July-August 2000

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Infringements on Academic Freedom and Governance Condemned at Annual Meeting

By Hans P. Johnson

Delegates to the 2000 AAUP annual meeting added two institutions to the Association's list of administrations censured for violating principles of academic freedom and tenure, and they voted one institution onto the AAUP's governance sanction list. The delegates removed one institution from each of the two lists.

Censure by the AAUP informs the academic community that an administration has not adhered to the standards of academic freedom and tenure jointly formulated by the AAUP and the Association of Colleges and Universities and endorsed by 170 professional and educational organizations. A governance sanction signals that unsatisfactory conditions of academic governance exist at an institution.

Acting on recommendations from the AAUP's Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the delegates censured the administrations of Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut and the University of Central Arkansas. An investigating committee reported on the details of the Albertus Magnus case in the January-February issue of Academe; a report on UCA appeared in the March-April issue.

Late-breaking developments led members of the academic freedom and tenure committee to make no recommendation to the annual meeting regarding the MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine in Philadelphia, the subject of another recent investigating report. (See the May-June issue.) The committee agreed to provide an update on the situation at the school at the 2001 annual meeting.

Added to the list of institutions sanctioned for substantial noncompliance with standards of academic governance was Miami-Dade Community College in Florida, the subject of a report published in the May-June issue.

Much-improved policies and practices at the Illinois College of Optometry resulted in its removal from the censure list, and the reestablishment of a system of shared governance at Francis Marion University led to its being voted off the sanction list.

The statements presented to the annual meeting that provided the grounds for these actions will be published in the September-October issue, along with a full report on the annual meeting.