AAUP Issues Own “Call to Action” to McMahon

In response to the Education Department’s Aug. 3 letter calling on American colleges and universities to commit to “essential reforms,” the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers sent its own list of demands to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.

“Having used federal power to punish and attempt to punish educational institutions for resisting your political demands, you now call upon colleges and universities to commit to federally prescribed reform. Given that you have not accounted for the Education Department’s departure from law and statutory purpose, this letter is particularly galling,” AAUP President Todd Wolfson and AFT President Randi Weingarten wrote in the letter, sent Thursday. “Before demanding answers from universities, you owe answers to the American people.” 

Throughout the letter, the AAUP-AFT repeatedly criticizes the Trump administration’s weaponization of research funding to threaten and coerce colleges into adopting policies that fit a political agenda. (Both unions have repeatedly sued the administration over its education-policy changes.)

“These are not the actions of a federal agency governed by law and democratic accountability. They are the methods of authoritarian rule,” the letter states.

Like McMahon, Wolfson and Weingarten split their letter into seven broad questions related to “transparency and fidelity to the law”; “free speech and peaceful protest”; “academic freedom and shared governance”; “student debt, affordability and educational opportunity”; “academic standards and rigor in the age of AI”; “safeguarding research integrity from political interference”; and “serving the American people rather than a partisan agenda.” 

“How will you ensure that, moving forward, the department’s enforcement decisions are governed by law and not the political preferences of the Trump administration?” they ask. “What will you do to preserve international collaboration, which has long driven and enriched science, the humanities and arts, and social science research and innovation?”

Also like the department’s “Call to Action,” the AAUP-AFT asks McMahon to publish a statement with “concrete actions and timelines” in response to the questions. The two presidents also called on the secretary to provide, within 30 days, “categorical written assurance that no college or university will receive favorable or adverse federal treatment” based on whether it did or did not respond to the Aug. 3 letter.

Trump officials have previously said that colleges wouldn’t be penalized for their responses or lack thereof.