“Create a crisis.” That call is made in a new campaign sponsored by the American Association of University Professors to force “colleges to drop their contracts with ICE’s key corporate enablers.” Despite years of criticism over the purging of faculty ranks of conservatives and libertarians, university professors continue to double down on far-left ideology that is now an orthodoxy in higher education.
I previously wrote about the AAUP’s ideological shift in my book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage. After that book, the AAUP then selected Todd Wolfson, a far-left activist, as its new president.
Wolfson ran on the pledge to make AAUP a “fighting organization” for social change. After his selection, Wolfson has called Trump supporters “fascists” and demanded boycotts of Israel.
Given that history, it was little surprise to see the AAUP’s sponsorship of this campaign, as reported by the College Fix.
The campaign is also funded by Coefficient Giving, associated with liberal billionaire Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna. They have been criticized for reportedly funding groups pushing defund police and other radical agendas.
AAUP joined this campaign with Young Democratic Socialists of America, Sunrise Movement, and the Workplace Justice Lab at Rutgers University. It includes a toolkit instructing students to “create a crisis for university admin through an escalating campaign.”
The campaign seeks to organize to combat the “Trump regime” and its “terrorism”: “When students and workers join together in action, we can force our schools to stop funding and normalizing ICE collaborators and take down the whole regime.”
They are targeting companies such as Enterprise, Flock, ICE Air Carriers, Hilton, and Target.
The campaign states further that “ICE, and the Trump regime generally, cannot function without the consent and collaboration of the business world. Breaking companies from ICE is the central axis for generating enough leverage to stop the regime’s terrorization campaign.”
So university professors are funding a campaign that actively seeks to create a crisis on campuses. It takes a position as an organization that immigration enforcement is a form of terrorism. The silence among faculty is deafening. Rather than objecting that the AAUP should focus on issues related to academic freedom and protections for its members, there have been virtually no objections to the organization’s ideological agenda.
It is evidence of the new orthodoxy in higher education and the refusal of administrators and faculty to make any meaningful change in their intolerance for opposing views.
Many departments no longer have a single Republican faculty member in this academic echo chamber.
A Georgetown study found that only 9% of law school professors at the top 50 law schools identify as conservative — almost identical to the percentage of Trump voters in the new poll.
There is little evidence that faculty members are interested in changing this culture or creating greater diversity at schools. In places like North Carolina State University, a study found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 20 to 1.
Yale University has finally achieved the academic version of Nirvana, a state of perfect peace and enlightenment. A recent study found that the faculty had finally purged every Republican donor from its ranks.
According to a recent report from the Buckley Institute, there is now not a single Republican found across 27 of 43 departments at Yale University. In a nation roughly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats (with a slight advantage to the GOP), only 3 percent are Republicans across all Yale departments.
The hostility to opposing views is impacting our students. A new study offers additional data on this problem, showing that almost 90% of students misrepresent their views in class and on assignments to satisfy faculty by adopting more liberal views.
In the meantime, the small number of dissenting faculty have no real voice, particularly among legal academics. I have previously written about the similar liberal agenda of the American Bar Association despite plunging membership among lawyers. The ABA now represents just 17 percent of the bar.
The AAUP currently has only 44,000 to 45,00 members. There are an estimated 1.5 million university and college professors in the United States. Both the ABA and AAUP have become captive to the most ideological elements of their membership. That agenda has overwhelmed the original apolitical mission of these groups.
This orthodoxy will continue until donors refuse to support universities that do not take meaningful action to restore diversity in the faculty ranks. The AAUP’s radical agenda is only the latest example of how higher education remains a hardened ideological silo. These faculty members have shown again and again that they are unwilling to change this culture. Only donors can force reform by cutting off their contributions or directing them to schools with a proven commitment to intellectual diversity.
Based on what I have observed (I did not go to college) from being around UCSC, it is not the professors that are doing the actual teaching, it is the student aides. Thus you are more likely to get the modern radical teachings and accept since one of your peers are presenting them. This does not excuse the professors.
As to a post earlier, I was wondering about the RICO act (again not a lawyer). Does it may apply, since this seems to be coordination between several individuals (donors) and groups to create havoc and possibly damage?
Let’s keep it simple. It’s called a communist revolution; commies doing murderous commie stuff.
De-funding police and ICE makes perfect sense, Laken Riley
Ah the slimy educational Illuminati raise their pointy heads again on ‘social justice’ for causes they ‘like.’ So the Corporate Robber Baron’s are the full circle enemy of the people once again! At least until the dirtball educational Illuminati need corporate ‘donations’ and contributions to the “endowment for higher educational purposes” so the faux academic communists are tenured, pay-raised, and insulated from real-life. Spark the low IQ revolution at our Universities and get the gallows ready for the capitalist swine, right? The path to righteousness and prosperity Soviet Style Baby!!!
This generation of Americans needs to spend a year in Iran. They will kiss the ground here if they return.
They have no idea. None. Spoiled rotten.
I am glad that during my years in college and law school I cannot recall one professor indicatingh his or her political or sociologicl preferences. I am also glad that my children were able to finish college and grad school without coming into contact with the current idiocy present in higher education in our country. What I am fearful of is that my grandkids are or will be will be subjected to idiocy as presented by members of the AAUP and other Marxist groups.
Same here. I was graduated from a small state college in PA. ALL my history profs were neutral toward their students philosophy. They were liberal but allowed us to go our own way without pressure. That is education. Today its all about indoctrination.
Here we go with ‘anonymous’ again.
I would suspect that Corporate America will instead walk away from the activist colleges and professors. The Pentagon just recently cancelled most of their contracts with the Ivy Leagues and similar minded institutions for advanced studies by the military. One also wonders if parents will continue to pay exorbitant fees to these universities. Some universities are starting to cut courses especially in some esoteric specialties where there is minimal hiring in the workplace and salaries don’t match the expenses of the education. Simple economics may handle this problem.
California (as an Example) has dropped out of the 4th spot in GDP to Japan. It’s going to be hard to pay for all those top flight colleges as people beat a path to elsewhere.
A 11 state block in the”old Confederacy” has a GDP of $ 9 trillion which is now twice that of California which is $4.3 trillion. This same block has absorbed 70 % of population growth in the last 5 years. The only larger economies are USA, and China.
Now per capita California would still probably lead but even that gap is closing. I only use California as an example. There are other states like New York, Illinois, Massachusetts that are seeing the same trends.
When the money leaves, institutions falter and leave or close. The Activist Profs may starve.
Sort of brings back an old cry of “The South Will Rise Again”. Henry W. Grady would be proud.
How did you make the connection from leftist degree mills to GDP in Japan?
And no, the pentagon did not cancel “most” of their contracts, just 93 across 22 universities, ca. $5 billion on a budget of $1 Trillion (2026), considered wasteful. Per military.com. At least source what you’re writing. Anyone can make up such nonsense.
Harvard’s endowment is 59.6 billion
The cancelled contracts for Harvard were ca. $180 million. So based on an OP BOD of $7 billion, its nothing. BTW those cancelled fellowships had little impact on Harvard. Those fellowships are spread over 3 to 7 years., ca. $30 m per yr. All considering, the cancelled contracts is spit on a hot rock.
There’s an old husband’s tale that says, Those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach. University professors live in a cloistered environment, and most enjoy a professional reputation earned by others. When you have “almost 90% of students misrepresenting their views in class and on assignments to satisfy faculty by adopting more liberal views,” it proves that propaganda is a mile wide but a millimeter thick. In other words, the professors are not challenged by the students who, in turn, are telling their temporary captors just what they want to hear and no more. It’s a win-win for both.
This might actually be healthy, a source of wizened empowerment by young people as they prepare to leave the nest for the “real world.” Some, unfortunately, will succumb to this liberal grooming. They will go on to support the ten-side of the 90/10 issues and use their learning to rationalize it. But most will emerge with a street-smart understanding of what one must do to find the truth. They will realize just how easy it was for those in charge to manipulate the data for their own purposes.
Our world is no longer a Walter Conkrite or The Nutty Professor world, but one in which each of us can and must find the truth. In my undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate days at some of the finest universities in the nation, I can honestly say that only two or three of the hundreds of professors I had ever lest me with lasting knowledge. The rest were foils against whom I mastered the sport. I’m not alone.
I did your mom.
Typical lib. Can’t argue the point, so throw out an insult.
More diatribe from the resident moron. . .go back to your computer in the basement.
About your speed
It is strictly unwise for public-good organizations to go political, whatever the brand. Now it is the AAUP, an organization purportedly favoring and working for faculty. Surprisingly, the AAUP should be working steadfast on the biggest of all educational questions: “What to do about AI?” I contribute to a faculty group at a huge university (70K+ students) and none of them seem to know, but all are concerned. But no, the AAUP is now concerned about ICE, over which they have little impact.
