Universities, with our help, can begin to turn the tide

(This is the first article in a series we are calling “Reasons for Hope.”)

Seeing Columbia capitulate, it felt like finding out Santa wasn’t real … like seeing your birthday party Spiderman take off his mask.

Deep down, we knew better. We knew how prestige institutions tend to act when political heat rises. We knew about the cautious donor calculus and the quiet compromises. Still, we wanted to believe … wanted to believe that when the stakes were high, when freedom of thought and conscience were under attack, some institutions would draw a line and hold it.

The campus of Michigan State University, one of the schools in the Big 10 who have joined together to stand up to threats and intimidation by the Trump administration.

For a moment, it seemed no one would. The attacks came fast. On DEI programs, on student protests, on academic independence. The executive branch leveled threats and accusations, withheld funding and grants. Governors signed laws to defund or defang anything that dared teach nuance, history, or critical thought. It felt like the long erosion of liberal education had finally become a landslide.

Then something shifted.

Harvard stood up. Quietly, but firmly. Then others began to move — not in isolation, but in concert.

This moment calls for more than spectatorship. It calls for solidarity.
Rush behind the shield wall. Add your weight to theirs. As these academic giants remember their own power, double it with yours. Triple it. Exponentially multiply it.
Push their slow, deliberate steps into a walk, a jog, a sprint. A charge. Into the breach.

The Big Ten universities began to coordinate. These aren’t small liberal arts colleges on the fringes. These are massive, public-facing institutions with reach, weight, and political capital. And they’re beginning to say: Enough.

They are signing on to what’s being called a “mutual aid pact,” and the movement is spreading. From the University of Massachusetts system, to Rutgers University in New York, from Pennsylvania State University to the University of Minnesota, from coast to coast, colleges and universities are signaling they won’t give in, and they will support other institutions in holding back threats.

They’re defending their students. Their faculty. Their core mission. But more than that, they’re defending us. The public. The idea that knowledge shouldn’t be dictated by power. That disagreement isn’t disloyalty. That our democracy depends on spaces where inquiry is protected, not punished.

It’s easy to underestimate the university system. We think of it as bureaucratic, bloated, maybe even complacent. But that’s exactly why this matters. When even these cautious giants begin to move, something bigger is shifting underneath.

Institutions like these aren’t quick to act. They don’t posture or tweet or make noise for the sake of it. When they begin to coordinate, it means the threat has become undeniable. And the will to resist is real.

Throughout history, universities have served as early warning systems for democratic decline - and often as the first battlegrounds in the fight to stop it. In the 1960s, it was student movements against segregation and the Vietnam War. In the ’80s, it was divestment campaigns that challenged apartheid. In the wake of Sept. 11, it was scholars who stood up against surveillance and silencing. These weren’t always perfect fights, or perfectly led. But they mattered. And they told us something about where the rest of the world was headed.

Today, once again we see that pattern emerge. The academy is under attack not because it’s irrelevant, but because it’s dangerous to those who fear free thought. And the fact that it is finally beginning to push back? That’s not just comforting. That’s galvanizing.

We should take notice. And more than that, we should respond and support.

Don’t just applaud from the sidelines. Don’t just retweet their statements or admire their resolve.

This moment calls for more than spectatorship. It calls for solidarity.

Rush behind the shield wall. Add your weight to theirs. As these academic giants remember their own power, double it with yours. Triple it. Exponentially multiply it. Push their slow, deliberate steps into a walk, a jog, a sprint. A charge. Into the breach.

This is how movements start. With resistance that builds into momentum. And momentum that becomes history.

The wave is rising. Let’s meet it — not with fear, but with force.

(The Labor Party stands up for the right of all to be free of government interference. We believe all people in the United States of America deserve the protections guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, and that private educational institutions must be protected against overreach by their government into decisions of hiring, speech, and classroom instruction, without question and without fail. For inquiries, contact Labor Party Media Secretary Neel Sawicky at media@votelabor.org)