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UA College Democrats will be holding a peaceful rally and protest dubbed Tide Against Trump today from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. at Snow Hinton Park, located at Hinton Park Dr, Tuscaloosa, AL 35404. Their protest will involve students, staff, alumni, UA community members and “everyone who vehemently opposes Trump’s attempt to turn our beloved commencement ceremonies into a self-indulging spectacle of divisiveness,” the group’s press release shared.
Protest partners, as of now, include the Tuscaloosa County Democratic Party, the Alabama Democratic Party, the Alabama Young Democrats, the West Alabama Young Democrats and Blueprint Alabama. The group is also excited to announce that former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, former Sen. Doug Jones, and 2026 U.S. Senate candidate Kyle Sweetser will be joining them in their “efforts to promote academic freedom and oppose the President’s attacks on it,” they said.
Last Monday night, President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social account that he was invited to speak as part of the University of Alabama’s commencement ceremonies. “UA clarified that he has, in fact, been given his own commencement ceremony, one that will almost certainly amount to an Alabama taxpayer and UA student body-funded rally on Thursday, May 1,” the group said.
UACD released a statement condemning the “criminal and unpopular, divisive, and authoritarian President” for turning last season’s football game between Georgia and Alabama into a “political sideshow” and reminded the public of the Trump administration’s kidnapping and detention of Alireza Doroudi, a UA Ph.D. student, last month without due process under law.
UACD President Braden Vick said, “Donald Trump used the biggest Alabama home game in years in order to campaign for President last year and still narrowly lost our campus. Now, Americans are once again waking up to the fact that this wannabe monarch wants to rule over us like a king. If we rejected his deeply un-American agenda at the peak of his popularity, how does he expect us to roll the red carpet out for him again?”
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke stated, “Overcoming Donald Trump’s dangerous attacks on our fellow Americans demands that we organize everywhere, including in communities that are too often written off or taken for granted. While Trump is coming to Alabama to divide and demean, we are bringing people together to fight for our neighbors, our freedoms, our democracy, and our future. We invite Americans of all backgrounds to join us in uniting and proving that the power of people is bigger than the power of any president.”
Some media reports suggest that President Trump was not invited but rather inserted himself into their commencement ceremonies. The UACD executive board and its partners said they understand the unenviable position that President Stuart Bell and the rest of the administration have been put in as a result of President Trump’s “blatantly politicized funding freezes and threats to colleges and universities across our great nation,” they described.
“Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth (R) has dismissed our grave concerns about the President’s continued meddling in our University’s affairs as ‘radical’ and a ‘childish tantrum.’ It is neither childish or radical to want our university to live up to the Capstone Creed that defines our student body,” UACD concluded.
