In the fall of 2017, the University of Florida (UF) and the city of Gainesville were part of a coda to a terrible event in recent U.S. history: the violent torch-wielding rally of white supremacists and extreme far-right groups in the college town of Charlottesville, Virginia, that left three people dead and at least 33 injured. These events reminded the nation of the presence of organized and often violent racist extremism in the U.S.--and alerted us to its increasing normalization and possibly growing power. In this essay, the authors draw on their experiences as members of the United Faculty of Florida (UFF)-University of Florida to discuss what unions in higher education can do to respond to domestic extremism, and why it is more important than ever for union members to engage in labor-community coalitions.