2 weeks Ago By Julia Zenkevich
Students, faculty, and staff from local colleges and universities rallied at Schenley Plaza in Oakland on Thursday, pushing back against what they described as Trump administration efforts to target higher education. They condemned federal attempts to eliminate diversity programs, cut research funding, and influence what’s being taught on campus. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are “a critical aspect of higher education,” said Kyaien Conner, a social work professor and Associate Dean for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the University of Pittsburgh.
“We know that that's what creates an institution where we can have critical dialog and discourse about things where we may not always agree, but we learn from each other's differences,” Conner said. “We cannot let them take that away from us.” The rally was part of a National Day of Action organized by the Coalition for Action in Higher Ed.
It was an effort to push back against “educational gag orders” and protect education as a public resource while highlighting the threats facing American colleges and universities. Speakers from Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University railed against political interference on campus, citing attempts to use grants and federal funding to affect scholarship at other schools. They urged attendees to support unions and unionization efforts.
A petition and open letter were also circulated, asking Pitt officials to defend academic freedom. They also urged the school to legally challenging and disregard requests for information on student, staff, and faculty unless they were compelled to provide it by a federal warrant or subpoena. Local schools have not yet been directly targeted by attempts to use federal funding to influence academics or end diversity programs; nor have Pitt or CMU said they will follow recent guidance from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights directing schools to cease considering race as a factor for admissions, financial aid, hiring, training, and other programs.
(CMU leaders did say they were “evaluating our broader DEI approach to ensure that no program or practice is unintentionally exclusionary.”) But a U.S.
House committee did request that CMU share detailed information on international students and their research, and the Trump administration revoked visas for some students at both universities. CMU president Farnam Jahanian said officials were “ carefully reviewing the letter and will respond to it appropriately,” adding that “We will not compromise our values.” Pitt provost and senior vice chancellor Joseph McCarthy similarly acknowledged that the visa revocations “ created anxiety and fear among our international populations,” and said the university “immediately reaches out to the impacted individual to provide support and resources” when it learns that a student’s visa status has changed.
Demonstrators Thursday said they’re concerned about a broader national trend of “obeying in advance,” and asked university leaders to pledge that they won’t comply if targeted in the future. “They are relying on universities to weigh the cost of being vocal and speaking out, and hope that we will prioritize federal funding over our values, over academic freedom, over science, over diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Conner said. “Our silence won't keep them from dismantling DEI, but it does send a message .
.. that universities are willing to give up on their core beliefs.
” Pitt junior Austin Wise, who serves as co-president of the Pitt College Democrats, said the university hasn’t done enough to protect free speech on campus, support unions, or assure immigrants and international students and faculty that the school won’t cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He also criticized Pitt’s suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt, calling it a “clear attack on the First Amendment rights of the students” who voiced support for Palestine during the war in Gaza. (The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit earlier this week over Pitt’s treatment of the group.
) “Pitt needs to be more supportive of their students and of the workers who ...
make this university run,” Wise said. Pitt did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. Threats at the federal level have had a chilling effect on international students and faculty, said Ellen Cole Lee, a Pitt classics professor who was among the rally organizers.
“They're scared,” she said of students and staff. “And not being able to have any sort of reassurance from the university administration that they're committed to protecting all of our community members is really hard for folks.” But, Lee added, Pitt has an opportunity to resist political interference.
Public universities that have slashed DEI programs in response to federal demands are “compromising their mission,” she said. “My hope — my sincere hope — is that our university administrators look at that and say, ‘No, we don't want to be like that.’” U.
S. Rep. Summer Lee called the Trump administration’s policies “attacks on public education and free speech” and encouraged people to keep protesting.
“The power of the people is still — it is still — greater than the people in power,” she said. “But only if we wield it.”.
