colleges committed to improving working conditions for all graduate workers at UNM

About the Coalition for Action in Higher Education:

As campus workers and citizens, educators and researchers, staff, students, and university community members, we exercise a powerful collective voice in advancing the democratic mission of our colleges and universities. It is our labor and our ideas which sustain higher education as a project that preserves and extends social equality and the common good—as a project of social emancipation.