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United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain called on Harvard to stand up against the Trump administration’s attacks on federal funding at an Institute of Politics forum on Monday.

“I sure as hell hope that Harvard doesn’t cave like Columbia did,” Fain said.

Earlier last month, the Trump administration pulled more than $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University. Columbia met the demands of the administration, but has not yet had its funding restored.

Fain’s comments came hours after the Trump administration announced a review of more than $8 billion in federal grants and contracts to Harvard as part of an ongoing investigation into antisemitism at the University.

In an email to Harvard affiliates after the announcement, President Alan M. Garber ’76 wrote that Harvard would “engage” with the administration’s task force on antisemitism.

The forum on Monday also featured Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-Communication Workers of America, and Julie A. Su, former U.S. Secretary of Labor under the Biden administration. The forum comes as Harvard’s three UAW-affiliated unions negotiate contracts with the University.

Both Fain and Nelson criticized the Trump administration’s recent detentions during their remarks.

“We are under attack — our free speech is under attack,” Fain said. “We have members of UAW that have been detained, and it’s wrong.”

Nelson said she would “challenge institutions like Harvard” to stand up against restrictions on free speech and worker detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

“Don’t you dare bring your ICE agents on this campus,” she said, met with applause from attendees.

A University spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Monday evening.

While Fain focused his criticism on President Donald Trump, he distanced himself from former President Joe Biden’s economic policies and Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

“Until the Democrat Party wakes up and gets back to deciding who they want to represent, we’re going to keep seeing the same thing,” he said.

Though Fain endorced Harris in the 2024 presidential election, he advocated for supporting both independent candidates and independent movements on Tuesday.

Fain also expressed his support for Trump’s decision to impose 25 percent tariffs on vehicles and automobile parts, despite concerns that tariffs would raise prices, unemployment, and leave the auto sector vulnerable to retaliatory tariffs.

“People are having meltdowns because I actually say that I am for tariffs,” he said.

Fain criticized the prevailing views from economists and Democrats — that tariffs will ultimately harm the American consumer by increasing inflationary pressure — and downplayed the broader effects of the protectionist tariff policy.

“We hear all this talk about, ‘Tariffs are going to raise the car prices, and it’s going to cause the prices to go up,’” Fain said.

“It was just flat-out greed and consumer price gouging, but where were all those economists then?” he added.

Panelists also discussed a recent Trump administration executive order removing collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal employees in agencies with “national security missions.”

“This is the biggest attack on labor, and we should all be in the streets,” Nelson said.

In an interview after the event, Fain spoke highly of labor organizing in higher education and its potential in the movement.

“The higher ed sector is, to me, the most exciting sector in the UAW,” Fain said. “To me, they’re one of the most integral parts and one of the most beautiful parts about our union.”

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at hugo.chiasson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.

—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at amann.mahajan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.