Dear Colleague,
“What the public and what the court heard from our witnesses today is about the powerful chill that the government’s policy has cast over university communities. Noncitizen students and faculty on our university campuses today are terrified.”
That’s what Ramya Krishnan, lead counsel for the AAUP and our co-plaintiffs, said on Monday as arguments in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio got underway this week in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
We have a clear case: the administration’s policy of arresting and deporting students and faculty because it doesn’t like their point of view violates the First Amendment and is unconstitutionally vague.
Join the fight today. Become an AAUP member today.
Here’s what’s happening with the case: In March, the AAUP; our Harvard, NYU, and Rutgers AAUP chapters; and the Middle East Studies Association sued the Trump administration over its policy targeting noncitizen students and faculty for arrest, detention, and deportation because of their pro-Palestinian activism.
In the complaint, filed on our behalf by the Knight First Amendment Institute, we describe how the Trump administration policies have “created a climate of repression and fear on university campuses. Out of fear that they might be arrested and deported for lawful expression and association, some noncitizen students and faculty have stopped attending public protests or resigned from campus groups that engage in political advocacy.”
This is only one of five cases we brought against the Trump administration this spring. Working with labor, higher education, and legal allies, we have sued the administration over its direct attacks on Columbia and Harvard Universities that unlawfully cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for crucial public health research; filed a legal action against the Trump administration to stop the dismantling of the Department of Education and decimation of crucial services the department provides; and filed a legal challenge to the recent mass termination of grants by the National Science Foundation, a move that threatens American innovation, scientific leadership, economic strength, and national defense.
Our work on these cases relies on your help.
Help us take on the Trump administration in court (and in the streets). Join the AAUP today.
Trump is trying to take down higher ed. We’re standing in his way. Join us.
In solidarity,
Todd Wolfson, AAUP President
P.S. If you're already an AAUP member and think you're getting this by mistake, please let us know. We may have two emails for you in our database. Email us at [email protected] and we'll get it sorted.
