MIT, Stand Up for Us!
Protect international workers and students
(MIT GSU with assistance from MIT AAUP)
Under escalated attacks on higher education, MIT, as a leader in our industry, must further its efforts to stand up for our community and workers by meeting the following commitments:
MIT will not turn over personal student information in response to Title VI investigations.
MIT will avoid voluntary cooperation or information sharing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other federal agencies charged with facilitating deportation or other forms of immigration enforcement. MIT will train all employees, including but not limited to GRAs and PIs, on the protocol surrounding interactions with federal agents on campus.
MIT will not comply with Section 3 of the expanded Executive Order 13899, which calls for universities to “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds and for ensuring that such reports about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”
MIT will devote resources to communicating reliable, timely information to international students and scholars, including immediate notification of changes in their legal status.
Additionally, we ask that MIT establish new policies to allow for our community and workers to continue with their research:
MIT will keep international students enrolled in the event of visa revocation, legal status termination, detention, and/or deportation.
If their enrollment is contingent upon funding through graduate teaching appointments or fellowships, MIT will financially support them with central resources so they can continue their coursework, research, and teaching appointments.
MIT will allow international students and scholars to continue their studies and research remotely or otherwise provide flexible planning for the completion of their studies and guarantee re-entry into their program.
MIT will assist with identifying and paying for legal aid for students and scholars whose visas have been revoked by establishing an International Worker and Student Support Fund.
MIT will work swiftly and affirmatively—through lawsuits, if necessary—to stop the termination of the legal status of students and scholars without any due process.
MIT will commit to continued funding of all graduate students and workers at risk of losing employment due to federal funding cuts, and will do so using centrally administered hardship funds and/or transitional funding, preserving all rights and benefits of affected individuals.
MIT will pledge to establish or join a Mutual Academic Defense Compact (MADC), alongside other institutions. All institutions shall commit meaningful support to the MADC by providing immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement. MIT will make available, at the request of any such member institution, any financial, material, legal and public communications support required to coordinate a unified and vigorous response to resist the attacks.
Protect academic freedom and free expression
Defend evidence-based research. MIT must publicly stand behind the science of anthropogenic climate change, vaccine research, structural inequality research, trans and queer healthcare, and other fields under attack by the Trump administration for the sake of our community and our country.
Coordinate federal data preservation. The Trump administration has threatened irreplaceable federal data through workforce cuts and censorship, disrupting research and risking widespread knowledge loss. So far, grassroots groups with limited resources have led most preservation efforts. We call on MIT to provide resources and support for these preservation efforts.
Protect political expression. We urge MIT leaders to ensure that all community members, including students, faculty, and staff, can express political views without fear of institutional discipline.
Uphold the right to publish uncensored research. Researchers at many institutions have reported pressure to remove terms such as “climate change” and references to minority groups from their work, hindering the dissemination of knowledge. MIT must protect academic freedom and integrity by agreeing not to suppress research.
Preserve research and education funding
Maintain constant student to instructor ratios. MIT must not allow the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education to erode educational quality for students or workplace standards for instructors. We urge MIT to avoid cutting any teaching staff or teaching assistant positions or converting full-time teaching positions to part-time positions.
Guarantee funding for targeted researchers. Early-career researchers face unprecedented funding uncertainty due to sudden ideologically motivated funding cuts and poorly communicated changes to grant review processes. MIT cannot allow temporary funding disruptions to permanently impact researchers’ careers by leaving them without salaries. Instead, we call on MIT to secure financial instruments such as bonds or new funding sources to sustain research while fighting back against funding cuts, guarantee transitional funding to graduate researchers whose funding is terminated unexpectedly by the Trump administration, and commit additional funding from the Climate Project to support early career sustainability researchers.
Provide clarity on institutional response to funding cuts. Students and workers—those most affected by funding cuts—have been excluded from key decisions about how MIT responds to these cuts, often finding out only after choices have already been made. We demand that MIT and all its departments clearly communicate which programs and positions are being reduced or eliminated, in a timely and accessible way. Furthermore, we call for regular, open community forums where students and workers can receive updates, ask questions, and hold leadership accountable for how MIT plans to move forward and address community concerns.
Defend our queer and trans community
Support queer and trans community members. The Trump administration seeks to erase the existence of transgender and nonbinary individuals, eliminate gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth, and prevent both K-12 and higher education from recognizing the gender identities of their trans and nonbinary students. MIT must safeguard access to gender affirming healthcare for students and workers; preserve gender accommodations; increase access to gender-neutral restrooms; and ensure trans students and workers can fully participate in all academic, workplace, and extracurricular spaces in a way that supports and affirms their gender identity.