AAUP Updates

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has issued an important decision recognizing academic freedom and economic security as “important norms in the academic community.”

After noting that contractual language at issue in the case was taken word-for-word from the AAUP’s 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the court echoed crucial points made in the AAUP’s amicus brief, explaining in particular that “academic freedom is essential to the common good” and that the purpose of tenure is to safeguard academic freedom and ensure the economic security of faculty members.

 

This week, the AAUP filed an amicus brief in an important legal case concerning the ability of a college to terminate tenured faculty appointments due to the institution’s purported financial difficulties. The plaintiffs were tenured professors at Canisius College prior to their termination.

This week, the AAUP filed amicus briefs in two important legal cases involving the right of faculty members to teach and to speak publicly about curriculum standards and shared governance. Our briefs are a key component of our work to defend higher education for the common good, and they aim to shape the law to support academic freedom, which continues to face an unprecedented barrage of attacks. The AAUP hopes that these amicus briefs will spur the courts to issue decisions that will be favorable to the individual professors involved and that will protect the rights of faculty more broadly in the years to come.

The AAUP’s governing Council voted to add New College of Florida and Spartanburg Community College to the Association’s list of institutions sanctioned for substantial noncompliance with widely accepted standards of academic government.

The AAUP has received a grant from the Mellon Foundation to establish a Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, with the aim of examining and confronting the recent surge of political and ideological attacks on American higher education.

We, along with other members of the American labor movement, mourn the loss of life in Israel and Palestine. We express our solidarity with all workers and our common desire for peace in Palestine and Israel, and we call on President Joe Biden and Congress to push for an immediate ceasefire and end to the siege of Gaza. Read the whole statement.

The AAUP released a statement today commenting on the recent US House Committee on Education and the Workforce demand for documents and information from the University of Pennsylvania on attempts to curb antisemitism. The statement calls on administrators, faculties, trustees, and all who care about higher education as a public good in a democracy to resist political interference and reaffirm their commitments to academic freedom, freedom of expression, shared governance, and institutional autonomy.

AAUP in the News

Thu, 03/14/2024  |  Inside Higher Ed

The bill “seems to be deeply problematic; it assigns to the Board of Regents powers that it really should have delegated to faculty,” said Mark Criley, a senior program officer for the American Association of University Professors’ Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance. A faculty member’s right to assign the grades he or she believes a student deserves is considered a pillar of academic freedom.

Fri, 03/01/2024  |  Chronicle of Higher Education

"It is a blank check to fire any faculty member for any reason, at any time, regardless of tenure. I think people find that hard to believe, because it is so shocking and so radical and so un-American, but that is what the text says.”

Mon, 02/26/2024  |  New York Times

Since 1915 and urgently since Oct. 7, the A.A.U.P. has advocated a robust concept of academic freedom. We have urged administrators to provide an environment in which no voices are silenced, no ideas are suppressed, and the most deeply held beliefs are subject to challenge.

Fri, 02/23/2024  |  The Pueblo Chieftain

Jonathan Rees, president of CSU Pueblo's AAUP chapter, said his hope is that the survey convinces the administration to move faculty economic concerns way up the priority list. "If we explain how bad the problem is, then maybe we won't be the last thing they worry about when they are putting together next year's budget."

Wed, 02/21/2024  |  Inside Higher Ed

“These measures would severely constrain academic freedom,” says a joint statement by the Purdue at West Lafayette and Indiana University at Bloomington chapters of the AAUP. “The security imparted by tenure is the fundamental protection of academic freedom; its loss would make university positions in Indiana undesirable. Recruiting and retaining top faculty, who will always have alternatives, will no longer be possible.”

Thu, 02/01/2024  |  Los Angeles Times

There is no more important place for colleges to spend their money than hiring the best instructors they can find and providing fair pay, benefits and reasonable working conditions.

Upcoming Events

April 4, 2024

Join us for a virtual discussion of the current battle over political speech on campus. Policy experts and chapters leaders from the AAUP and AFT will delve into how AAUP’s policies on academic freedom and campus speech apply to the current campus free speech situation, what faculty at different campuses are facing on the ground, and how chapters are working to protect speech rights.

April 17, 2024

Join AAUP chapters, higher education unions, and student organizations across the country in a National Day of Action for Higher Education! 

May 31, 2024 to June 1, 2024

A meeting of the AAUP's Committee A for Academic Freedom and Tenure.

E-mail Updates

 

Announcements

Elections for AAUP officers and members of the governing Council will be held this spring. Here's the information you need to participate.

See open positions and learn how to apply.