The AFT and the American Association of University Professors together represent the largest and most powerful force of higher education workers in the United States. Our members teach classes that transform students’ lives and run labs that result in lifesaving medical research. They create opportunity and strengthen communities.

But their crucial work is now under siege. Devastating funding cuts are halting medical breakthroughs and slashing support for students—all as political retribution from an administration that wants to control knowledge.

In this moment of profound crisis, our collective power carries a responsibility—not only to defend our institutions from sustained political and economic attacks, but to advance a bold, collective vision of higher education as a democratic, accessible and transformative public good.

Now is the time to mobilize, collaborate and tap the full depth of our combined power. Our national movement must defend higher education, both in the streets and at the ballot box. 

We must protect our members’ vital work but also rebuild a higher education system that paves a pathway to opportunity for all students.