Do Union-Backed Pressure Campaigns Systematically Dismantle Campus Security Measures at Major Universities?

Labor organizations and allied advocacy groups are trying to leverage contract demands and public campaigns to weaken campus surveillance, remove police, and block law enforcement cooperation — with what appears to have been deadly consequences at Brown University.

A coordinated campaign by labor unions, their affiliated organizations, and so-called “progressive” advocacy groups appears to have successfully pressured major American universities—perhaps including Brown University—to dismantle or severely curtail campus security infrastructure, according to documents and labor records examined by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research.

The pressure for reduced or inadequate security comes through three associated campaigns: a nationwide letter blast demanding the removal of security cameras and surveillance systems, contract demands by labor union officials that explicitly push against police presence and security enforcement, and union-sponsored resolutions calling for campuses to treat law enforcement as threats rather than partners in protecting students and staff.

Many wonder if the consequences of these efforts became visible on December 13, 2025, when a mass shooting at Brown University left two people dead and nine injured.

It’s likely that members of campus communities nationwide considered staying home after winter break until security measures were reimplemented.

The August Campaign: 30+ Groups Demand Cameras Removed

In August 2025, a coalition of more than 30 radical organizations led by Fight for the Future blasted out a coordinated letter to approximately 60 major U.S. universities, including Brown University, demanding the immediate removal of security camera systems and related surveillance technologies.

The letter, signed by the 30 organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, called on universities to:

• Dismantle security camera systems and disable existing footage of campus protesters;
• Remove facial recognition technology and license plate readers;
• Eliminate motion sensors, heat sensors, and Wi-Fi-based location tracking;
• Delete all recorded videos of campus protests and demonstrations;
• Cease cooperation with law enforcement agencies seeking to identify, surveil, or deport students and staff; and
• Refrain from sharing surveillance data unless compelled by a judicial warrant.

Significantly, this coalition also included labor-connected organizations such as the National Domestic Workers Alliance and labor-focused “civil rights” groups. The anti-security push to “defund the police” has become embedded within a broader labor union-aligned network.

These organizations frame their demands as protecting civil liberties, arguing that campus surveillance is being used to identify and punish self-described “peaceful protesters.” The Supreme Court, they contend, has affirmed the right to anonymous political participation, but clearly this “right” does not extend to people who commit violence, vandalism, trespass, or other acts that infringe on the rights and safety of other students and college personnel.

AFT Associated Professor Unions Join the Push

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and its affiliate, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), amplified the Fight for the Future campaign to make the campus less safe by including its goals in official union recommendations issued in March 2025.

The AAUP/AFT union explicitly advised university administrators to:

• Delete video footage of campus protests and demonstrations;
• Refrain from expanding monitoring technologies or surveillance systems;
• Avoid implementing AI-enabled facial identification systems; and
• Oppose new camera installations, particularly mobile security cameras.

Local AAUP chapters at institutions such as Johns Hopkins University and the University of Michigan actively opposed new security camera installations, with union representatives demanding assurances that biometric data would not be collected and expressing concerns that college security infrastructure would prioritize student safety over shielding disruptive rioters from prosecution and arrest.

These recommendations gave official union endorsement to the Fight for the Future campaign and positioned the professors’ unions as institutional advocates for dismantling campus security measures.

Some might wonder why Big Labor wants to turn off cameras and eliminate facial recognition, and allow violent and disruptive protestors to wear masks concealing their identity. Until these chaos provocateurs are identified and prosecuted, we may not know their true motivations. But we know that dismantling police presence and campus security has become a widespread cry of the far left. Recently, several students gave congressional testimony and related court filings regarding the link between campus harassment and their graduate student unions.

Unions Embrace Violence and Antisemitism on College Campuses

At MIT, Jewish graduate students who worked at the college as well as attended it as students were forced to pay union dues and fees[i] to the United Electrical (UE) labor union bosses who had exclusive representation power at the university. The following highlighted comments reveal how repulsive forced dues policies are to individual liberty and religious freedom. In effect, these policies force graduate students to financially support union violence on campuses and attacks on their religion.

