Phase one requires establishing an “organization committee” and distributing a petition calling on the university to sever relationships with businesses believed to be cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If demands are not met in a timely manner, activists are directed to “escalate” by protesting outside the homes of university officials, reaching out to influential alumni, and staging demonstrations.

If that fails, students are to skip class and engage in “indefinite” campus occupations, similar to tactics employed by pro-Palestinian protestors, until their demands are met. The document notes that the phase three tactics “have only been approved by Sunrise and [the Young Democratic Socialists of America.]” 

The document does not include a principled objection to the tactics from the AAUP but rather states that “students can generally take more risks on campus than paid employees, and it’s important to be cognizant of that dynamic,” suggesting that the professors don’t necessarily oppose the tactics but that they are worried about job security. 

A slide deck produced in conjunction with the AAUP-developed toolkit states that the movement’s strategy is to “create a crisis” for university leadership.

“This should be a wake up call for the public that activist professors are coordinating with far-left radicals to create chaos on campuses to achieve a leftwing political revolution,” Rhyen Staley, Defending Education’s director of research, told the Washington Examiner. “It is gross and unprofessional that these academics prefer to participate in the economic bullying of the very institutions that pay their salary instead of focusing on educating their students.”

Some pages of the toolkit include the American Federation of Teachers logo, one of the two major teachers unions in the United States. The union, which is affiliated with the AAUP, did not return a request for comment.

Companies targeted by the movement include Hilton Hotels, Flock Safety, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Target, and airlines working with immigration-related law enforcement. Included in the toolkit is a list of over 2,000 universities that partner with one or more such companies.

While the AAUP, the Sunrise Movement, and the DSA disavow violence and property destruction in this toolkit, demonstrations orchestrated by the latter two groups have led to both in the past.

A Hilton hotel that appeared on the Sunrise Movement’s list of targets in Minneapolis, for instance, saw its façade destroyed, windows smashed, and walls covered in graffiti due to its housing of ICE agents, the Washington Free Beacon reported. One agent was left bloodied by a rioter. The slideshow accompanying the toolkit calls on activists to make sustained noise outside Hilton hotels to deprive ICE agents and all other guests of sleep.

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Some of the pro-Palestinian encampments that cropped up on college campuses over the years, in which the DSA was often involved, devolved into clashes with law enforcement and resulted in damage to university property. The Sunrise Movement, for its part, has staged a number of protests involving illegal tactics, such as occupying government buildings and blocking roads. 

The DSA has also taken stances that have been criticized by some as radical, such as calling for the abolition of police and prisons and aligning itself with authoritarian regimes in China, Cuba, and Venezuela. 

The AAUP did not respond to a request for comment.