AAUP Updates

Aaron Nisenson will serve as interim executive director of the AAUP while a search for a director is underway. Aaron has served as senior counsel and director of the legal department at the AAUP since 2013 and speaks and writes extensively on higher education, faculty rights, and constitutional, labor, and employment law. Aaron has litigated labor, employment, and First Amendment cases in federal and state courts and has directed the litigation and representational work of dozens of attorneys. He has authored amicus briefs submitted in the US Supreme Court, and in federal and state appellate courts on constitutional, labor and employment law issues.

The AAUP will conduct an inquiry into the case of Professor Maura Finkelstein, who was first summarily suspended from her tenured position at Muhlenberg College and then dismissed because of a student complaint regarding her extramural speech and conduct related to the war in Gaza.

The dismissal raises serious concerns about academic freedom at Muhlenberg. It also appears that the Muhlenberg administration has not followed its own regulations regarding dismissal, or incorporated a crucial element in the AAUP’s understanding of academic due process—that a dismissal action must be preceded by an adjudicative hearing before an elected faculty body in which the administration bears the burden of demonstrating just cause for dismissal.

The Nonpartisan College Voter Registration and Education Project aims to increase student voter registration and turnout by asking faculty to devote five minutes of class time to voter education and on-the-spot voter registration. Sign up and project leaders will connect you with a local, experienced, nonpartisan presenter to come to your classroom to do the presentation.

The State University System of Florida’s recent decision to require campuses to identify all courses that might have “antisemitic material and/or anti-Israel bias” is the latest step in the state’s ongoing attack on academic and intellectual freedom and the autonomy of higher education.

It is the faculty’s responsibility to teach in accordance with the state of their disciplinary knowledge, not in accordance with the whims of the state, boards of trustees, or powerful outside forces. That may include discussion of controversial materials, and will inevitably include both topics and materials relevant to the course subject. To insist that courses and materials that touch on certain subjects must be subject to extra scrutiny because of their controversial nature is to impose a political litmus test on what should be professional judgment.

The AAUP has joined several national unions and labor organizations, including AFSCME, AFT, CWA, HELU, NEA, OPEIU, SEIU, UAW, and Unite Here, in issuing a Statement of Unity calling on Kamala Harris to ensure a renewed federal investment in higher education.

As an apparent reaction to student protests since last October, a number of college and university administrations have hastily enacted overly restrictive policies dealing with the rights to assemble and protest on campus. These policies, which go beyond reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, impose severe limits on speech and assembly that discourage or shut down freedom of expression.

AAUP in the News

Thu, 09/26/2024  |  The Intercept

“This is the first case that we’ve seen,” said Anita Levy, senior program officer at the AAUP, an organization that advocates for faculty rights and academic freedom and seeks to hold higher education institutions accountable when standards are violated. “The apparent violations of her academic freedom are quite egregious, especially because they appear to primarily involve her posts on social media, what we would call her extramural speech.”

“We are taking this case seriously.”

Wed, 09/18/2024  |  Tampa Bay Times

Florida professors are still eyeing jobs in other states, and those who remain say it’s getting harder to fill vacant positions at their universities, according to a recent survey of faculty in Southern states administered by several state conferences of the AAUP.

Sun, 09/01/2024  |  Forbes

A 2023 AAUP report found that 68% of all college and university faculty were on contingent appointments in 2021, compared to 47% in 1987. Among faculty with full-time appointments, 24% held tenure in 2021, a substantial decrease from 1987 when 39% were tenured. As the conversion from tenure-track faculty to contingent instructors continues, the rate of faculty unionization can be expected to increase as well.

Mon, 08/26/2024  |  Financial Times

“We are seeing multiple schools adopting new restrictions on speech without respecting governance procedures. They will discourage protests, have a chilling effect on freedom of speech and threaten harsh sanctions without due process.”

Fri, 08/23/2024  |  Chronicle of Higher Education

As Nelson Mandela told the African National Congress: “In some cases … it might be correct to boycott, and in others it might be unwise and dangerous. In still other cases another weapon of political struggle might be preferred. A demonstration, a protest march, a strike, or civil disobedience might be resorted to, all depending on the actual conditions at the given time.”

Both the 2006 report and the 2024 statement cite that quotation approvingly. Cary Nelson nonetheless thinks otherwise. Between the two Nelsons, the AAUP sides with Mandela.

Mon, 08/19/2024  |  Chronicle of Higher Education

It is Nelson, not the AAUP, who has politicized the question of academic freedom by objecting to its extension to faculty and students who, for principled reasons, might support academic boycotts in the name of those systematically denied it. Careful, thoughtful AAUP policy is still “the gold standard for academic freedom.” The alternative Cary Nelson offers — a selective principle, an exclusionary practice, driven by a hardline Zionism — is a corruption of that enduring standard.

Upcoming Events

October 10, 2024

Part of our fall series of workshops for collective bargaining chapters. Join this workshop to discuss elements of a strong proposal presentation, navigating questions at the table, packaging proposals, and strategies for avoiding impasse.

October 16, 2024

Part of our fall series of workshops for collective bargaining chapters. This workshop is about gaining or strengthening AAUP Redbook policy in your collective bargaining agreement. We'll talk about different approaches to writing and negotiating contract language and look at specific examples.

October 16, 2024

Part of the webinar series "Academic Freedom School: Defending Academic Freedom in Florida." Panelists include Risa Lieberwitz and Jennifer Proffitt, and the discussion will be moderated by Tim Cain.

E-mail Updates

 

Announcements

See open positions and learn how to apply.