An Open Letter to the University of Chicago

We write to you as members of the University of Chicago community. Our commitment to open inquiry and rigorous debate compels us to speak plainly about the responsibilities the University has abandoned with its recent restructuring initiatives.

In recent months, the University has undertaken sweeping restructuring initiatives within the Social Sciences Division (SSD) and the Division of the Arts & Humanities (AHD) that would allow them to redirect funds previously allocated to those divisions. On June 14th, the Divisional Organization Committee—composed of AHD faculty—was directed to come up with proposals for consolidating sixteen humanities and arts departments into eight, eliminating any department with fewer than fifteen tenured or tenure-track professors. This criterion would all but dismantle the area studies departments. At the same time, the University directed the Languages Working Group, also consisting of instructors and faculty in AHD, to propose a minimum number of students required for any language class to run, and even the wholesale elimination of certain languages within the division.

The first concrete effects of these initiatives are already here: Ph.D. admissions across half of the humanities departments (including Classics, Comparative Literature, and Germanic Studies) have been frozen, with several social sciences departments (including the Committee on Social Thought), also instructed to do the same.

The administration wants us to believe these changes stem from federal budget cuts—a convenient distraction from the debt generated by years of financial mismanagement. We urge readers to consult Clifford Ando’s published analyses of the University’s finances, which lay bare the true scope of the problem. The Board of Trustees using the Trump administration’s budgetary moves as cover to unilaterally push through long-desired restructuring is not only dishonest—it is a betrayal of its commitments to the intellectual community that supports it.

The timing of these decisions is no accident. They were made in the summer, when faculty and students are dispersed, ensuring that the community is less able to respond or organize. This is an intentional tactic to suppress opposition.

The attack on area studies is, at its core, an attack on the study and support of minority groups. Instructing faculty to “identify languages we no longer need to teach” imposes a hierarchy of value, implying that some languages—and, by extension, the cultures they represent—are less worthy of preservation or study. Many of the departments slated for merger or dissolution are precisely those dedicated to minority-focused scholarship. The departments whose Ph.D. admissions have been frozen are those where language study is essential, and cutting language classes that don’t meet a certain threshold of students will disproportionately harm minority studies, which tend to have lower enrollments.

These moves betray the University’s stated commitment to global perspectives and diversity in scholarship. They an affront to students and parents who pay private-school-level tuition expecting small, specialized classes—precisely the courses now targeted for elimination. The planned increase in undergraduate enrollment without a corresponding expansion of faculty will only accelerate the erosion of academic quality.

If this restructuring proceeds, the University’s top humanities and social sciences faculty will have every incentive to leave for institutions that value their work. The resulting loss of established and accomplished scholars will be irreversible.

The Board of Trustees is demonstrating a profound misunderstanding of what the University of Chicago stands for and why it is valued. We will not accept a vision of the University that sacrifices intellectual breadth and rigor for financial expediency. Below are our demands to the University: