AAUP Updates

AAUP President Todd Wolfson sent a letter calling on the administration of NYU to grant graduate Logan Rozos’s degree without delay and end any disciplinary proceedings against him after Rozos spoke about “atrocities currently happening in Palestine” during his speech at a graduation ceremony last week.

In response to the Trump administration's recent actions subjecting more than one thousand international students to visa revocations or other involuntary changes to their immigration status, the AAUP has written to college and university counsels to clarify that they are not legally bound to deny legal assistance or housing to students facing these threats. While some institutions have provided support to noncitizen students in such cases, others have hesitated to do so for fear of being held criminally liable. The AAUP letter addresses concerns that colleges and universities may have about "harboring" individuals vulnerable to threats of detention or deportation by the Trump administration.

The news that Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi has asked university trustees to approve closing seven of its campuses despite the fact that university finances are strong is dismaying. So is the fact that administrators arrived at this proposal without faculty involvement in decision making. The threatened campuses serve thousands of students and employ hundreds of faculty and staff across Pennsylvania. The proposal to substitute online classes for the in-person instruction, mentoring, research, and service conducted at these campuses does a disservice to students and their communities and threatens the academic integrity of existing programs as well as quality, equity, and access.

Last week Johns Hopkins University Press published the twelfth edition of the AAUP's Policy Documents and Reports, informally known as the Redbook. The Redbook brings together in one convenient place AAUP policy documents and reports developed collaboratively over more than a century, providing an authoritative source for sound academic practice and for defending and strengthening today's academic communities.

A new AAUP report, Academic Freedom and Tenure Muhlenberg College, concludes that the administration, in initially dismissing Dr. Maura Finkelstein, acted in violation of AAUP-supported principles and standards of academic freedom and due process. The report also found that the college’s equal opportunity and nondiscrimination policies, developed by outside consultants, do not sufficiently protect academic freedom and due process, nor do they comport with widely accepted standards of academic governance.

President Donald Trump’s executive order on accreditation is yet another attempt to dictate what is taught, learned, said and done by college students and instructors. Threats to remove accreditors from their roles are transparent attempts to consolidate more power in the hands of the Trump administration in order to stifle teaching and research. These attacks are aimed at removing educational decision-making from educators and reshaping higher education to fit an authoritarian political agenda.

AAUP in the News

Mon, 05/19/2025  |  The Hill

“The reason why the United States of America has the most advanced research infrastructure in the world is because of its relationship to the federal government, and if we want to stay the most important nation in the world … there is no way forward without the federal government being intimately involved in the support of, not control over, but support of our research infrastructure,” said Todd Wolfson, national president of the American Association of University Professors.

“The Trump administration and their approach to higher education is probably the worst and most destructive approach to higher education I’ve ever seen in the history of this country,” said Wolfson.

Sun, 04/27/2025  |  The Guardian

“The workers and the unions, faculty, students, staff are leading and developing the fight in how to respond to the Trump administration, and we’re sort of dragging the universities along with us, slowly,” said Todd Wolfson, the president of the AAUP, which has led faculty organising efforts on many campuses and filed four separate lawsuits against the administration over its attacks on universities.

Tue, 04/22/2025  |  Washington Post

Harvard’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which filed a lawsuit earlier this month to block the Trump administration’s cuts, praised the university for taking legal action.

“It is high time for leading civil society institutions like Harvard to refuse and resist this federal government overreach and abuse,” said Kirsten Weld, a history professor at Harvard and president of the AAUP Harvard faculty chapter.

Thu, 04/17/2025  |  Associated Press

“College campuses have historically been the places where these kind of conversations, these kind of robust debates and dissent take place in the United States. It’s healthy for democracy. And they’re trying to destroy all of that in order to enact their vision and depraved agenda.”

Mon, 04/14/2025  |  WSKG

“Institutions that stood up are remembered for standing up to that power & that coercion, they're remembered for their acts of bravery. Institutions that capitulated are remembered for their willingness to cave to autocratic demands.”

— Risa Lieberwitz, president of the Cornell chapter of the AAUP

Mon, 04/07/2025  |  CBS News

"Researchers are receiving a stop work order for wanting to understand things like differences in infant mortality in ubran and rural communities. That's being labeled as DEI. The slash and burn approach to our research is unfair, unlawful, and fundamentally wrong." — AAUP president Todd Wolfson

 

Fri, 03/14/2025  |  Ms. Magazine

"Look, this is going to be a long fight. We need everyone on board. This is why we’re developing a multi-pronged approach and building alliances with students, other unions and the public. This is the only way to stop the anti-worker and anti-union policies that are being promoted by Trump and his administration." - AAUP Vice-President Rotua Lumbantobing.

Sat, 03/08/2025  |  The Guardian

“Billions of dollars in research has been frozen, and that’s research on things that every American depends on,” AAUP President Todd Wolfson said. “Our members  having to lay people off, having to close their labs, having to ask for special circumstances to be able to keep rare supplies, like animals, alive. It’s been a complete, utter, destruction of the United States research infrastructure.”

Upcoming Events

May 27, 2025

Join us, the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), and immigration attorneys Marc Van Der Hout and Johnny Sinodis for a discussion on updates in the detention and attempted deportation of noncitizen students and scholars, best practices with respect to travel, and answers to the questions and concerns of international faculty.

May 30, 2025 to May 31, 2025

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

June 9, 2025

Join us for a critical town hall where we’ll dig into how we build real power in this moment—organizing in the streets, developing political leadership, and winning legislative and electoral fights.

E-mail Updates

 

Announcements

The AAUP invites applications for a faculty editor or faculty coeditors for the next two volumes of the Journal of Academic Freedom, an online journal that seeks to develop international discussion of academic freedom and related issues. Applications are due by June 1, 2025.

The AAUP seeks a book review editor for Academe, its quarterly magazine. The application deadline is June 1, 2025.

The AAUP is excited to announce the publication of the twelfth edition of its Policy Documents and Reports. Known as the Redbook, it contains the Association's major policy statements and is widely regarded as an authoritative source on sound academic practice.

See open positions and learn how to apply.