Professors at the University of Minnesota-Duluth held a panel that they referred to as a “Teach-In” to speak to students about the issues they have with the actions taken by the Trump administration.

The professors felt that it was time, on the National Day of Action for Higher Education, for them to voice their concerns to students and other faculty, staff, and university affiliates.

“As scholars we’ve been watching what’s happening around the United States now particularly since Donald Trump came into the White House. Some of the issues we discussed today are things that predate the Trump White House, but we’ve been alarmed by the developments we’ve been seeing. It appears that there’s dissent of authoritarianism in the United States,” said organizer and UMD professor Scott Laderman.

“We have an administration that’s defying court orders that’s detaining and preparing to deport people that’s abolished the right to due process that’s trying to undermine our constitutional freedoms and as people who think a lot about these issues, we have the privilege as scholars of being able to do so. We felt that we might have something to be able to contribute to the national conversation right now,” said Laderman.

Some Republican students were in attendance as well, and they were invited by organizers of the event to get more perspectives in the room. Joe Voit, the president of the College Republicans said it was helpful to hear what the other side of the isle has to say about his party’s actions and agenda, but that focus should be on how goals can be achieved rather than what is being done wrong.

“One of the biggest takeaways is I think what we need to do instead of always criticizing what Trump is doing, maybe offer suggestions as well as take it with a grain of salt because when you’re in this kind of power it might be easy to seem like you’re power grabbing or make decisions that you know also resemble that as well,” said Voit.

“It’s really easy to sit on a panel and just say well he’s doing this wrong and he’s doing that wrong. This is happening because of that. It’s a lot harder to actually answer the question of well how we come about this and what can we do and rather than what we cannot do,” said Voit.

Regardless of difference in opinion on policies, both sides agree that it’s better to talk about these issues than suppress differing points of view.