Legal Information Available on AAUP Web Site
By Ann Springer
The AAUP's legal office continuously provides new and updated resources on legal issues affecting faculty specifically and the higher education community generally. Questions about issues as diverse as ownership of faculty syllabi, pro per procedures for search committees, policy and legal considerations in drafting institutional conflict-of-commitment policies, and the legal grounding of academic freedom for students are answered in the legal outlines posted on the AAUP Web site. Consult the outlines at the specific Web addresses provided below or visit the AAUP Web site and browse the whole collection.
One new outline, "Intellectual Property Legal Issues for Faculty," addresses pressing questions about intellectual property ownership. Who owns your course material, scholarly articles, or online course? How do you ensure legal rights to control future editing and updates to those materials? When should you make special contractual arrangements to protect your rights? What policy or contract language on intellectual property should your institution adopt? These questions and more are answered in the extensive outline.
Search committees grappling with diversity issues and striving to implement legal and effective strategies should also consult the newly updated "How to Diversify Faculty: The Current Legal Landscape." This outline provides a comprehensive overview of the law in this area, as well as practical suggestions for search committees to recruit, hire, and retain diverse faculty.
College and university administrations have long recognized and encouraged faculty members to engage in a wide range of activities outside the university. At the same time, substantial involvement by faculty in outside activities may raise concerns about "conflicts of commitment"—the amount of time spent by faculty outside their teaching, research, and service responsibility to the institution. How do different institutions deal with faculty employment outside the university? What legal challenges exist to restrictions on outside faculty employment? These and other questions are addressed in "Faculty Employment Outside the University: Conflicts of Commitment."
Finally, there are increasing reports of clashes between students and faculty in the classroom. What is the legal and policy grounding of student academic freedom? How are courts balancing the right of faculty to teach and the right of students to learn? What are the legislative responses to recent controversies capturing the headlines? These and other cutting-edge legal and policy issues are explored in a newly available outline, "Academic Freedom of Students and Professors, and Political Discrimination."
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