The University of California Meltdown: Trump’s Extortion Meets Years of Student Suppression

University of California (UC) President James Milliken has sounded an alarm over what he calls one of the “gravest threats” in the institution’s 157-year history. In testimony before state lawmakers, Milliken outlined a looming financial crisis sparked by sweeping federal funding cuts and unprecedented political demands from the Trump administration.

The UC system — spanning 10 campuses, five medical centers, and serving hundreds of thousands of students and patients — receives more than $17 billion in federal funds annually. That includes $9.9 billion in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, $5.7 billion in research dollars, and $1.9 billion in student financial aid. According to Milliken, much of this funding is now at risk.

Already, UCLA alone has seen more than $500 million in research grants cut. On top of that, the administration has levied a $1.2 billion penalty against the system, alleging that UCLA and other campuses failed to adequately address antisemitism.

“These shortfalls, combined with the administration’s punitive demands, could devastate our university and cause enormous harm to our students, our patients, and all Californians,” Milliken warned. He has requested at least $4 to $5 billion annually in state aid to blunt the impact of federal cuts.

More Than a Budget Fight

The Trump administration has tied federal funding to sweeping political conditions, including:

• Release of detailed admissions data.

• Restrictions on protests.

• Elimination of race-related scholarships and diversity hiring.

• A ban on gender-affirming care for minors at UCLA health centers.

Critics argue that these conditions amount to political blackmail, undermining both academic freedom and healthcare access.

California Governor Gavin Newsom denounced the federal measures as “extortion” and “a page out of the authoritarian playbook.” Thirty-three state legislators urged UC leaders “not to back down in the face of this political shakedown.”

Protesters in the Crossfire

Yet while UC leaders frame themselves as defenders of free inquiry, many students and faculty who have protested war, racism, and inequality have found themselves silenced by the very system that now claims victimhood.

• 2011 UC Davis Occupy Protest: Images of police casually pepper-spraying seated students went viral, symbolizing the university’s harsh response to peaceful dissent.

• 2019 UC Santa Cruz Graduate Worker Strike: Graduate students demanding a cost-of-living adjustment were fired, evicted, or disciplined rather than heard.

• 2022 UC Irvine Labor Strikes: Workers organizing for fair pay and job security faced heavy-handed tactics from administrators.

• 2023–24 Gaza Encampments: UC campuses, including UCLA and UC Berkeley, called in police to dismantle student encampments protesting U.S. and UC complicity in Israel’s war in Gaza. Dozens of students were arrested, suspended, or disciplined for their participation.

These incidents show a pattern: UC celebrates academic freedom in official statements, but clamps down when protests threaten its ties to corporate donors, political interests, or foreign governments.

As one Berkeley student put it during the Gaza protests: “The university claims it’s under attack from Trump’s censorship — but it censors us every single day.”

UC’s Own Accountability Problem

Beyond silencing dissent, UC has been unresponsive to many Californians on broader issues: rising tuition, limited in-state enrollment, reliance on low-paid adjuncts, and partnerships with corporations that profit from student debt and labor precarity. For many working families, UC feels less like a public institution and more like an elite research enterprise serving industry and politics.

This contradiction makes the current crisis double-edged. UC is indeed being targeted by the Trump administration, but it also faces a legitimacy crisis at home.

Looking Ahead

Milliken, who took office as UC President on August 1, is lobbying state lawmakers to commit billions annually to offset federal cuts. But UC’s survival may hinge not only on political deals in Sacramento, but also on whether it can rebuild trust with the Californians it has too often sidelined — including the protesters and whistleblowers who have been warning for years about its drift away from public accountability.

The larger struggle, then, is not just UC versus Washington. It is about whether a public university system can still live up to its mission of serving the people — not corporations, not politicians, and not the wealthy few who hold the purse strings.

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Sources:

• University of California Office of the President

• California State Legislature records

• Statements from Gov. Gavin Newsom

• U.S. Department of Justice communications

• Higher Education Inquirer archives on UC protest suppression and public accountability

• Coverage of UC Davis pepper-spray incident (2011), UC Santa Cruz COLA strike (2019), UC Irvine labor strikes (2022), Gaza encampment crackdowns (2023–24)

