At the same time, this current administration is threatening college and university funding if they do not capitulate to the administration’s demands. These demands threaten the very principles that our colleges are founded on. Freedom of speech, assembly and press are integral to our universities and to our country as a whole. Academic freedom is key to education, and now more than ever, we need to call on our universities to protect their students and their education.

At the University of Washington, we are asking the administration to establish a Firewall for Freedom. This means that our university will not voluntarily share their resources– including their staff’s time or the data they collect on students and faculty– with federal law enforcement who are seeking to violate our human rights or target members of our school community based on their exercise of human rights. The UW needs to protect the students, faculty and staff who have dedicated their time, money and resources to this University. Campus officials need to take concrete action to protect the rights of all students, including the rights to free speech and assembly, and refuse to proactively work or comply with government agencies to infringe on these rights to target students, no matter what their immigration status is.

With the help of the ACLU and Amnesty International, we hope that the University of Washington will be one of many colleges and universities across the country to protect the rights of their faculty and students. We have the opportunity to set a precedent and stand with other universities such as Harvard to fight for freedom for all people on college campuses.