We will not mince words: we are deeply concerned about what the re-election of Donald Trump means for the future of higher education, labor rights, reproductive rights, and the safety of our LGBTQI+, immigrant, and racial minority communities.
President Trump selected a Vice Presidential running mate that famously said “the professors are the enemy”, and the Trump administration will likely adopt the Project 2025 “blueprint” for radically overhauling higher ed—a frankly frightening authoritarian project his rightwing supporters have previewed in state-level campaigns over the last four years.
There will be time for analysis and recrimination. There is so much to do to fix our country. But we can most affect that closest to hand: Our homes, our neighborhoods, our schools, our workplaces.
If you are an adjunct, research scientist, faculty specialist, lecturer, professor, or assistant coach (really), then you are a part of the United Academics of Maryland-UMD—our union for all UMD faculty. Here, we build a community that combats the isolation so pervasive in US working life. Here, we grieve, and share, and process—together. Here, we take care of each other. Here, we take practical activity as the antidote to despair. We act, one day at a time.
Inaction is not an option.
To ensure that higher education continues to encourage critical thinking and work for the common good, we need your active support, now.
First, if you have not already, check out our new mission statement and sign it. It is the very antithesis of what Trump’s Project 2025 has in store for higher ed. It is what we, as UAM-UMD members, will be fighting for.
Second, the only way we can protect our universities from this all-out assault on higher ed is to organize, orga
nize, organize. Organizing is a skill that we must all learn if we want to build power on our campus and in national politics.
To help meet this extraordinary moment, AAUP National is putting on an intensive organizing training November 16-17th (12-6pm each day on Zoom) in collaboration with the team from Skills to Win—hands down the best organizers in the world.
We will be sending a team from UAM-UMD. Please email [email protected] if you want to join us and take the first step towards fighting back against the attack on higher ed across the country.