Americans Who Tell The Truth

Support AWTT With a Donation Artsapalooza! August 27 5:30- 8:00 At Bagaduce Music  A fun-filled evening for individuals and families to create art and music Get tickets here Come join us at 5:30 p.m. on August 27, 2025, for an evening filled with creativity and music at Bagaduce Music in Blue Hill, Maine! Whether you’re into making portraits, activism, listening to live music, or singing along, there’s something for everyone at this event. Get ready to be inspired and have a great time surrounded by fellow activists and art enthusiasts. Bagaduce Music’s Bennett Konesni will bring a collection of “Songs For What Feels Important In This World,” featuring his own list of originals and classics that are great for singing along, including sea-shanties calling out tyrannical captains, meditative chants, good-food hollers, and songs for marching and organizing.  Try out your artistic talents and create a self or family portrait with guidance from AWTT founding artist Rob Shetterly Food and shaved ice will be available for purchase. Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity to learn more and support Americans Who Tell the Truth and Bagaduce Music, and fund exciting scholarship opportunities for both organizations! Get tickets here   Outdoor Installation of Truth Tellers   The John Brown Lives! The organization is hosting an outdoor exhibit of AWTT portrait reprints from July 17 through October 31, 2025, at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, New York. The portraits feature abolitionist John Brown and Congressman John Lewis. The exhibit's kick-off event took place on the nationwide “Good Trouble Lives On” day of action, commemorating the fifth anniversary of Lewis’s death. Other portraits include #MeToo movement founder Tarana Burke, anti-war activist Rachel Corrie, environmentalist Bill McKibben, Albany-based community activist Dr. Alice P. Green, and organizer Rev. Lennox Yearwood. Read more here. Listen to David Escobar interview AWTT portrait artist Robert Shetterly for the Adirondack Explorer. The interview also aired on North Country Public Radio   Buy Your Courage is Contagious Protest Wear Today! Buy Now Rob's Blog On Being Woke The justification for erasing America’s historic injustices, claiming that knowing them causes kids to feel guilt or shame, is a high priority for our current right wing government. Trump and his ilk make this sound like a noble cause—protecting kids from carrying the factual and emotional burdens of history. Think how much more uncomplicated and gentle—easy to bear—our history would be if slavery and indigenous genocide, Jim Crow, misogyny, and corporate malfeasance never happened. They call knowing and teaching this true history being “woke.” Woke is a synonym for simply being aware. And don’t we all know that being aware is a bad thing? Or, am I the only one who remembers that the primary function of education is to make kids aware, keep them awake to truth and reality? In classrooms that protect students from the dangers of wokeness, teachers will give gold stars for falling asleep. And Teachers of the Year will be selected for how thoroughly they erase the history of injustice, canceled climate science, and denied the effectiveness of vaccines. Are the proponents of censoring history doing that for all kids—or particularly white kids? Kids of color might experience the woke curriculum as being seen, knowing the truth of the origins of racism: this is what was done, this is why it was wrong, this is how we moved forward. It’s the moving forward, grappling with injustice, having the courage to confront that dragon in his cave, that turns what could be guilt and shame into inspiration and heroism. The lesson of history is not that it unfairly defines white people as cruel, racist demons; the lesson is that many refused to be cruel and racist and insisted that all people be treated equally. It teaches us the only way we maintain ideals is if people have the courage to demand and enact them. Read More     Host AWTT Portraits in your Community Americans Who Tell the Truth (AWTT) portraits can be combined to illuminate a vast array of themes in both sophisticated and humble exhibit venues. Community engagement programs combine exhibits with public events that stimulate interdisciplinary dialogue around citizenship, democracy, education, and activism. (Learn more)

Visit Americans Who Tell The Truth's online store . Shop AWTT products – prints, t-shirts, mugs, and more – to support education and community programming for Americans Who Tell the Truth. With your purchase, know that you are helping inspire citizenship, activism, and work for the common good. Learn More Donate Now Please consider donating on our website or sending a check to support AWTT’s efforts to Americans Who Tell the Truth, 46 Bridge Rd., Brooksville, ME 04617.  All gifts to AWTT are tax deductible to the full extent of the law. If you have any questions, please contact Director of Strategic Engagement Kristie Gonzalez Kristie@americanswhotellthetruth.org

Silencing Higher Education: Trump’s War on Discourse About Genocide in Palestine

Academic institutions have long served as crucibles of free thought and protest. Yet under President Trump’s second term, universities have become battlegrounds in a sweeping campaign that conflates advocacy around the genocide in Gaza with antisemitism—and weaponizes Title VI and Title IX to stifle dissent. This article outlines the administration’s tactics, war crimes ramifications, and the universities ensnared so far.

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War Crimes at Issue: Gaza Protests and U.S. Reaction

The conflict in Gaza has seen mounting allegations of genocide against Israel—claims underscored by protests on dozens of U.S. campuses. In response, the Trump administration has launched a social media “catch-and-revoke” system that uses AI to flag pro-Palestinian speech, leading to visa revocations and deportations—even targeting legal residents and green-card holders. Over 1,000 visa revocations were reported by mid-April 2025, rising to nearly 2,000 by mid-May—many later overturned by courts.

Activists such as Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University legal resident arrested during a protest, and Mohsen Mahdawi, detained during a citizenship interview, have been caught up in these actions—both cases widely criticized for infringing First Amendment rights. These responses reflect a concerted effort to equate peaceful protest with national-security threats under the guise of combating antisemitism.

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Title VI Enforcement: Chilling Academic Freedom

Under a January 29, 2025 Executive Order, Trump directed federal agencies to squash antisemitism—including speech critical of Israel—by enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against universities.

In March 2025, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent letters to 60 universities, warning of enforcement investigations over alleged antisemitism during pro-Gaza protests. This has had an unmistakable chilling effect on faculty, students, and campus activism.