Political meandering has happened to the teachers unions, the ABA, USAID, WHO, and more. All have currently diminished influence and hence credibility. Activism seems to be irresistible to crazed leaders, who somehow believe they are now players on the big leagues. The AAUP did have some influence when it restricted itself to tenure and academic matters. But now? They have lost their way. As well, they have no money, unlike for example Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who has millions in union dues to dole out to personal favorites.
The AAUP has probably begun its long decent into oblivion.
So you think politics in higher ed is only a recent development, USAID, WHO etc. ?
Really appreciate your articles but this one needs a little proof reading.
I’ll be honest, that kind of drive‑by proofreading comment misses the point. If you understood the argument well enough to correct the typos, then you understood the argument well enough to engage it.
Turley isn’t submitting a term paper here, he’s warning about what’s happening in real time. I care a lot more about the substance of that than whether every comma is in the right place.
“If you understood the argument well enough to correct the typos, then you understood the argument well enough to engage it.”
You get an A+ on this post!
Colleges are not “educating” most of these kids, they are processing them. They pull in students who would not have sniffed admission a generation ago, stick them in high priced remedial classes that repeat failed high school work, and run the whole thing through the student loan machine.
The kid is in deep debt before he has earned a single true college credit. While he is treading water, he is dropped into a campus environment that is politically one way, top to bottom, and he learns very fast which way he is supposed to talk if he wants grades, friends, and peace. Parents send off a kid who may be conservative or at least open minded and they get back a stranger who has the party line down pat and a loan balance he may never escape.
This is not an accident and it is not compassion. It is a business model that monetizes academic failure and then uses those same underprepared kids as raw material for a political project. For the student and for the country that is not higher education, that is capture.
Are there any legal consequences for sponsoring crises on campuses leading to riots?
Based on how you worded that, I honestly can’t answer it. You’ve got to be more specific. What exactly do you mean by ‘sponsoring a crisis,’ and what exactly do you mean by ‘leads to a riot’? Be clear.
Can’t? Nor should you try. You are not a lawyer and have no experience in higher Ed.
“Colleges are not “educating” most of these kids, they are processing them” What a misinformed and uneducated comment. So they issue no degrees, just mind tinkering. Tell that to the millions who graduate. You are absolutely wrong on so many levels. You’re just repeating rightist media’s BS, hook, line and sinker. Do some real research for once.
Your last paragraph about the business model is true and is an example of what liberals are doing to higher education. They live in ivory towers and love to wear their “colors” at graduation ceremonies as if to say they are part of the ruling class. There is an old adage that says, “those who can “do”, and those who can’t “teach”. That’s so prevalent these days. . .pushing them through their 4 years of college so as not to get their parents in an uproar.
I stopped supporting my alma mater, one of the worst, years ago. They don’t miss me.
I did years ago also. Sad.
I read this and I wonder about the conservative commentators and podcasters who persist is “looking at colleges” for their kids. Why do they see this (and know this) and still want to send our kids to indoctrination? Hillsdale College in Michigan seems to be the only option for higher education.
I agree that Hillsdale is probably the best option, but not the only one. Another, which seems to have worked for one young person I know, is to spend a few years in the military, or at a good community college, or working, before attending a college. We all know that human brains do not become fully functional until age 25 or so (a bit less for females) so this avoids exposing them to the Marxist indoctrination machine while their minds are still full of mush.
For sure, we have had family members in the military and made better people of them.
Marxist indoctrination? You buy into that propaganda? Listen, its 2026, not 1950. Its obvious you have no idea what’s going on in modern education, emphasis on modern, education, just read rightist headlines and think you are informed. When did you graduate, 1930? Again, its 2026.
LOL
Hillsdale? Seriously? A degree from them does not prepare anyone for a future employment. Its just a conservative degree mill.
Nor does a degree from Harvard or Yale, leftwing indoctrination centers.
And you know that as a fact?
Sounds like gerrymandering eh?
Stop grants. Not possible.
American Association of University Propagandists eschews diversity in favor of radical Marxist tropes cooked up in Moscow, Sorosville and the DNC. Given the virulence of their attacks on the US government and private enterprise, it is time for them to sever all ties of financial dependence upon both. Zero out all government grants to their universities and to the students who attend their universities. Stop soliciting contributions from the corporations they deem anathema.