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“In November, my union representative joined anti-Israel protesters who were occupying a building, and when threatened with suspensions, the GSU (Graduate Student Union) backed the protesters.” (MIT Ph.D. Student Will Sussman at CampusReform)

“In May, the GSU vice president was arrested at yet another protest. She was banned from campus but remains on paid ‘union leave.’” (MIT Ph.D. Student Will Sussman at NRTW.org)

“Choosing to support inhumane acts of violence, terrorism, mass murder and kidnapping… I want someone to tell me, when is the right context to come and urinate on the window of the prayer room of MIT Hillel in front of the Jewish praying students inside there?” (MIT Ph.D. student Liyam Chitayat on FoxNews)

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These unions have been attempting to use the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to protect their disruptive campus protests and violent activities.

Union Contract Demands: “Cops Off Campus” at Columbia

At Columbia University, the pressure extended far beyond advocacy letters. Student Workers of Columbia (SWC) UAW Local 2710, a unit of the United Auto Workers union representing campus employees, advanced a comprehensive “Cops Off Campus” agenda through official union resolutions and bargaining demands.

In a formal resolution, the local UAW union decreed:

• The presence of police and immigration officers is a health and safety issue that union locals across the country have rightfully claimed bargaining rights over;
• 106 organizations, including unions such as locals of UAW and 1199SEIU, National Domestic Workers Alliance, and New York Taxi Workers Alliance, have publicly urged Mayor de Blasio and the City Council to defund the NYPD;
• Establish Columbia as a “Sanctuary Campus”;
• SWC UAW Local 2710 condemns the presence of police and immigration officers on university premises;
• SWC UAW Local 2710 calls on Columbia to immediately sever its ties with the NYPD, which has a documented history of violence, discrimination, and harassment;
• SWC UAW Local 2710 calls on Mayor Adams and the City Council to defund the NYPD by reducing the NYPD budget by at least one billion dollars and reallocating the funds to resources that have been proven to support poor communities of color…;
• SWC UAW Local 2710 commits to making the health and safety of our members a bargaining priority in our next contract negotiations, by introducing and securing a robust “Cops off Campus” contract article addressing both the access to campus of NYPD and representatives of governmental agencies; and
• Columbia must not allow state, local, and federal law enforcement on campus.

The union resolution cited 106 organizations—including UAW locals, SEIU locals, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and New York Taxi Workers Alliance—as having publicly called for NYPD defunding, treating union-backed police abolition campaigns as justification for removing law enforcement from a university campus.

But the demands did not stop at removing the police. The same UAW Graduate Student Labor Union Local’s contract proposals called for:

• Disarming Security Personnel: Public Safety officers must not carry firearms, tasers, lethal weapons, or less-than-lethal weapons. Security staff would be stripped of authority to use force, make arrests, or forcibly remove individuals from university property.
• Eliminating ID Requirements: Students and staff could not be required to present identification, remove face coverings, or provide any form of ID verification to security personnel. Refusal to comply could not result in disciplinary action.
• Shutting Down Surveillance: The university must “cease all ongoing surveillance efforts through both electronic means and through employing investigatory personnel” and cannot initiate new information-collecting activities.
• Blocking Law Enforcement Coordination: Columbia’s Public Safety cannot coordinate with the NYPD or other law enforcement agencies. Police cannot guard campus entrances or exits.
• Restricting Data Use: Surveillance data can never be the sole basis for disciplinary action against workers.

These contract demands were laughably framed as “worker-protection” measures. But this is no laughing matter, and systematically removing every tool that police agencies typically use to investigate crimes and deter violence protects neither students nor staff. But it does protect left-wing criminals, rioters, and vandals, while making it harder for law enforcement to do its job.

Brown University: From Big Labor and Allied Groups’ Pressure to Tragedy

Brown University received the August 2025 letter from the Fight for the Future coalition, along with roughly 59 other major universities. Brown University owns an extensive campus security camera system comprising approximately 800 cameras.

University officials have not publicly disclosed whether they responded to the campaign or curtailed their surveillance and data retention practices. However, subsequent events raise troubling questions.

In December’s mass shooting on Brown University’s campus, two people (Ella Cook, a sophomore from Alabama, and  Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, a freshman from Virginia) were violently murdered, and nine others were seriously injured in the incident. When federal authorities and local law enforcement launched their investigation, a critical gap emerged: usable security camera footage from the university’s own systems was reportedly unavailable.