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Institutions Targeted and Financial Punishments

The administration’s pressure tactics have taken several forms.

Columbia University saw $400 million in federal grants and contracts canceled, tied to agencies including the Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services. The university received an ultimatum to change discipline policies, suspend or expel protestors, ban masks, empower security with arrest authority, and restructure certain academic departments by March 20—under threat of permanent funding loss. Columbia ultimately settled for $200 million and restored funding.

George Washington University was accused by the DOJ of being “deliberately indifferent” to antisemitic harassment during spring 2024 protests, especially affecting Jewish, American-Israeli, and Israeli students and faculty, and was given a deadline of August 22 to take corrective action.

UCLA recently had $584 million in federal funding suspended over similar antisemitism-related accusations and affirmative action concerns.

Harvard University is in settlement talks over nearly $500 million in frozen federal funding, negotiating compliance with federal guidelines in exchange for restoring money. Harvard also faces a separate Title VI/IX complaint over $49 million in DEI grants, with claims of race- and sex-based discrimination.

Other institutions under investigation include Johns Hopkins, NYU, Northwestern, UC Berkeley, University of Minnesota, and USC.

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Legal Backlash and Academic Resistance

Universities and academic organizations have begun to push back.

The AAUP has filed suit against Trump’s executive orders on DEI, calling them vague, overreaching, and chilling to speech. Some institutions, including Harvard, have resisted enforcement efforts, defending academic freedom and constitutional rights—even as they weigh risks to federal funding.

Legal experts argue that Title VI enforcement in this context may be unconstitutional if motivated by ideological suppression rather than actual antisemitism.

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The Battle for Free Speech and Human Rights

Trump’s strategy effectively conjoins criticism of genocide and advocacy for Palestinian rights with civil rights violations—casting a chilling effect across campuses nationwide. The consequences are profound.

Academic autonomy is undermined when universities must trade institutional integrity for compliance with politically driven mandates. Student activism, especially from international and Palestinian voices, faces existential threats via visa policies and deportation tactics. Human rights accountability is sidelined when federal power is used to muzzle discourse about atrocities abroad.

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Sources:

• Harvard, Trump Administration Near Deal for $500 Million Settlement

• Trump administration says George Washington University violated law over Jewish students, faculty

• Why Harvard Decided to Challenge Donald Trump

• Columbia University Faces Ultimatum from Trump Administration

• UCLA Funding Suspended by Trump Administration

How the State Keeps Us in Line: What Mark Neocleous Can Teach Us (Glen McGhee)

If you’ve ever been buried in student loan debt, forced into gig work, or stuck teaching college classes with no health insurance, you’ve probably felt it: the system is rigged. Not just tilted—built to keep working people down. Political theorist Mark Neocleous helps explain how that system works—not just through laws or politicians, but through the day-to-day grind of paperwork, contracts, rules, and debt.

Neocleous teaches in London, but what he writes about hits close to home for millions of people in the U.S.—especially student debtors, precarious workers, and part-time faculty. He takes aim at how the state (that is, the government and all its connected systems) doesn't just respond to what’s going on in society. It actively shapes it to keep the working class in line and protect the flow of money upward.

He calls this process political administration. That’s not about who gets elected—it’s about the boring, grinding machinery that runs things behind the scenes: who gets credentials, who gets benefits, who gets punished for stepping out of line.

According to Neocleous, political administration works in three key ways:

1. Shaping Workers to Fit the System

From public schools to community colleges to workforce training programs, the state helps produce a labor force ready to serve capital. These systems don’t ask what you want out of life—they tell you what kinds of jobs are “realistic.” The college system sells you a degree, loads you with debt, then spits you into the job market where you fight for scraps. Adjunct professors do the teaching while top administrators take home six-figure salaries.

2. Absorbing and Deflating Resistance

If you speak up—protest, organize, demand change—the system often doesn’t crack down right away. It absorbs your anger, redirects it, drowns it in red tape. Government programs and policies are designed to appear helpful, but often just delay real change. For example, income-driven repayment plans for student loans promise relief but often stretch debt for decades. As sociologist Joseph Gusfield once said, poverty isn’t just tolerated by elites—it’s managed and even used to their benefit.

3. Turning People into Legal Subjects

We’re constantly being turned into numbers, files, and categories—students, borrowers, adjuncts, renters, defendants. These labels make it easier to control us. Every time you fill out a FAFSA, sign a work contract, or negotiate with a student loan servicer, you’re entering a system designed to track and manage your behavior. It’s not about freedom—it’s about convenience and compliance for them, not you.

Neocleous builds on thinkers like Karl Marx, Michel Foucault, and Maurizio Lazzarato. But he speaks plainly about the modern reality: control doesn’t always come from cops or courts. More often, it comes from bureaucracies, contracts, and the invisible chains of debt. In his 2021 article “Debt as Pacification,” Neocleous writes that debt isn’t just about money—it’s about keeping people quiet, tired, and scared.

