Advancing and protecting academic freedom is the AAUP's core mission. Academic freedom is the indispensable requisite for unfettered teaching and research in institutions of higher education. As the academic community's core policy document states, "institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good and not to further the interest of either the individual teacher or the institution as a whole. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition" (1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, which has been endorsed by more than 280 national scholarly and educational associations).
The AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure promotes standards of academic freedom, tenure, and due process in higher education through the development of policy documents and reports relating to these subjects and the application of those standards to particular situations that are brought to its attention.
Each year, the staff of the committee receives thousands of questions about these standards and complaints of departures from them. (Email that staff at [email protected].) The staff provides advice and assistance, including mediation. In serious cases, it may initiate a dialogue with the administration regarding apparent departures from AAUP-recommended standards. In a few extreme cases annually, it will recommend a formal investigation. Read more about Association Procedures in Academic Freedom and Tenure Cases.
Such investigations may lead Committee A to recommend to the Association’s national Council that the administration of an institution be censured for failure to adhere to principles of academic freedom and tenure. See the list of censured administrations.
Members of the AAUP staff, acting on behalf of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, communicate during the course of each year with administrations under censure. The staff offers its assistance and that of Committee A in bringing about developments at the institutions that would enable the committee to recommend that the censure be removed. A summary of significant developments at institutions on the censure list appears annually in the spring issue of Academe.
See FAQs on academic freedom or more resources on academic freedom issues.
Alexander Meiklejohn Award for Academic Freedom
The AAUP offers an award to recognize outstanding contributions to academic freedom by administrators or trustees.
Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom
The center brings together higher education and academic freedom experts to develop a comprehensive understanding of the scope and nature of political interference in higher education and develop means of countering this assault.
Policy Development
For a century, we have been developing standards for sound academic practice and working for the acceptance of these standards by the community of higher education. The Association has long been viewed as the authoritative voice of the academic profession in this regard. Widely regarded as an authoritative source on sound academic practice, the AAUP's Policy Documents and Reports, also known as the Redbook, contains the Association's major policy statements.
Journal of Academic Freedom
The AAUP's annual Journal of Academic Freedom, published online with financial support from the AAUP Foundation, provides a central place for scholarly discussions of academic freedom and related issues. Contributions includes essays ranging from philosophical reflections to social science studies of contemporary issues such as challenges to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and from historical case studies to analyses of escalating political interference in higher education.