The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) sent a joint letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon on September 10, accusing her department of using civil rights enforcement and funding threats as tools of political coercion against colleges and universities, and demanding she publicly answer for the department’s conduct before asking more of higher education institutions.
The letter, signed by AFT President Randi Weingarten and AAUP President Todd Wolfson on behalf of a combined 420,000 members, argues that since 2025 the department has treated federal funding as leverage to force institutions into ideological conformity with the administration’s political agenda. It states that the department has used civil rights enforcement as a mechanism of political coercion, moved to withhold federal funds before administrative processes concluded, and threatened institutions with the loss of funding for noncompliance—actions the letter says federal courts have found to violate the Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Administrative Procedure Act. A footnote cites two federal cases, including one in which a Maryland district court reportedly vacated agency directives for bypassing notice-and-comment rulemaking and violating First Amendment protections.
It is against this backdrop that the unions frame McMahon’s August 3 letter, “A National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards,” which called on institutions to commit to a federally outlined reform agenda. The AFT and AAUP argue that, given the department’s own record, McMahon is not positioned to demand such commitments without first accounting for her department’s actions.
The letter calls on McMahon to publish a public statement by the end of 2026 addressing seven areas: the department’s fidelity to the law in its enforcement actions; protections for free speech and peaceful protest, including dissent aimed at the administration; academic freedom and shared governance over hiring, curriculum, and research; reducing student reliance on debt and restoring programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness; safeguarding academic standards amid the adoption of artificial intelligence; protecting federally funded research from political interference; and ensuring the department serves all students regardless of their identities or disciplines. As an immediate step, the unions are requesting written assurance within 30 days that no college or university will face favorable or adverse federal treatment based on whether it responds to the August 3 letter.
The joint letter builds on an earlier AAUP analysis of McMahon’s August 3 letter, which situated the request within the context of the administration’s 2025 higher education “compact” that had tied federal benefits to institutional acceptance of government-mandated conditions. That analysis argued many of the commitments McMahon sought—covering faculty hiring, curriculum, and research priorities—fall under the authority of faculty governance rather than university administrators, and that federal statutes bar the Department of Education from directing institutional curriculum, instruction, or personnel decisions. It also warned that the letter’s emphasis on “intellectual pluralism” in hiring could function as a political litmus test, and cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International in raising concerns that conditioning federal benefits on institutional endorsement of the administration’s positions could amount to compelled speech.
