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In a recent episode featured on the American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP) YouTube channel, several professors voiced their concerns and strategies regarding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations. Among them, one academic speculated that then-President Donald Trump had intentions to re-segregate schools, stirring significant controversy.
Caroline Luce, a social sciences professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), participated in the discussion titled “ICE AND HIGHER ED: DEFENDING OUR COMMUNITIES,” which aired on November 6. The episode delved into the implications of ICE activities on educational institutions and their surrounding communities.
Amid these discussions, the Trump administration made a significant financial demand from UCLA. The university was asked to pay $1 billion in response to allegations of widespread antisemitism. Additionally, the administration required UCLA to create a $172 million fund to address claims of violations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, a law that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
In a potential settlement, the Trump administration indicated that in exchange for these measures, it would release $584 million in federal grants that had been withheld from the university. This proposal highlighted the complex intersection of education, politics, and civil rights issues during Trump’s presidency.
Visuals accompanying the story included a photograph of President Trump boarding Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, taken on September 14, 2025, and a headshot of Professor Caroline Luce, underscoring the personal and political dimensions of the unfolding narrative.
“Conceding to these demands would be sacrificing the sanctity of higher education as we know it in this country,” Luce, who twice referred to Trump as the “orange man,” said. “But among the demands are information-sharing demands, and that includes in regards to visa holders, which is to say international students who are here on student visas.”
“It would demand access to students—undergraduate students—under the guise of trying to stomp out DEI, which we know is just a veiled excuse to re-segregate our universities, and that’s been borne out,” she said.
Asked how that claim has been “borne out,” Luce did not return a request for comment.
Police at UCLA were given permission to clear a massive anti-Israel demonstration. (ETIENNE LAURENT/AFP via Getty Images)
“During the Biden years, radical left-wing activists at universities separated and pit students against each other on the basis of race all in the name of DEI. President Trump put a stop to those divisive and un-American DEI programs to recenter the focus of education on merit,” a White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “Under President Trump’s bold leadership, promoting academic excellence is the number one objective once again in American education.”
The conversation was hosted by New York University (NYU) professor Chenjerai Kumanyika, an AAUP National Council member. Kumanyika referred to Trump’s UCLA demands as “extortion.”
The panel also featured Aaron Krall, an English lecturer at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is the president of UIC Faculty United, another union on campus.
He said his union is actively working with community organizations on “rapid response” to ICE operations, and giddily informed Luce and Kumanyika that in Chicago, “everybody’s got a whistle now.”
Cook County Sheriff Police detain a protester outside an ICE processing facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Ill., Friday, Nov. 14, 2025. (Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo)
Anti-ICE activists have taken to blowing whistles when agents are conducting operations, signaling community members and other activists to mob and film the agents as they work, causing havoc.
“But this is a way to make people feel comfortable going out into the streets and pushing back, saying that we disapprove, yelling at the fascists, getting in their faces,” Krall said. “It’s been amazing.”
He told Kumanyika he “didn’t want to go into the rapid response training too much,” with a coy smile.
“I get it,” Kumanyika replied with a chuckle. “Like, there’s only so granular we’re going to get about the nature of the planning.”
Referring to ICE arrests, Krall also claimed that the law enforcement entity had “abducted” people from Chicago.
Krall, Kumanyika, UCLA and the AAUP did not respond to requests for comment.
