Students and faculty across California and the nation staged coordinated protests Thursday to collectively push back against what they view as the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education — including demonstrations at scattered Southern California colleges.
The national day of action arrived as the Trump administration has unveiled several executive orders and policies targeting higher education, ranging from revoking international student visas and cutting research funding to cracking down on transgender athlete participation and opening investigations into alleged antisemitism on campuses, including subpoenaing hundreds of faculty members at the University of California.
The administration has threatened to withhold elite universities’ funding if they don’t comply with demands – threats Trump officials have upheld in cutting $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University and most recently, freezing $2 billion at Harvard University after university officials refused to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, ban masks at campus protests and change admissions policies.
National Day of Action for Higher Education’s day of protests included activities at UCLA, UC Riverside and the California State Universities campuses at Long Beach, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Fullerton.
According to organizers, the rallies were meant to “exercise a powerful collective voice in advancing the democratic mission of our colleges and universities. 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.”
In Long Beach, more than 200 faculty, staff, students, and community members made their way around the university campus to Brotman Hall, wearing their red California Faculty Association shirts. The throng toted signs bearing such slogans as “hands off our students” and “educate against hate.” They chanted “students, staff and faculty stand in solidarity” and “money for jobs and education, not for mass deportation.”
CFA represents more than 29,000 tenure-line instructional faculty, lecturers, librarians, counselors, and coaches on the 23 campuses of the California State University system.
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CFA members urged the administration to protect higher education and demanded the university protect students from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on campus.
Protesters also urged an end to the “Time, Place and Manner” policy, regulations that define which activities may be conducted on university property, declaring that such rules conflict with First Amendment rights to free speech.
“Our students, faculty and staff deserve to be able to use their First Amendment right,” Lily House Peters, vice-president of CFA-Long Beach, said during the rally. “We are in a crisis situation, we are facing deportations, visa revocations, and we have members of our community being dragged off the streets by ICE. We say no to all of this, we will not comply, we will not obey. We will protect students, faculty and our entire community.”
In reference to international students, university administration has been in communication with the six students who have had their visas revoked by federal officials, as well as other international students, to offer ongoing information and support, according to Jeff Cook, chief communications officer at CSULB.
This action, CFA-Long Beach organizers said, was meant to unite faculty, staff, and students to amplify their demand to protect higher education as a common good.
“I’m really grateful for the support and for the turnout, because I could imagine everyone is worried right now,” Elaine Bernal, a lecturer in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at CSULB, said during an interview. “We’re all worried about access to funding, access to the classes and the programs that those funding resources support, and that’s why we’re here. All of us have the right to public education, no matter where you come from.”
“We need the freedom to teach, speak, and live unapologetically,” Shelly Collins, co-president of CFA-Long Beach, said during the rally. “This is a call to action, to rise for what’s right, to fight for what heals and never stop telling the truth even when our voices shake.”
Organizers said that this is just the beginning of faculty, staff, and students taking more action together to be heard by the university administration and the leaders of the CSU system.
“I think it’s a very powerful moment to have students, faculty, staff and community together,” Robert Chlala, assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at CSULB, said in an interview. “It shows that people understand that the more we stand together, the more we have a chance to protect each other.
Elsewhere, CSU Los Angeles and CSU Dominguez Hills faculty and staff joined forces for a press conference at the L.A. school’s University Student Union building Thursday morning.
At Cal State San Bernardino, one of 45 universities under investigation by the Trump administration for potentially violating part of the Civil Rights Act in admissions for its doctoral program, nearly 40 demonstrators adorned in red carried signs saying “hands off our students” around the campus.
“The Trump administration has targeted freedom of speech, academic freedom, and has launched an attack on higher education,” said Tiffany Jones, president of the CFA chapter at CSUSB.
At CSU Fullerton, CFA members set up informational booths for the school’s community to learn more about the university’s budget situation and express their frustration over the state of higher education.
Staff writers Molly Gibbs, Sierra Lopez, Michael Slaten and Madison Hart contributed to this report.