That’s why his work connects so strongly to people navigating today’s economy. If you’re a student loan debtor constantly checking for forgiveness news, or a professor paid $3,000 to teach a full semester, or a parent juggling three part-time jobs—you’re not failing. You’re stuck in a system that was built to keep you stuck.

Neocleous doesn’t offer false hope or easy fixes. But he offers clarity. The state isn’t a neutral actor. It works with and for capital to shape society in ways that keep working people divided, indebted, and under control.

Higher education plays a major role in this process. It promises opportunity while delivering debt. It hires armies of low-paid instructors to teach under the illusion of “prestige.” It turns students into lifelong financial subjects and workers into cheap, replaceable labor.

The fight for loan forgiveness, living wages for educators, and real job security is more than a policy fight—it’s a challenge to a system built to pacify the working class. Mark Neocleous’s work helps us understand the depth of that system so we can begin to challenge it, not just at the ballot box, but at its foundation.

Sources:

• Neocleous, Mark. The Fabrication of Social Order: A Critical Theory of Police Power. Pluto Press, 2000.

• Neocleous, Mark. The Monster of Liberalism. Open Humanities Press, 2011.

• Neocleous, Mark. “Debt as Pacification.” Journal of World-Systems Research, vol. 27, no. 2, 2021, pp. 485–502.

• Lazzarato, Maurizio. The Making of the Indebted Man: An Essay on the Neoliberal Condition. Semiotext(e), 2012.

• Lazzarato, Maurizio. Governing by Debt. Semiotext(e), 2015.

• Gusfield, Joseph R. “The Structuring of Public Behavior: The Social Uses of Poverty.” Society, vol. 12, no. 3, 1975.

• Graeber, David. The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. Melville House, 2015.

• Block, James E. The Crucible of Consent: American Child Rearing and the Forging of Liberal Society. Harvard University Press, 2012.

Music as Medicine

American life demands constant productivity, endless credentialing, and the ability to “push through” mental and physical exhaustion. In this kind of system, the healing power of music often gets overlooked. But for students drowning in debt and anxiety, and for workers scraping by on insecure jobs, music is not a luxury—it’s medicine.

Not the kind prescribed in a bottle, or preached from a wellness seminar, but the kind that gets passed around like food among the hungry. The kind that makes survival just a little more possible.

Rhythm as Resistance

Punk delivers a pulse. Hip hop confronts. Lo-fi offers stillness. Soul mourns and uplifts. Gospel affirms. Cumbia moves bodies and memory alike. Every genre has a place in the emotional survival kit. Music provides what many institutions will not: solace, solidarity, self-definition, and release.

In moments of despair or burnout, songs become tools. They make it easier to study through pain, to organize in the face of injustice, or to get through another shift when the body wants to quit.

Music isn’t an escape—it’s a way through.

Crisis of Mind and Spirit

The student mental health crisis isn’t new, but it’s getting worse. Depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and burnout are rising, especially among working-class students, queer students, first-generation students, and students of color. Most colleges still underfund counseling centers while promoting toxic grind culture as “excellence.”

The workforce behind higher ed—adjunct professors, custodians, food service workers, library aides—faces its own mental and physical toll. Poverty wages, no benefits, unpredictable schedules. Institutions offer self-care slogans but rarely structural care.

Music fills that gap. It helps people regulate, reflect, and remember who they are beyond their role as a debtor, a grade, or a disposable employee.

Better Than Drugs. Better Than Casual Sex.

Music can do what substances and momentary escapes can’t. It doesn’t just numb. It heals. It doesn’t demand something in return. It gives freely.

It’s better than drugs. Better than casual sex. Not because it replaces pleasure or distraction—but because it doesn’t disappear when the high fades or the night ends. Music stays. It strengthens memory. It affirms identity. It provides both an outlet and a connection.

One song can bring someone back from the edge. One mixtape can hold together a semester of struggle. One shared playlist can spark a sense of belonging in a student who otherwise feels invisible.

Soundtrack to Survival

Labor movements have always known this. Music builds morale, strengthens solidarity, and carries memory. From protest anthems to spoken word to DIY tracks shared over group chats, students and workers use sound as shield and weapon.

A cafeteria worker begins a shift with cumbia in their ears. A grad student blocks out burnout with jazz. An adjunct powers through grading with Nina Simone. A student protester blasts Kendrick Lamar from a portable speaker before a sit-in. These are not just habits. These are survival strategies.

Political Practice in Every Note

Songs carry more than rhythm. They carry critique, hope, rebellion, and care. They are blueprints for a world where people matter more than profits. Music doesn’t just reflect the present—it helps imagine the future.

In the face of debt peonage, student surveillance, and wage theft, music reminds people of their worth. The right track becomes a reminder: You are not what the system says you are. You are not alone.

Music doesn’t require a login, a tuition payment, or a therapist’s referral. It’s available on bus rides, late nights, walkouts, break rooms, and dorm corners. It teaches without condescension. It organizes without hierarchy. It heals without permission.

