Take Action

A silver lining of the hostile takeover of New College is the way it brought so many in the New College community into solidarity: students, faculty, parents, staff, and alums, across generations. Collective action was the antidote to despair. And the New College resistance performed an immense service in pushing back against right-wing attacks on higher ed. But what happened to New College is now happening to campuses across the U.S. We hope our film can inspire and motivate a mass movement to stand up for the freedom to learn, the freedom to teach, and the freedom to be who you are.

If you can take JUST ONE ACTION, sign up for the Emergency Campaign to Support Higher Education, a coalition of leading organizations, including students, faculty, staff, and community groups, with several ongoing campaigns.

꩜ Emergency Campaign To Support Higher Education ꩜

More Things You Can Do

Stay Up To Date

Stay up to date by reading and subscribing to “Academic Freedom on the Line,” Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Her Campus, and Lux. And listen to podcasts like AAUP Presents and American Campus.

Students

Learn More

Learn more about the “hostile takeover” of New College by reading Kathryn Joyce’s superb investigation “The New College Gambit” and watching Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’s excellent update on New College from June of 2026.

Allied Organizations

Review our list of Allied Organizations below and see how you can get involved.

If you are a STUDENT, join a student organization like Youth Action Fund or SEE Alliance (if you’re in Florida), Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (if you’re in Texas), CUNY Rising Alliance (if you’re in New York City), or one of the national-level organizations like Get Free, NAACP Youth & College, Task Force for Democracy, US Student Association, Young Invincibles.

Teachers

If you are a K-12 TEACHER with students heading for college, work with your fellow teachers to raise awareness about the crisis facing higher ed. We’ll soon be screening the film for high schools, so please fill out our “Request a Screening” form. You might even organize a special teach-in and screening with your PTA.

Parent

If you are PARENT, join with other parents to research how attacks on education are affecting your child. If they are in a college or university, who is on their Board of Trustees? What laws have been passed that restrict what they can learn? Who is fighting back? Who can you join forces with so you don’t have to figure this out on your own?

Faculty

If you are a FACULTY member in higher education, get active in AAUP, HELU, and your union.

Alum

If you are an ALUM, join Stand for Campus Freedom, the organization that arose in 2025 to organize alumni opposed to the Trump administration’s Compact and has continued building a movement of engaged alumni and independent alumni organizations.

New College Alum

If you’re a NEW COLLEGE ALUM, join Novo Collegian Alliance and NCF Freedom, two great organizations that formed after the takeover. Learn more about the bigger issues facing higher ed at AltLiberalArts. Connect with other alums in whatever way you can, via social media like the NC(F) Daimon Facebook group. Read and support Old School Catalyst, the independent successor publication to The Catalyst.

Host a Screening

If you would like to host a screening on your campus, community center, or cinema, fill out our “Request a Screening” form. You don’t have to know all of the details or be the decision-maker in your organization, but if you get the ball rolling, we can help you make a screening happen near you.

Selected Readings

AAUP. Report of a Special Committee: Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education System. December 2023.

Bérubé, Michael and Jennifer Ruth. It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom. Johns Hopkins, 2022

Bhargava, Deepak and Stephanie Luce. Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World. New Press, 2024. Also, check out the Practical Radicals Podcast

Black, R. Derek. The Klansman's Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism; a Memoir. Abrams Books, 2024.

Darien-Smith. Policing Higher Education: The Antidemocratic Attack on Scholars and Why It Matters. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025.

Daub, Adrian. The Cancel Culture Panic: How An American Obsession Went Global. Stanford University Press, 2024.

Ferguson, Roderick A. We Demand: The University and Student Protests. U. of California Press, 2017.

Franks, Mary Anne. Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment. Bold Type Books, 2024.

Friedersdorf, Connor. “Ron DeSantis Chose the Wrong College to Take Over.” The Atlantic, March 30, 2023.

Hagopian, Jesse. Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education. Haymarket Press, 2025

Kamola, Isaac. Manufacturing Backlash: Right-Wing Think Tanks and Legislative Attacks on Higher Education, 2021–2023. AAUP report, 2024

Joyce, Kathryn. “The New College Gambit.” In These Times. December 9, 2024.

McAdams, A. James and Samuel Piccolo, Far-Right Newspeak and the Future of Liberal Democracy. Routledge, 2024

Musto, Ronald G. The Attack on Higher Education: The Dissolution of the American University. Cambridge U. Press, 2021

Newfield, Christopher. The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them, Johns Hopkins, 2018

Phillips, Steve. Are White Men Really Smarter Than Everybody Else? Playing Offense in the Fight for Racial Justice in America. New Press, 2026

Reid, Amy, Jonathan Friedman, Laura Benitez, and Jeffrey Adam Sachs. Expanding the Web of Control: America’s Censored Campuses 2025. PEN America, January 15, 2026.

Ruth, Jennifer, Valerie Johnson, and Ellen Shrecker. The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom. Beacon, 2024

Srinivasan, Amina. “Canceled.” London Review of Books, June 2023

Stanley, Jason. Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, Simon & Schuster, 2024

Wilson, Ralph and Isaac Kamola. Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing a Campus Culture War. Pluto Press, 2021.

Selected Readings