Students, Unions to Protest Trump’s Higher Ed Agenda Friday

Members of the American Association of University Professors, the affiliated American Federation of Teachers and student groups are planning protests in more than 50 cities Friday against “the Trump administration’s broad assault” on higher ed, the AAUP announced in a news release.

The AAUP said demonstrators will urge institutions to continue rejecting Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” and instead “commit to the freedom to teach, learn, research, and speak out without government coercion or censorship.”

“From attacks on academic freedom in the classroom to the defunding of life-saving scientific research to surveilling and arresting peaceful student protesters, Trump’s higher education policies have been catastrophic for our communities and our democracy,” AAUP president Todd Wolfson said in the release. “We’re excited to help build a coalition of students and workers united in fighting back for a higher education system that is accessible and affordable for all and serves the common good.”

The protests are part of a progressive movement called Students Rise Up, or Project Rise Up. The Action Network website says there will be “walkouts and protests at hundreds of schools” Friday—the start of a buildup “to a mass student strike on May 1st, 2026, when we’ll join workers in the streets to disrupt business as usual.”

“We’re demanding free college, a fair wage for workers, and schools where everyone is safe to learn and protest—regardless of their gender or race or immigration status,” the website says.

Other groups listed as organizing or supporting the protests include the Campus Climate Network, College Democrats of America, Florida Youth Action Fund, Frontline for Freedom, Higher Ed Labor United, Ohio Student Association, Sunrise Movement, Dissenters, Feminist Generation, Gen-Z for Change, Generation Vote (GenVote), March for Our Lives, Oil and Gas Action Network, Socialist Alternative, Together Across America, Voters of Tomorrow, Blue Future, Get Free, and NOW Young Feminists.

Asked for a comment from the Education Department, Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications, repeated statements the department previously made, saying, “The Trump Administration is achieving reforms on higher education campuses that conservatives have dreamed about for 50 years.”

“Institutions are once again committed to enforcing federal civil rights laws consistently, they are rooting out DEI and unconstitutional race preferences, and they are acknowledging sex as a biological reality in sports and intimate spaces,” she wrote.