The HEI Perspective

Most discussions of education policy focus on financial models, enrollment trends, or test scores. But we believe emotional and cultural survival matters just as much. Especially when institutions are failing those they claim to serve.

At the Higher Education Inquirer, we listen to what gets students and workers through the day. Not because it’s trendy—but because it’s urgent.

Music keeps people going when systems fail. That makes it a public good. A political force. And yes, a kind of medicine.

Healing begins when people feel heard. Rhythm helps carry the weight.

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The Higher Education Inquirer
Coming soon: Soundtrack for Resistance – curated by students and workers.

"Why Should I Bring a Child Into This?": Gen Z’s Reproductive Strike and What It Says About Higher Education and the Climate Crisis

A recent report covered by MSN reveals a growing phenomenon: millions of teenagers in the United States say they never plan to have children—and one of the leading reasons is climate change. This sobering shift in personal and generational priorities is not just a cultural footnote. It is a profound indictment of the systems that failed to offer hope for the future. And among those systems, higher education plays an overlooked but complicit role.

The article, originally reported by USA Today, quotes students across the country who describe the prospect of parenting as irresponsible, even cruel, given the current climate trajectory. Some reference collapsing ecosystems, rising sea levels, extreme weather, and political inaction. Others cite the emotional toll of living in a world where they believe things will only get worse.

For those of us at the Higher Education Inquirer, these testimonies hit with more than just empathy. They reflect the culmination of decades of institutional neglect—where universities have profited off fossil fuel investments, watered down sustainability programs, partnered with carbon-intensive corporations, and taught apolitical STEM curricula as if climate denial wasn’t a social phenomenon to be understood and confronted.

Beyond “Climate Anxiety”: A Rational Response

The term climate anxiety is often used to pathologize young people’s fears. But what if their decision not to reproduce isn’t just emotional—it’s rational? These teens are seeing the long view. They’re watching coral reefs bleach, forests burn, heat records break monthly, and global elites gather for climate summits with little but platitudes to show.

Their refusal to have children is not apathy. It’s resistance. A form of protest. What used to be a personal decision has become a political one.

The Higher Ed Connection

Higher education has long claimed to be a leader in sustainability, climate science, and public discourse. And yet, when it comes to confronting the deeper roots of ecological destruction—capitalism, colonialism, the military-industrial complex, and yes, the higher education system itself—most institutions have either gone silent or opted for greenwashing.

Universities continue to:

• Accept massive donations from fossil fuel billionaires.

• House think tanks and business schools that promote endless economic growth.

• Invest endowments in carbon-heavy portfolios.

• Sell students the myth that a degree will solve their personal future, even as the collective future deteriorates.

Meanwhile, young people in middle school and high school are already making life-altering decisions based on what they see—and what they don’t see: real accountability or meaningful change from their elders’ institutions.

A Warning Higher Ed Can’t Ignore

If colleges and universities are serious about their claims to be incubators of the future, they can’t ignore the fact that a significant portion of that future now feels it has no reason to exist. Young people are not only opting out of parenthood—they are increasingly questioning the value of traditional life scripts: college, career, mortgage, family. The entire package is unraveling.

This is not just a demographic trend. It’s a moral judgment.

The institutions that educated yesterday’s leaders now face a credibility crisis. Students are watching closely. And they are making decisions—about reproduction, education, consumption, and activism—based on what they see and what they refuse to inherit.

Higher education must reckon with the reality that its credibility, like the climate, is heating toward a breaking point.

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Source:
"Millions of teens report they won't ever have kids due to climate change — here's why." MSN / USA Today, August 2023.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/millions-of-teens-report-they-won-t-ever-have-kids-due-to-climate-change-here-s-why/ss-AA1JT4Pg

The Serenity Prayer, Climate Collapse, and Genocide: A Deal with the Devil

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."

The Serenity Prayer has comforted millions. In times of personal struggle, it can be a powerful call to surrender what lies beyond one’s control. But in moments of global crisis, when powerful institutions profit from destruction, the prayer can function less as a path to peace and more as a pact of passivity—a deal with the devil.

This danger becomes stark in the face of two intertwined realities: planetary climate collapse and the mass suffering of human populations through war and genocide. While glaciers melt and firestorms raze entire regions, and while families in Gaza are buried beneath rubble from precision airstrikes, too many well-meaning individuals offer only whispered prayers for acceptance. The language of “serenity” has become a spiritual sedative, numbing people to action in the face of unprecedented violence.

The horror in Gaza is not isolated. It is the latest chapter in a long history of calculated brutality. For more than nine months, Israeli forces have carried out one of the most intensive bombing campaigns of the century, reducing schools, hospitals, and apartment blocks to ash. Palestinians—already confined, stateless, and starving—are told to disappear quietly. And in the United States, many of the most powerful evangelical Christian institutions offer not protest, but prayer. They do not condemn the bombs. They bless them.

