America’s Professors Break Century-Long Precedent To Go Full Socialist

A union of higher education professors broke more than 100 years of precedent to endorse a far-left Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has given its first political endorsement in the organization’s 110-year history to El-Sayed, Democrats’ nominee for Senate in Michigan. A significant portion of El-Sayed’s primary vote share came from Ann Arbor and East Lansing, Michigan, the homes of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, respectively.

The organization’s president, Todd Wolfson, responded to backlash by pledging to get more political, not less.

Wolfson doubled down on X after being criticized for the decision, writing, “Apparently our first endorsement has upset some people. Good. Higher ed, academic freedom, research, collective bargaining, and the idea of college as a public good are under attack. AAUP isn’t going to respond by pretending politics isn’t happening.  We’re going to organize.”

Apparently our first endorsement has upset some people. Good. Higher ed, academic freedom, research, collective bargaining, and the idea of college as a public good are under attack. AAUP isn’t going to respond by pretending politics isn’t happening. We’re going to organize.

— Todd Wolfson (@ProfTWolf) July 31, 2026

Under Wolfson’s leadership, the AAUP has increased its commitment to political activism. AAUP Vice President Rotua Lumbantobing, who was elected to AAUP leadership alongside Wolfson as part of the “United Faculty for the Common Good” slate of candidates, described how the group’s current leadership was “building a stronger, more militant, AAUP” in a March 2025 interview.

“Our mission is to transform the organization into a fighting force,” Lumbantobing told the interviewer.

During its June 2026 biennial meeting, the first since President Trump took office, one reporter wrote that it “felt like a political war room.”

“This is not a normal moment, and this could not be a normal convention,” the AAUP said on its website of the meeting. “Higher education is under coordinated political attack, our democracy is under siege, and the institutions our members have built their lives inside are being hollowed out from above and weaponized from outside.”

AAUP members voted for a number of socialist-aligned resolutions at the biennial meeting and the group pledged to participate in political campaigns as a way to “build power” and “resist authoritarian policies.”

“The AAUP will support and participate in coordinated political and public campaigns, including legislative advocacy, mass mobilization, and public education efforts, to resist authoritarian policies at the local, state, and federal levels,” stated one resolution.

The union also committed itself to advancing a “broad agenda for democracy, racial justice, economic justice, and the public good,” writing in its resolutions that “recognizing that the future of higher education is inseparable from the struggle to build a more just and inclusive society.”

Mia McIver, executive director of the AAUP, said the group had partnered with a Democratic Socialists of America project to further the group’s “widespread organizing” in a March 2025 interview.

“We’re also going beyond this and are partnering with the Emergency Workers Organizing Committee, a joint project of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America and Democratic Socialists of America, to support widespread organizing for dignity, respect and workplace safety,” McIver told Ms. Magazine.

The AAUP was founded in 1915 as a professional society for professors focused on defending academic freedom and has since morphed into a politically charged union that champions far-left social causes. The group sued the Trump administration to protect diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates in higher education, has pledged to fight transphobia, and strives to be “part of the solution” needed to dismantle so-called systemic racism in higher education.

Wolfson is a professor at Rutgers University, a public university in New Jersey. He is also a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, a far-left teachers union known for championing gender ideology, Black Lives Matter, and organizing ICE protests during school hours.

In 2022, the AAUP joined forces with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to create the largest alliance of higher education professionals in the nation. The two unions announced a joint policy platform in April 2026 to wage war against the Trump administration’s “far right extremist attacks on American higher education.”

“The AAUP and AFT jointly launched a new comprehensive policy platform ahead of the 2026 midterms aimed to counter the Trump administration’s far right extremist attacks on American higher education and secure a strong future for public colleges and universities,” states the AAUP website.

The policy blueprint calls higher education a “public good” that should be “free” to all and lays out a societal vision that includes implementing a progressive tax system, ensuring educators have collective bargaining rights, and ending “right to work” laws.

Wolfson has a long history of political activism and co-founded two grassroots activist groups in Philadelphia, PA, called the Media Mobilizing Project and the 215 People’s Alliance, according to his curriculum vitae posted on the Rutgers University website.

The Media Mobilizing Project was an independent media project inspired by the tactics of the Zapatistas, a far-left political and guerrilla military movement in Mexico, with the goal of “building our own media in the hope of connecting mass social movements,” as stated on the Internet Archive copy of its website. The Media Mobilizing Project is now called the Movement Alliance Project (MAP) which “exists to help build a coordinated, cross-sector, multiracial, working class movement in Philadelphia that can transform our city and state to one that prioritizes people’s needs over capital,” according to its website. MAP received $300,000 of funding from George Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society between 2019 and 2021, according to public financial documents. Wolfson was the board president of MAP in 2019 and 2020, public documents show.

The 215 People’s Alliance is a “grassroots, movement-building organization dedicated to building multiracial, working-class power in Philadelphia,” according to its website.

The American Association of University Professors and Todd Wolfson did not respond to The Daily Wire’s request for comment.