Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure

Statement on Professors and Political Activity

Statement defining rights and obligations of faculty regarding the institutional regulations of many colleges and universitiesthat govern the participation of professors in political activity and public office holding.

Academic Freedom and Artistic Expression

Statement proposing policies that are designed to assist academic institutions to respond to the issues that may arise from the presentation of artistic works to the public and to do so in a manner that preserves academic freedom:

Verification and Trust: Background Investigations Preceding Faculty Appointment

Report setting forth standards that should guide academic institutions in performing background checks of prospective faculty members.

Statement on Corporate Funding of Academic Research

Report concerning the growing collaboration between industry and research universities. This relationship has been the most productive for both parties when scholars are free to pursue and transmit basic knowledge through research and teaching. The relationship, however, has never been free of concerns that the financial ties of researchers or their institutions to industry may exert improper pressure on the design and outcome of research.

Faculty Appointment and Family Relationship

Statement urging the discontinuance of anti-nepotism policies and practices, and the rescinding of laws and institutional regulations that perpetuate them.

On Processing Complaints of Discrimination

Report examining evidentiary issues of proof of discrimination and providing guidance to faculty, administrators, and the Association’s staff on handling complaints raising claims of discrimination. While the report was drafted specifically to address allegations of discrimination on the basis of sex, it has over the years proven useful for complaints of improper discrimination based on other attributes as well.

The Role of the Faculty in Conditions of Financial Exigency

A report making recommendations on the faculty's role in financial exigency and proposing revisions to the AAUP's Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Program closures on the scale we have recently witnessed represent a massive transfer of power from the faculty to the administration over curricular matters that affect the educational missions of institutions, for which the faculty should always bear the primary responsibility. Increasingly, administrators are making budgetary decisions that profoundly affect the curricula and the educational missions of their institutions; rarely are those decisions recognized as decisions about the curriculum, even though the elimination of entire programs of study (ostensibly for financial reasons) has obvious implications for the curricular range and the academic integrity of any university.

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