This theology of inaction extends to the climate crisis as well. Fires in Canada have darkened skies from New York to Kentucky. Rising seas threaten to erase Pacific island nations and entire Gulf communities. Extreme heat has shattered records from Delhi to Phoenix. The science is clear, and has been for decades. The cause is clear: the burning of fossil fuels for profit. And yet, rather than confront the systems responsible, many Americans—especially in religious communities—retreat into familiar verses, trusting in divine will while oil executives thank them for their silence.

This pattern is old. During the genocide of Native Americans, Christian settlers invoked scripture to justify massacres. Indigenous nations were labeled “heathens” standing in the way of Manifest Destiny. Boarding schools were built to “kill the Indian, save the man.” Entire civilizations were wiped out in the name of order, law, and even God. Churches, rather than stand with the oppressed, often operated hand-in-hand with empire. They prayed not for justice, but for tranquility—after the land had been stolen and the people erased.

In the twentieth century, many Christian leaders remained silent during the Holocaust. In the Rwandan genocide, clergy sometimes aided the killers. Again and again, the lesson is clear: serenity without resistance is complicity.

And today, we see this same quiet complicity in American Christian higher education. At Liberty University—a billion-dollar religious empire—the Serenity Prayer might just as well hang above the boardroom. The institution thrives on a mixture of fundamentalist certainty, political power, and economic ambition. Its law school has become a breeding ground for conservative legal warriors who reinterpret justice through dominionist theology. Its Jesse Helms School of Government honors a segregationist legacy while preparing students for ideological battle. Climate science is downplayed. Militarism is sanctified. And genocide—whether in the name of security or salvation—is never named.

In such an environment, prayer becomes performance. It soothes the conscience while injustice metastasizes. It gives believers a moral loophole: if change is deemed impossible, no action is required. But change is not impossible. Resistance is not futile. And silence is not neutral.

We must reclaim the Serenity Prayer from the institutions that have weaponized it. Serenity cannot be the first response to atrocity. Courage must lead, especially when the victims are silenced. Wisdom must include historical memory—of the land theft that built America, of the smoke rising from Gaza, of the forests burning in Siberia and the Sahel. And acceptance must come only after struggle, not before it.

The future will not judge us for how often we prayed, but for what we did while praying. In an age of climate catastrophe and global injustice, serenity without struggle is not peace—it is surrender.

Sources:
Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer and its Contexts, Library of Congress
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “Gaza Emergency Reports” (2023–2025)
UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sixth Assessment Report (2023)
Human Rights Watch, “Israel: Apparent War Crimes in Gaza” (2024)
Samantha Power, "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide
Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything
Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway, Merchants of Doubt
Democracy Now!, “Witnessing the Gaza Bombardment”
Center for Environmental Justice, “Climate Apartheid” Report
Higher Education Inquirer, “Liberty University: A Billion-Dollar Edu-Religious Powerhouse Under the Lens” (2025)

“We Can’t Make It Here Anymore” Still Rings True

More than twenty years after James McMurtry released We Can’t Make It Here Anymore, the song’s haunting verses continue to echo across the American landscape. Originally written during the early 2000s under the weight of offshoring, union busting, and post-9/11 disillusionment, McMurtry’s protest ballad has aged not with irrelevance but with renewed urgency.

McMurtry wrote about Vietnam veterans pushed aside by a society eager to forget its mistakes. Today, those veterans have been replaced by men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan—some with missing limbs, some with invisible wounds, many with few job prospects. The system still tells them “thanks for your service” while it sends their factories overseas, their benefits into the shredder, and their children into debt servitude at for-profit colleges or underfunded public universities.

The song’s refrain—“And the banks run the loan game, and the dollar jumps the track”—has only deepened in meaning in the era of trillion-dollar student loan burdens and the financialization of everything from housing to higher education. Entire zip codes have been gutted by opioid overdoses, job loss, and rising suicide rates. The technology is flashier now, but the despair McMurtry chronicled feels even more entrenched. The “big boys” still “don't like to lose,” and the factories are still “boarded up,” not just in Michigan and West Virginia, but now in the shadows of elite universities, where campuses flourish while surrounding communities falter.

Higher education, the supposed equalizer, has played its own part in this disillusionment. Where once it held the promise of upward mobility, it now too often offers low-wage adjunct jobs, debt without degrees, and institutions more concerned with branding and endowments than student welfare. McMurtry sings, “The doctor can't be reached, he has moved back to LA,” and in 2025, that’s still true—except now the doctor’s been replaced by a telehealth AI, and the local hospital has been bought out by a hedge fund.

We Can’t Make It Here Anymore is not nostalgia. It is indictment. It is reportage. It is prophecy. And like Woody Guthrie before him, McMurtry tells a story corporate media would rather ignore.

The song’s last verse ends not with hope, but with observation:
“Will work for food, will die for oil, will kill for power and to us the spoils.”
Two decades later, the empire has not changed course. It has just changed spokespeople.

The names may change—NAFTA to USMCA, Halliburton to BlackRock—but the machinery grinds on. And McMurtry’s anthem remains a soundtrack for those who never made it out of the wreckage, for the veterans of war and labor still trying to make it here.

