March 20, 2025
Dear Presidents, Chancellors, and Boards of Trustees of the 60 Universities that received a March 10th warning letter from the U.S. Department of Education:
You are on the frontlines of a war that is unfolding against U.S. higher education. We look to you for leadership and coalition-building during a time when the stakes have never been higher.
We recognize the gravity of Title VI investigations into antisemitism and other civil rights violations on our campuses. Universities have an obligation to ensure that all students, including Jewish students and those from other faith backgrounds, can learn in an environment free from harassment and discrimination. We support strong, thorough, and fair review and enforcement of these protections as a matter of both legal compliance and moral responsibility to the students we serve.
However, the Trump administration is weaponizing these legitimate investigations as a pretext for an unprecedented federal attack on higher education. The administration’s recent actions—including its letter to Columbia University's Board of Trustees and its illegal detention and threatened deportation of a student green card holder who has not been charged with a crime—go far beyond enforcing civil rights law. These measures threaten free speech, due process, and the very foundations of inquiry and unrestricted exploration of ideas on which academic institutions are built.
Columbia University has already faced severe consequences: the federal government rescinded $400 million in funding and has made clear that other institutions will suffer similar fates unless they submit.
The Trump administration’s additional mandates at Columbia are violations of institutional autonomy and academic freedom. They include:
Placing academic departments under government-mandated receivership—effectively stripping faculty of control over curriculum and research agendas.
Expanding surveillance, policing, and arrests of student activists, with an explicit focus on suppressing political protest.
Replacing a faculty, staff and student-driven disciplinary panel with the executive mandate of the university president.
Forcing the adoption of a definition of antisemitism that too easily conflates criticism of the Israeli government with discrimination—contradicting established First Amendment protections.
These measures are not principally about protecting students and combating discrimination; they are about political control. Thousands of signatures have been collected from Jewish faculty, staff and students on circulating letters, one titled Not in Our Name and another which says: “Not on our behalf. Harming U.S. Universities does not protect Jewish people. ... In fact, harming universities makes everyone less safe, including Jews.” An op-ed by Jewish scholars points out the hypocrisy of an administration whose own officials have engaged in unchecked antisemitism.
Indeed, the federal government is using the language of civil rights enforcement as a cover for authoritarian overreach and encroachment, dictating what can be said, studied, and debated in our institutions. These measures represent a direct assault on the mission of the university as a space for independent thought, free speech, and democratic engagement.
We do not underestimate how difficult and precarious this moment is for university leadership. We recognize that presidents, chancellors, and boards are navigating unprecedented federal pressure, financial threats, political scrutiny, and an increasingly volatile public discourse. The government is leveraging its immense power in legally dubious ways to force institutions into compliance, and the cost of resistance is daunting.
At the same time, history shows that failure to resist now will invite further escalation and allow the government's narrative to take hold absent a clear, coherent, and concerted counterargument. The institutions that bow to unlawful government intervention do not avoid scrutiny—they become easier targets.
The alarm of constitutional crisis is sounding as the government shows it will not obey court orders in other matters. The case of a student green card holder in detention without legal cause is a stark warning of where further steps down this road will likely lead. If a permanent resident can be targeted for exercising their First Amendment rights, then soon no student or faculty member may be reassured of their safety.
As Princeton’s faculty and President have written, Columbia University’s experience should serve as an even greater warning. Its administration relented under political threat and federal pressure, only to face more attacks, not fewer. The Trump administration has made clear that submission will not protect us.
The pressure is mounting. The University of Pennsylvania has now been threatened with major federal budget cuts; the leader of the largest U.S. Attorney’s Office in the country has declared a ban on hires from schools with DEI in their curriculum; there has been another ICE detention of an international student; and the French government claims a scientist on his way to a conference was turned away at the U.S. border for being critical of the Trump regime’s funding cuts to science.
We do not pretend that there are easy answers to this crisis. We understand that many universities are already working with their state attorneys general and representatives, lobbyists, and civil rights lawyers and organizations to protect their students and campuses. But the moment is urgent. Delaying strong concerted action risks losing ground we may never recover.
How can we most effectively leverage the collective strength of our institutions?
We ask all sixty institutions under government threat to unite in a coordinated, proactive defense. In addition to continuing to pursue robust, good-faith Title VI investigations of antisemitism on campus with due process afforded to all parties, we propose that the sixty universities and colleges—and others willing to join this effort—assemble a nimble task force to unite on effective, coordinated action that can adapt as the situation on the ground changes.
Listed below are some collective actions such a task force might pursue:
Refuse to comply with illegal governmental overreach that undermines a university’s academic decision-making and self-governance.
Defend freedom of inquiry by faculty and researchers from government censorship.
Provide full legal representation for all illegally detained or targeted international students.
Refuse to share student records or immigration information—to the extent that is legally permissible—with federal authorities seeking to suppress legal dissent.
Engage local, regional, national and international media to expose these abuses of power.
Lobby state legislators to enact protective laws safeguarding university autonomy and international members of our communities.
Lobby our federal representatives to assert their constitutional powers to check transgressions by the executive branch.
Engage alumni of the university to defend the institution that supported their life opportunities.
Build alliances across red, blue, and purple states, across local and national unions, employers and other institutions that benefit from what universities contribute to society.
Publicly affirm that universities will not tolerate intimidation of students—domestic or international, Jewish, Palestinian or otherwise—exercising their free speech rights.
Begin a campaign of joint op-eds signed by college presidents and chancellors to reaffirm our institutional commitments and defend our peers when they come under attack.
Failing to act now will establish a dangerous precedent of capitulation. If universities do not stand together now, they will stand alone—and one by one, they will fall.
The path forward requires considerable courage—shared courage. Leadership must stand together to ensure our institutions endure.
Two Signatory Lists:
1. Signed by the following faculty at universities and colleges on the government's list in alphabetical order:
(Faculty allies from other universities and colleges are signed below this list):
2. And joined by the following faculty allies at other universities and colleges: