Quick Take
UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Cynthia Larive is among more than 400 campus leaders across the country who signed on to a group statement opposing the Trump administration’s efforts to exert increasing control over colleges and universities. It is higher education leaders’ most public pushback against the president since his return to office.
UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Cynthia Larive is among hundreds of higher education leaders across the country who signed a statement opposing the Trump administration’s moves and policies.
The group statement from the American Association of Colleges and Universities, dated April 22, included more than 400 signatures from a vast array of educational institutions including state schools, community colleges, research universities and both private and public schools.
That statement marks one of the most public displays of pushback by higher education leaders against the Trump administration so far in Donald Trump’s second presidential term. It follows months of executive orders attempting to exert increasing control over universities, dismantle the Department of Education and, more recently, make drastic cuts to National Institutes of Health funding that have heavily affected researchers. Trump’s administration also canceled international student visas for three people enrolled at UCSC earlier this month, reportedly without notice or warning.
UC Santa Cruz vice chancellor Scott Hernandez-Jason told Lookout on Monday that Larive was not available for comment.
“As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education,” the AACU statement reads. “We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses. We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding.”
The statement asserts that the country’s higher education institutions have the freedom to determine whom they may admit, what they will teach and who is hired.
“Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation,” reads the statement.
Despite the many signatures, the statement does not include any tangible actions or next steps.
The American Association of Colleges and Universities is a Washington, D.C.-based global membership organization that seeks to improve the quality and equity of undergraduate education. It includes more than 1,000 institutions both within and outside of the United States.
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