Faculty, students, and higher education workers across the country are preparing to participate in a National Day of Action this Thursday, April 17, to defend academic freedom and advocate for higher education as a public good.
Organized by the Coalition for Action in Higher Education (CAHE) in collaboration with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the coordinated effort will feature more than 100 actions at campuses nationwide, including events in Hawaii and Alaska.
“As campus workers and citizens, educators and researchers, staff, students, and university community members, we exercise a powerful collective voice in advancing the democratic mission of our colleges and universities,” said CAHE representatives in their announcement. “It is our labor and our ideas which sustain higher education as a project that preserves and extends social equality and the common good—as a project of social emancipation.”
The nationwide mobilization comes amid concerns about decreasing accessibility to higher education, growing student debt, and what organizers describe as threats to academic freedom under the current Trump administration.
According to the AAUP, higher education budgets have been slashed for decades while colleges and universities increasingly adopt corporate management models that expand administrative positions at the expense of faculty resources and student services.
Participants in Thursday’s actions are advocating for several key principles:
Tuition-free public higher education and cancellation of existing student debt Full academic freedom for faculty and students, including on topics deemed “divisive” Freedom of speech and political dissent on campuses Protection of non-citizen students and faculty involved in campus organizing Union rights for all higher education workers
The day of action aims to “renew the vision of higher education as an autonomous public good, and university workers as its most important resource,” according to organizers.
