UIC students, faculty rally at U of I trustees meeting demanding no capitulation to Trump
Chicago, IL – On Thursday, December 15, around 50 students and staff from progressive organizations and unions at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) rallied outside of the quarterly University of Illinois Board of Trustees meeting to demand that the board fund diversity measures.
Since Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, the University of Illinois System has continually capitulated to the racist, reactionary Trump agenda. From suspending gender-affirming care for minors at UI Health, proposing cuts to the School of Literatures, Cultural Studies and Linguistics, cutting the budget of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the Centers for Cultural Understanding and Social Change, refusing to pay undergraduate and graduate workers a decent wage, and allowing ICE to come on campus and terrorize the UIC community, the UI System Administration and Board of Trustees continue to let down students and staff at UIC.
Tired of the lack of accountability and transparency from the UIC administration, organizations and unions including New Students for a Democratic Society (New SDS) at UIC, Graduate Employee Organization (GEO), Housing Staff United (HSU) or OPEIU Local 39, Illinois Nurses Association-University of Illinois Health (INA UIH), UIC United Faculty (UIC UF), Service Employees International Union Local 73 (SEIU 73), Anakbayan at UIC, Socialist Alternative, Sanctuary for All, Radical Public Health, Mexican Students de Aztlán (MeSA), and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) came together to demand that the UI Board of Trustees stop leaving students and workers out in the cold.
Susie Summerlot from HSU/OPEIU Local 39, addressed the hypocrisy of the UIC mission statement saying, “You claim to commit to vitality. Vitality means strength and energy, and your students cannot exercise their potential when you do nothing to divest from genocides that affect their families or when you do nothing to prevent federal agents from coming on campus and spreading fear.”
Jeff Gore, vice president for the Common Good of UIC UF, spoke on unity and the importance of diversity on campus, “For them, diversity is words; for us, real diversity is central to the campus mission. But we’re fighting back, and we’re fighting together... They govern in the shadows; we work together in the light of day.”
“We have been told UIC is working on it, that UIC cares, that UIC will fund our cultural centers, but it is all talk! And in 2026? We’re done with empty promises and patronization,” declared Jax George, a member of New SDS at UIC, on the lack of action and transparency from the UIC administration.
Inside of the meeting, Ileanne Cecilio, a member of Student Worker Alliance, an organization composed of current and former undergraduate workers at UIC’s Centers for Cultural Understanding and Social Change and MeSA, gave public comment addressing funding for the Diversity Community Engagement Program (DCEP) in the CCUSC and ICE presence on campus,
Cecilio stated, “We need the administration to take up the task of showing up for all of their students, showing they care and to advocate and share resources available to them. We demand that you fund our essential cultural centers! That you fund and bring back DCEP! We want transparency from the administration with ICE on campus as well as clear, concise and accessible protocols developed in collaboration with the organizations on campus already doing the work to protect the community.”
Protesters chanted, “we want justice you say how? ICE off our campus now!”
At the end of the rally, organizers called for continued collaboration amongst organizations and urged those attending the rally who were not involved with any organizations to get involved and continue to mobilize.