This Will Not Be a Normal Summer

We’re entering what would normally be the long-awaited reprieve of summer—a time to write, think, travel, to escape the demands of the academic year. But this will not be a normal summer.

Faculty may long for a break, but the government is actively operationalizing Project 2025, a blueprint for remaking every public institution, with higher education being the crown jewel of its antidemocratic agenda. At his 100-day rally in Michigan, Donald Trump declared, “We’ve just gotten started. You haven’t even seen anything yet.” Christopher Rufo, architect of the right-wing culture war, promises to plunge higher education still further into “an existential terror.”

We should be prepared for a potential wave of coordinated assaults on higher education this summer: reductions in Pell Grant eligibility for low-income students and slashed student loans, more dismantlement of scientific research funding, politicized accreditation crackdowns, new endowment taxes, expanded intimidation of international students and scholars, and further weaponization of Title VI and Title IX enforcement.

We recommend mobilizing on two simultaneous fronts this summer: by operationalizing mutual academic defense compacts (MADCs), and through direct activism. We must forge powerful alliances for mass protest. We suggest one often-overlooked but deeply strategic constituency— veterans.

Recent opinion polls show that most Americans oppose the Trump administration’s approach to higher education. This public sentiment gives us a crucial opening—and we must seize the momentum as we move into summer.

1. Mobilize and Form Unlikely Alliances

Faculty can take simple, student-centered actions this summer—sharing stories of student impact over social media using #DegreesForDemocracy, or highlighting the real-world outcomes of their teaching and research with #WhatWeBuild—to demonstrate the value of higher education and help galvanize public support. Op-eds and blog posts that highlight how higher ed strengthens local communities, drives economic growth and improves American public health and well-being are also powerful tools.

In addition, faculty must begin to mobilize on the streets for mass peaceful protest. This will require reaching beyond our usual circles and forming big-tent coalitions. Now is not the time for ideological purity or partisan hesitation. The threat we face at this point goes beyond conventional liberal-versus-conservative disagreement; it is an attack on democratic institutions, civil liberties and public education itself.

One particularly powerful, and perhaps surprising, potential partner in this moment is the veteran community. As a start, we urge faculty to consider aligning with veterans this Friday for the June 6 D-Day anniversary protest: Veterans Stand Against Fascism Nationwide at the National Mall, as well as at more than 100 other venues across the country. This is a great way for higher ed to show up in the lead-up to the June 14 No Kings Day protests.

Why Join With Veterans?

The shared legacy of the GI Bill links veterans and higher education. A public alliance with veterans has the potential to lend more political credibility to faculty and foster broader public empathy that will disrupt the Trump administration’s strategy of divide and conquer.

From Black WWII veterans who catalyzed the civil rights movement to anti–Vietnam War resistance, veterans have consistently served on the front lines of social change. Today, they are standing up to deep cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs; the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; and dangerous reductions to the veteran workforce—issues that mirror the assaults on higher education.

Professors and veterans are natural allies in more ways than many realize. Since the passage of the GI Bill in 1944, millions of veterans have earned college degrees and experienced upward mobility through higher education. Veterans are a protected class under antidiscrimination law and recipients of DEI programming. The veterans’ centers and services we have created to support them are now under threat from the Trump administration’s ideological dismantling of DEI. While trust in most American institutions—including higher education—has declined, polling shows that the military remains one of the few institutions still trusted by a majority of Americans. This trust is rooted in the military’s demographic breadth: Its members come from every region, ethnicity, income bracket and political background.

In contrast, higher education suffers from an image problem—often caricatured as elite, out of touch and overly partisan. Yet many of the most trusted professionals in society—nurses, teachers, first responders, small business owners and veterans themselves—were trained and mentored in our classrooms. Building visible alliances with veterans can help reshape public perceptions of academia, challenging the dominant narratives that seek to isolate and delegitimize higher education.

2. Operationalize Mutual Academic Defense Compacts

While public protest builds pressure, cross-institutional coalition building creates networks for effective resistance. Faculty and university senates across the country are approving mutual academic defense compact resolutions, which call for universities to join in shared defense of any participating institution that comes under government attack. But this is just the beginning. We need more, and these resolutions need to be operationalized through the creation of MADC task forces of administrators and faculty on as many campuses as possible. Presidents and chancellors need to endorse both the compacts and the task forces.

We must use this summer to refine model MADC resolution language to align with institutional legal and financial requirements, to prepare for the passage of resolutions and creation of MADC task forces in the early fall, and to build the infrastructure that will allow these coalitions to function as coordinated networks of protection, resistance and shared strategy.

That’s why we co-founded Stand Together for Higher Ed, a growing national movement to help faculty organize in defense of academic freedom and institutional autonomy. After beginning with a letter signed by about 5,000 professors in all 50 states calling on institutions to unite in a proactive common defense, we are now building a network of MADCs, campus task forces and shared strategies. This summer, Stand Together is offering model resolutions, organizing tools and communications support to help campuses build capacity for the fights ahead.

We’ve been struck by how many faculty members lack formal structures for self-governance on their campuses. Shared governance is a foundational pillar of academic freedom—though often overshadowed by the more visible right to pursue scholarship free from interference. We’re working with campuses to strengthen existing faculty governance organizations with the establishment of Stand Together groups, and where none exist, we’re helping to establish American Association of University Professors and other advocacy chapters to fill that crucial gap.

This summer, we must think strategically—and expansively. This summer calls for alliance building across our sister institutions of higher ed and across diverse nonacademic interest groups. The stakes are nothing less than the future of democracy.