AAUP President Todd Wolfson released the following statement:
The AAUP stands in unwavering solidarity with Argentine faculty, students, and higher education workers engaged in nationwide strikes and mass protests to defend public universities against the devastating austerity agenda of President Javier Milei.
By freezing budgets, defying congressional funding laws, and driving educator salaries below the poverty line, the Milei administration is carrying out a deliberate assault on one of the world’s great public university systems. This is not economic necessity—it is an ideological campaign to dismantle critical thought, crush democratic institutional autonomy, and transform education from a public good into a privilege for the wealthy.
These attacks mirror the growing authoritarian assault on higher education unfolding across the globe, including in the United States. From Buenos Aires to Washington, reactionary political forces understand that universities remain vital centers of democratic life, independent thought, worker power, and social resistance—and that is precisely why they are under attack.
To our union siblings and the student movement in Argentina: We see your courage, we share your outrage, and we stand firmly beside you in this fight. The massive demonstrations, student occupations, and unified faculty strikes across Argentina are an inspiration to educators and workers everywhere.
Public higher education belongs to the people—not oligarchs, financiers, or authoritarian politicians. The struggle to defend universities is inseparable from the struggle to defend democracy itself.