MAY 1, 2025
5:00PM ET
Just over two months into the second Trump presidency we have a U.S. government that is at war with higher education. It has assaulted and is attempting to eliminate efforts to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion. It has attacked curricula, eliminated research support, arrested students and attacked freedom of expression. These kinds of attacks are not unique to the U.S.
Those of us who care about democracy must resist the forces attempting to erode its institutions. We must defend universities and their core principle of academic freedom, since without an educated citizenry, democracy is unlikely to survive. Our hope for this webinar, a conversation among a distinguished group of former-presidents of major universities, is that listeners will be inspired to defend freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression whenever and wherever they are threatened.
