Hundreds of community members gathered outside the Student Union at 12:10 p.m. on Thursday, April 17, to protest the Trump administration’s recent actions targeting higher education.
This included cutting of federal grants for research and scholarships, the chilling of freedom of speech on campuses across the country and the “bullying and intimidating of immigrant and international faculty and students, which has a chilling effect on our community and impacts teaching, learning and research,” according to a press release sent by organizers.
The rally was organized by UConn American Association of University Professors (AAUP), who partnered with UConn Professional Employees Association (UCPEA), UConn Graduate Employee & Postdoc Union (UConn-GEU-UAW), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Connecticut Employees Union Independent (CEUI).
Chris Vials, president of UConn-AAUP opened the rally, projecting his voice across the Student Union Green without a microphone, summarizing the dire context of the event.
“We are facing a federal government that doesn’t care about anyone here, a federal government that wants to do us harm […] But we are here to discuss it,” he said.
Vials, along with all the other speakers, spoke without a microphone as the university administration did not grant the union permission for amplified sound at the rally.
“Basically they [UConn administration] had an amplified sound policy before but the modified it after the encampment so that there could really be no amplified sound outside from nine to five,” Vials said following a press conference held in room 304AB of the Student Union following the rally.
Prior to the change in policy, organizers could apply for permission to use amplifiers, but those applications have been denied as of late, according to Vials.
“What we found during the planning of this rally is that they really are categorically not granting permissions, seemingly across the board for any rallies from nine to five. Now it’s possible there are events from nine to five that I don’t know about that they’ve approved, but they certainly didn’t approve this one,” he said.
In a statement released following the event, Vials elaborated on what exactly the unions wanted to communicate through this action, taking aim not just at the federal government, but state and university officials alike.
“We stand in solidarity to resist the attacks on every front coming at higher education from the Federal Government,” Vials said. “Today we stood with campus workers across the country to renew a vision of higher education as an autonomous public good, and university workers as its most important resource. We are part of the nationwide movement that includes over 175 events today with thousands of people across Connecticut and across the United States.”
Vials continued, condemning the federal government for its targeting of universities and the thousands of international students studying at them.
“From cuts to federal grants to the physical deportation of our students, the federal government is attacking higher education with a bluntness and ferocity we have not seen in our lifetimes,” said Vials. “We organized to show strength and solidarity in the face of this onslaught, and to bring public awareness to what is happening at UConn and at colleges and universities across the country. Silence is dangerous and invites escalation. Hands off UConn!”
Vials also asked the Connecticut state government to take action in protecting its constituents.
“We also came together because we want the state legislature to step up to shore up public higher education to help fortify it against this onslaught,” he said. “Public colleges and universities are a very specific target of the Trump administration and we need assurances from the state that they have our backs. Protecting higher education fiscally and with protections on freedom of speech.”
He also made a call for UConn officials to take more direct action in defending their students.
“We want the UConn administration to join administrations around the country like UMass-Amherst, Rutgers, and Harvard who are showing resistance to the federal government,” he said. “Today we want to show UConn that we are in this together- union strong means UConn Strong!”
Grace Easterly, president of the Graduate Employee and Postdoc Union, spoke on the importance of mutual defense under the pressure of the threats posed by the federal government.
“This is a moment of crisis for higher education,” Easterly said. “And the labor movement isn’t afraid to stand up against these threats […] We need to defend our students we need to defend us as workers and we’re here to protect ourselves and our students from the threats posed by the federal administration.”
Alexander Blagojevic, a Ph.D. candidate studying biomedical engineering at UConn spoke to the critical role research at institutions like UConn plays in saving lives.
“Here at UConn, my colleagues and I have been working on making medicine cheaper, keeping our food sources clean and making actual progress towards treating uncurable diseases,” he said. “Public funding makes all of this possible but right now we are on the cusp of losing everything we’ve worked for.”
Blagojevic continued, adding his personal experience as a cancer survivor to emphasize his point.
“I am a cancer survivor, and I looked it up, every single drug in my chemo regiment was developed in full or in part by NIH [National Institute of Health] research. So thank God didn’t defund the NIH 20 years ago or I would be dead right now. We need to fight for the cancer patients 20 years from now who are going to be dying because Trump defunded the research we should have been doing to find cures today,” he shouted across the green.
Lily Luo, another Ph.D. candidate studying political science at UConn, spoke to the role public education and universities need to play moving forward.
“Our public universities act like corporations, motivated only by the bottom line and governed solely by a board. We must fight for collective governance,” she said. “I see a vision for higher education that is truly for the public good. Can we create our own mutual defense compact to keep each other safe? One that does not allow for defense contracts that help our bottom line while causing the mass destruction of other nations’ schools. One that does not allow our school to jail students who dare to say there are no universities left in Gaza. One that insists that any future built on genocide can never be a future that is safe for people of lands religions and races.”
Luo was hopeful that this future could be achieved but understood that it would only be possible “if we all sit down, in good faith without fear of getting deported by the state, fired by our bosses, or kicked out of our schools.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal attended and spoke at the rally, although to a mixed reception. Some members of the crowd chanted over the senator as he spoke, criticizing his decision to vote against a resolution proposed by senator Bernie Sanders which would stop weapon shipments to Israel. He voted against his colleague Chris Murphy, who supported the resolution.
State Sen. Mae Flexer capped off the event with a call to action.
“If we don’t act each and every day and use every tool and every bit of power each and every one of us has to fight against this attack on America, we will never be able to come back from this. I am so heartened to see such a huge crowd here,” she said.