Even President Trump publicly noted the absence of campus surveillance footage from the incident, suggesting it was striking that a university with extensive camera infrastructure could not provide law enforcement with recorded evidence of the shooting.

According to reports, the available footage law enforcement obtained came primarily from private sources—security cameras operated by businesses near campus—rather than from Brown University’s own surveillance systems.

The incident raises a direct and uncomfortable question: Had Brown University curtailed or disabled its own security camera system, or altered its data retention practices, in response to Big Labor and its allies’ pressure campaign demanding that universities “turn off” surveillance systems designed to protect students and staff?

At this time, Brown University officials have remained mostly silent on the question, neither confirming nor denying whether they had responded to labor union and other advocacy groups’ demands.

The Broader Pattern

The campaign targeting Brown University and 59 other educational institutions reflects a coordinated strategy by labor union officials and labor-aligned pressure groups to treat campus safety infrastructure as a bargaining chip in contract negotiations, as well as pushing anti-police campaigns.

What began as claims about protecting union “activist anonymity” evolved into systematic demands to:

• – Remove police and law enforcement from campuses entirely;
• – Disarm security personnel and strip them of enforcement authority;
• – Eliminate electronic surveillance and video recording systems;
• – Block university cooperation with law enforcement; and
• – Delete records of campus disruptions.

These demands did not emerge organically from student or staff concerns. They were driven by hard-left union bosses and labor-affiliated advocacy “coalitions” that treat campus safety as secondary to leftist activist protection.  Worse, they treat our law enforcement personnel as threats to be excluded rather than partners in institutional security.

When unions at Columbia try to embed “Cops Off Campus” language into collective bargaining agreements, they do not represent the democratic votes of all affected students and everyone else on the campus. To the contrary, they push this radical agenda through contract negotiations that gave union officials—not students, parents, or security professionals—the power to determine how or if campus law enforcement should operate.

Questions for University Leadership

The Brown University shooting raises several urgent questions for higher education Boards nationwide:

• Have labor union officials on your campus pushed “Cops Off Campus” demands [an international problem] and/or sought to disarm security personnel through contract negotiations? If so, what constraints do those union-pushed safety and security reduction agreements now place on your ability to cooperate with law enforcement?
• Did your institution respond to the August 2025 pressure campaign by curtailing security camera systems or data retention practices? If so, what was the specific pressure: letters, protests, union demands, or administrative recommendations?
• Have your security professionals recommended camera systems or surveillance technologies that your institution declined to implement due to union officials’ pressure or activist campaigns? What security gaps have resulted?
• In the event of a serious crime or mass casualty incident on your campus, would your institution have adequate security footage to assist law enforcement investigation? Or have you curtailed your surveillance systems, deleted past images that could help track down suspects, or in other ways that would hamper emergency responses and investigations?

These are not abstract questions. They are matters of grave concern to students, visitors, parents and staff. When union officials and advocacy groups use public campaigns and contract negotiations to systematically remove cameras, hamper police, and block law enforcement cooperation, they are making deliberate choices to undermine campus security and endanger the lives of students and everyone else on campus.

University Administrations and Boards of Trustees need to ask themselves whether they have allowed labor union pressure to compromise a primary institutional responsibility: protecting the safety of the students and staff entrusted to their care.

About This Report

This analysis is based on examination of official union documents, coalition letter signatories, union resolutions from Columbia University’s Student Workers of Columbia, recommendations issued by the American Association of University Professors, public congressional testimony, and public statements regarding the December 2025 incident at Brown University.

The National Institute for Labor Relations Research is a nonprofit research organization dedicated to studying labor unions, union governance, and the impacts of labor policy on American institutions and workers.

For additional documentation and source materials related to this report, contact the National Institute for Labor Relations Research at NILRR.org.

We are grateful for the help from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and Attorney Glenn Taubman’s research assistance.

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NOTE: Because all Northeastern states lack Right to Work employee protections, these graduate students are forced to pay unwanted fees to union bosses or jeopardize their participation in Graduate School programs.