With less than a month away from a Trump administration and the possible end by executive order of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, there’s a new X factor emerging on whether colleges should become “sanctuary” campuses.
The X factor is labor.
The union movement is not dead yet in America.
At the University of Washington, seven unions representing 15,000 workers are asking that the entire university system, including the medical school, become a “sanctuary university.”
While many campuses, most notably the University of California and the California State University system, have adopted the word “sanctuary,” others like the University of Illinois and Northwestern have balked. Some fear the legal ramifications and impacts to federal funding. Many schools believe that non-cooperation with federal authorities, including protection of student and worker privacy, should be sufficient.
UW stands firmly behind a letter written last month from university President Ana Mari Cauce and Provost Jerry Baldasty that tried to reassure the school’s undocumented community. It believes using the word “sanctuary” wouldn’t add much to what the school is already doing.