Sources

• James McMurtry, We Can’t Make It Here Anymore, 2004

• U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

• U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

• National Student Legal Defense Network

• Higher Education Inquirer archives

Netanyahu Denies Starvation as Civilians Die at Gaza Food Sites, While U.S. Campuses Suppress Dissent

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated this week that “there is no starvation in Palestine,” contradicting extensive reporting from international aid organizations documenting famine conditions and lethal attacks on civilians at food distribution sites in Gaza.

A May 2025 report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a United Nations-supported initiative, found that over 70 percent of Gaza’s population was experiencing catastrophic food insecurity. Nearly 30 percent of children under the age of five were acutely malnourished. The World Food Programme has labeled the crisis a "man-made famine."

On July 20, Doctors Without Borders reported that a drone strike hit near its food and medical site in Khan Younis, killing nine civilians, including three children.

On July 24, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that at least 15 civilians were killed when Israeli forces opened fire near an aid distribution point in Gaza City. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) confirmed the death of one of its staff members in the incident. 

Despite these conditions, Netanyahu has denied the existence of starvation, and the U.S. government has continued its military and diplomatic support. The United States provides approximately $3.8 billion annually in military aid to Israel, and U.S.-manufactured weapons have been linked to attacks on aid sites. The U.S. has also vetoed or blocked three United Nations Security Council resolutions since October 2023 aimed at enforcing ceasefires or expanding humanitarian access.

Meanwhile, suppression of speech and surveillance on U.S. campuses has escalated. Across dozens of universities, students and faculty who have spoken out against the war in Gaza or criticized U.S. and Israeli policies have faced disciplinary action, police monitoring, and digital surveillance. Peaceful protests and teach-ins have been met with administrative crackdowns, restrictions on student group activities, and, in some cases, expulsions.

At several campuses, private security firms with ties to law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been contracted to monitor student activism. Surveillance tools, including facial recognition and social media tracking software, have been used to identify and target protesters. In many cases, these efforts have been carried out with little or no oversight.

Faculty members who have criticized U.S. foreign policy or supported Palestinian rights have reported threats to job security and tenure, especially in public institutions receiving defense-related research funding. Some have been the targets of smear campaigns and blacklists promoted by outside organizations.

At least 24 U.S. universities maintain partnerships or research contracts with defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics—companies whose weapons systems are deployed in Gaza. This financial entanglement has made many administrations unwilling to permit open debate, let alone challenge the broader militarization of U.S. higher education.

These repressive measures raise fundamental questions about the role of the university in a democratic society. When criticism of state violence is policed, and protest against war is surveilled, the campus ceases to function as a space of inquiry and dissent. It becomes, instead, an extension of the national security state.

As civilians are killed while waiting for food and as children die of hunger and infection, the U.S. government and its educational institutions remain enmeshed in systems of silence, denial, and complicity. The suppression of free speech on campus is not peripheral to this crisis—it is part of it.

Sources:
UNRWA Situation Reports, July 2025
World Food Programme Emergency Updates
Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), May 2025
Palestinian Red Crescent Society, July 2025
Médecins Sans Frontières Field Reports
World Health Organization, Gaza Emergency Briefings
UNICEF Gaza Nutrition Data, July 2025
U.S. State Department Foreign Military Financing Budget, 2024–2025
UN Security Council Voting Records, 2023–2025
Coalition for Civil Freedoms Campus Speech Tracker
Higher Education Inquirer archives on university-defense contractor ties

