Working People6 Nov 2025

Campus life is unrecognizable in the Trump era: 'There's so many cops everywhere'

Life on college campuses has changed dramatically in the last 10 months. While institutions of higher education continue to reel from the Trump administration's top-down attacks and scramble to adjust, workers on campus say that their universities are simultaneously expanding their own internal repression and surveillance apparatuses to squash dissent. In this episode, we speak with a panel of graduate student workers and union members from Columbia University and the University of Michigan about the chilling new reality on their campuses and what it's like to live, learn, and work there today.

Panelists include; Vayne, a PhD candidate in history at Columbia University and a member of the bargaining committee for Student Workers of Columbia; Conlan Olson, a PhD student in computer science at Columbia University and a member of the bargaining committee for Student Workers of Columbia; Jared Eno, a grad worker in sociology and public policy at the University of Michigan and a rank-and-file member of the Graduate Employees Organization.

Additional links/info:

Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) website, Instagram, Facebook page, and X page
Student Workers of Columbia-UAW Local 2710 website, Instagram, Facebook page, and X page
Email zap info: "Reject UMPD's attack on anti-genocide activists!"
Glenn Hedin & Barrett Dolata, The Michigan Daily, "Three pro-Palestine activists arrested for protesting speech given by former Israeli soldiers"
Student Workers of Columbia press release: "Columbia threatens discipline for union picket, extends repression to labor action"
Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, "'The raids happened Wednesday, finals started Thursday': FBI agents raid homes of pro-Palestine students at University of Michigan"
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "'Worse' than McCarthyism: Trump's war on higher education, free speech, and political dissent"
Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, "'A tremendous chilling effect': Columbia students describe dystopian reality on campus amid Trump attacks"
Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, "'People are hiding in their apartments': Inside Trump's assault on universities"

Credits:

Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song
Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(407)

Trump messed with Texas. Now an army of pissed-off Texans are fighting his border wall

President Trump has renewed his efforts to "Build the Wall" in areas along the US-Mexico Border that don't currently have border barriers—including the Big Bend region of West Texas. Invading people's...

8 Okt 51min

He loved working in concrete. Now, he's dying from the chemical exposure

Because he was bullied in elementary school for being Native American, James Gardner's friends lovingly call him "NDN." His friends and family know NDN to be a fiercely loyal, loving person, and a fie...

5 Okt 40min

Want to save the world? Start by unionizing your workplace

"We are living in a pivotal moment in labor history," Cole Rockarts writes in their new book Fired Up About Unions. "At a time when corporations have more power, profit, and political influence than e...

30 Sep 53min

Toledo residents' lives upended by deadly Brent Industries explosions

On the morning of August 18, residents living near the Brent Industries facility in Toledo, Ohio, awoke to a series of massive explosions and a towering chemical fire in their backyards. Two Brent Ind...

23 Sep 57min

"Purge Palantir!": Union nurses warn Big Tech and Big Brother are invading our healthcare system

On August 27, registered nurses, patients, and community allies rallied and stopped traffic in cities around the US to demand that hospitals and elected officials cut all ties with artificial intellig...

16 Sep 43min

Why the stories working people tell ourselves about ourselves matter (Wheeling, WV Labor Symposium Speech)

Over the 2026 Labor Day weekend, Working People host and TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez spoke at the Reuther-Pollack Labor History Symposium in Wheeling, West Virginia, organized by the Whee...

9 Sep 32min

Can anyone "make it" in today's music industry?

The 20th-century days of vinyl records, tape decks, CDs, Tower Records, and MTV have given way to our 21st-century age of MP3s and music streaming, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, TikTok, and Ticketmaster. ...

2 Sep 56min

"Katrina 2.0": Residents of Gary, Indiana fight to survive without power for 12 days (and counting)

After a deadly "derecho" storm and flash floods slammed the midwest in early August, downing trees and power lines, tens of thousands of residents in and around Gary, Indiana have been surviving witho...

24 Aug 47min