Notes from the UIC Teach-In: Assault on Science, Humanities, and Human Rights held on the National Day of Action for Higher Education, April 17, 2025

Below are my notes from “Teach-In: Assault on Science, Humanities, and Human Rights” from the panel held on April 17, 2025, at University of Illinois at Chicago. Much of the text could be considered direct quotations, if not, paraphrases, from the speakers on the panel, though please forgive me if I misheard/misunderstood points. I grabbed the biographical information from the Social Justice Initiative website linked here.

Katherine Franke, Columbia University Law Professor (retired) and activist, a leading scholar on law, sexuality, race, and religion drawing from feminist, queer, and critical race theory

* fired (“retired”) from Columbia for standing up for a student protestor

* everything in U.S. happening much faster than ever before

* They’re testing us by fabricating an emergency, we’re showing up in protest, and then they’re using the protest as justification for disciplinary action (authoritarianism). They will likely soon declare martial law

* We must strategize how to interrupt the loop

* We must DREAM about what we want

Veena Dubal, General Counsel, AAUP; Professor of Law at University of California Irvine

AAUP: The mission of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is to advance academic freedom and shared governance; to define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education; to promote the economic security of faculty, academic professionals, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and all those engaged in teaching and research in higher education; to help the higher education community organize to make our goals a reality; and to ensure higher education's contribution to the common good.

* what’s happening now is beyond McCarthyism

* Intended to wipe out American higher education and take away economic and social mobility, especially for marginalized groups

* we need to stand up for our non-citizen immigrant colleagues who are being essentially silenced

* We must have a groundswell of mobilization and find hope through collective strategic action

Janet Lin, Professor of Emergency Medicine, UIC College of Medicine; Affiliate Professor of Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health

* Do not make emotional decisions that are irrational

* Be aware, however, that there could be public bans on national abortion, gender-affirming care, and HIV care

* Getting rid of Medicaid means 800,000 people (in Illinois?) will lose coverage, with culminating impacts