HELU's Wall-to-Wall and Coast-to-Coast Report – July 2025

July 2025 HELU Chair’s Message From Levin Kim, HELU Chair and member of UAW 4121, student workers, researchers and postdocs at the University of Washington Over the first six months in office, the Trump Administration attempted to gut funding for crucial research, attack immigrant and non-citizen workers, curtail academic freedom and freedom of speech, and more. These attacks on higher ed workers and institutions have been the centerpiece of the right wing's political agenda to expand control and power over public-serving institutions in service of the interests of the ultra-wealthy few.  Read more. Read HELU's July 2025 Chair's Message HELU's July 2025 newsletter contains items about movements in large systems. Some are national (the EWOC conference, the NEA organizing grants, May Day Strong, the DSA Convention). Others are state-level (Michigan and New York). Some are system-level (Arizona and California university systems). Some are about collaborations (the LA Federation of Labor, the SUNY/CUNY MADCs). This movement reflects the reality of where the higher ed labor movement is going.  – Helena Worthen, Co-Chair, HELU Media & Communications Committee   From the HELU Blog: EWOC and Higher Ed: First Conference at Labor@Wayne EWOC, the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, held its first conference at Wayne State University with co-hosts Labor@Wayne on June 28 and 29. Read more.   The University of California System: Labor Actions Loom in 2025-2026 The longer the UC system maintains a hard line against unions at the bargaining table, the more likely it is that a majority of UC’s unionized workforce will be out of contract by the end of the 2025-26 school year. Read more.   NEA Offers Grants to Help Local Affiliates Pay HELU Solidarity Pledges The National Education Association (NEA) has offered grants to local affiliates to enable them to join HELU by paying half of their solidarity pledge for one year. Read more. Contingent Labor at the University of Arizona: One Damn Thing After Another If it weren’t so devastating, it would be comic timing. Every year, contingent faculty, specifically lecturers with academic year appointments, at the University of Arizona are laid off in May. Then, in the fall, some are hired back in even more precarious positions as adjunct instructor. Read more.   Joint Union-Senate Mutual Academic Defense Compacts in SUNY and CUNY Systems Hours before the signing of the federal budget reconciliation megabill, ten current and former leaders of SUNY’s and CUNY’s governance bodies issued a July 4 declaration. Candice Vacin, President of the SUNY Faculty Council of Community Colleges (FCCC), described it as “a solemn call to defend foundational principles of American higher education" ... Read more.   Michigan HELU Coalition: Organizing and Action HELU activists in Michigan have banded together to form a state coalition to take on several existential threats to our students, universities and colleges, and our jobs. So far, the coalition has hosted several online and in-person events, actions, and meetings, each bigger than the previous one. Read more.   What is HELU Doing at the DSA Convention in August? On August 9th, representatives from Higher Education Labor United will be attending the Democratic Socialists of American biennial convention in Chicago to take part in their first ever Cross-Organizational Political Exchange. Read more.   HELU at May Day Strong in Chicago On July 17 and 18, Levin Kim and Executive Director Ian Gavigan traveled to Chicago for the second national May Day Strong convening hosted by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). Read more.   Mass Non-Violent Resistance Trainings in Los Angeles: Labor Leads with Power and Discipline On July 10, 2025, 1,443 people gathered at the Los Angeles Convention Center for the largest nonviolence training in the history of the city, and perhaps the country. Read more.   Upcoming Events:  Building Campus Solidarity Across Job Categories: Lessons from Recent Strikes & Adjunct Struggles Weds., July 30 at 6pm ET/5pm CT/4pm MT/3pm PT Join the Contingency Taskforce (CTF) of Higher Ed Labor United (HELU) for an urgent strategy discussion of how we can build campus solidarity among faculty and other higher ed workers, across job ranks, in light of the severe threats we now face. How can we organize broadly to defend the most vulnerable members of our communities? How can we help people overcome isolation and fear, discovering new courage and power by connecting with others? How can we raise up the voices and needs of historically marginalized workers and students within the broader fight to defend higher ed? Register here. International Campus Worker & Student Organizing Meeting Monday, August 4 at 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT Attacks from the Trump administration are putting international students and workers in our campuses at risk. Mass SEVIS terminations, cancellations of Visa appointments, targeted attacks against Chinese nationals, ICE detentions and threats of raids in our campuses are making our jobs, our livelihoods, and the mission of our institutions unsafe. These actions follow the same pattern: attacking those who are in the most vulnerable positions to create a chilling effect on the rest of us. We demand action from colleges and universities now! Join us on Zoom August 4th at 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT to plan next steps and organizing strategies. Register here.   HELU Open House  Thursday, August 14 at 6 pm ET/5 pm CT/4 pm MT/3 pm PT HELU has been organizing since 2021 and is growing. On Thursday, August 14, at 6pm ET/5pm CT/4pm MT/3pm PT we will be hosting another HELU Open House, designed to welcome folks into the national higher ed organizing space and help everyone find a way to plug in. Join HELU on Thursday, August 14th, at 6pm ET/5pm CT/4pm MT/3pm PT. Register here.    Library Workers Organizing Meeting & Strategy Session Weds., August 20 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT On August 20, 2025, HELU is bringing together higher ed library workers across the country to strategize against threats to our livelihoods and profession. We will come together to meet and set our agenda, then we will break into small groups to discuss crises in academic freedom, disparities between library staff categorizations, labor organizing, austerity, and more. Our goal is to develop a platform for library worker protections to advocate for and implement across the country. Register here.  Higher Ed Labor in the News College students and staff at universities across Minnesota are organizing new unions – The Minnesota Star Tribune UMN union workers announce vote to authorize strike – MN Daily Duke Graduate Students Union scores historic tentative contract – Duke Chronicle Faculty Unions & New York City Electeds Say ‘Hands Off Higher Ed! Hands Off CUNY!’ – WNY Labor Today In AAUP Trial, State Dept. Official Says Criticizing Israel Could Be Grounds for Visa Revocation – Harvard Crimson Labor union says California university professor was taken during Camarillo immigration raid protest – KTLA5 News Penn Postdocs and Research Associates Win Their Union – UAW ‘Without us, there is no UMass’: Unions representing staff decry bargaining tactics by administration at campus rally – Athol Daily News The link to Scott Douglas’ presentation on the California community college load cap, included in HELU's June 2025 newsletter, has changed. You can now access it here. Want to support our work? Make a contribution. We invite you to support HELU's work by making a direct financial contribution. While HELU's main source of income is solidarity pledges from member organizations, these funds from individuals help us to grow capacity as we work to align the higher ed labor movement. Contribute to HELU