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Education Secretary Linda McMahon last week summoned college and university leaders to publicly declare their commitment to rebuild trust in higher education. But the path forward is murky, as leaders wrestle over whether to respond and how to walk the fine line between compliance and standing their ground.
On July 30, 2026, the American Association of University Professors did something it had never done in its 110-year history: endorse a candidate for federal elected office. AAUP President Todd Wolfson announced his organization would back Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic candidate in Michigan’s U.S. Senate primary. And Wolfson made it clear that further endorsements will be coming, describing a shift from a defensive posture to an “offense” built on organizing and political advocacy.
The Education Department is asking university leaders to publicly commit to a series of institutional changes, many of which are in line with the Trump administration’s higher education agenda, by the end of the year.
Violating the First Amendment will cost you. Universities and other public institutions are learning this lesson the hard way as the dust settles on a series of lawsuits brought by university faculty and staff who were punished for their comments about Charlie Kirk’s murder last September.
Drawing attention to such suppression would seem to fall squarely within the mandate of this watchdog group, whose motto is “the freedom to write.” And yet, publication of the article—which makes no policy recommendations and is written in a mournful, rather than accusatory, tone—was enough to make PEN America’s president, the novelist Dinaw Mengestu, decide to resign in protest within hours.
