The New School’s faculty union chapter of the American Association of University Professors criticized the university’s layoffs as a major gutting of full-time faculty, calling for reinstatement or phased retirement. The AAUP chapter targeted the necessity of the cuts after The New School announced reductions of 19 faculty and 68 staff tied to a fiscal deficit and a plan to shrink its 2027 budget. The AAUP said the layoffs would destroy academic structures and disproportionately affect humanities and social sciences faculty, while it also alleged that cuts fell more heavily on faculty of color. The university framed the actions as rebalancing faculty and staff levels to match enrollment and budget realities and to support a new structural plan. The New School is also consolidating colleges, and the workforce reductions are described as building on earlier voluntary buyouts and vacancy eliminations. The dispute signals renewed pressure on academic labor models as private nonprofit institutions respond to enrollment declines and deficits.