The special podcast series of AAUP Presents will explore what we're really defending when we defend academic freedom. The series posits that the attacks on higher education we are seeing today aren't just about the institutions in the news; rather, they are one front in a broader struggle over public life, civil rights, and the future of civil society.
Podcast episodes:
Organizing Lessons from Resisting ICE on Campus
In this episode of "Academic Freedom on the Line," we’re talking about students, labor, migration, and what happens at the intersection of all those categories. We talk about how and why higher education workers must resist the rising tide of fascism on and off campus, and get organizing lessons from the front lines. We're joined by guests: A. Naomi Paik, Abbie Boggs, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, and William I. Robinson.
Title VI vs. Academic Freedom
This episode of the special series “Academic Freedom on the Line” includes an excerpt from the webinar announcing the release of the AAUP’s Report On Title VI, Discrimination, and Academic Freedom in 2025. Committee A Chair Rana Jaleel and former General Counsel Risa Lieberwitz share big picture findings and key takeaways from the report. Following the excerpt, CDAF host Vineeta Singh is joined by 3 academics who have faced professional challenges for their support of students organizing in defense of Palestinian rights.
Defending Academic Freedom: Learning to Resist
The 9th episode of our special series “Academic Freedom on the Line” is a conversation among 4 authors who contributed to the recently published University Keywords, a volume on how universities operate as social and economic engines that shape society beyond their traditional educational roles. Andy Hines, the volume editor, Senior Associate Director of the Aydelotte Foundation at Swarthmore College, and author of Outside Literary Studies: Black Criticism and the University; Jennifer Ruth, professor in the School of Film at Portland State University, and co-director of The Palestine Exception, who serves on the steering committee of Coalition for Action in Higher Education; and Ellen Schrecker, renowned historian of McCarthyism and US higher education, and most recently the co-editor of The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom with Jennifer Ruth and Valerie C. Johnson; and interviewer Vineeta Singh, a fellow at the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom.
Faculty on the Front Lines
Episode 8: This episode serves as an introduction to 'Faculty on the Front Lines"--a series documenting the stories of AAUP members. While some participants have shared their experiences with the press, this project aims to provide additional context for their individual narratives. The goal is to draw attention to partisan interference and violations of academic freedom by giving affected individuals a chance to tell their own stories in their own voices. These stories are a small sample of a disturbing trend in higher education: Colleges and universities are increasingly taking alarming measures to silence educators who speak out on issues of social justice, often targeting them, in part, for the scholarship that made them desirable hires. Contingent faculty have been denied renewal without cause and faculty have been fired for their speech. This is the type of academic freedom and freedom of expression that the AAUP exists to defend; however, the views expressed in these videos are of the individual featured, not of the AAUP. In this episode, you'll hear from the creator of the project, Anna Feder, as well as part of the interview with Michel de Graff.
Understanding Governing Boards & Academic Freedom
Episode 7: This episode focuses on university governing boards and their workings. Raquel Rall, Associate Professor in the School of Education at UC Riverside and Demetri Morgan, Associate Professor of Education at University of Michigan Marsal School of Education and CDAF fellow, join us to explain the differences between public and private boards, what an “advisory role” actually means, and how to create meaningful communication between board members and academic workers and community members.
Academic Freedom on the Line: Science Funding
Episode 6: We’ve all heard about the changes to federal research funding since the beginning of the Trump administration. This episode of our special series "Academic Freedom on the Line" takes a deeper look at the landscape of federal research funding. How is research funding allocated? What is disrupted when these funds are precipitously cut? What could this mean for the future of research in the United States? To help us answer these questions, we call on experts in the fields of federal bureaucracy and legal studies.
Academic Freedom: Thinking Transnationally
Episode 5: This episode zooms out from the “Trump versus Harvard” headlines to situate attacks on US higher education institutions in a transnational context. We ask an interdisciplinary panel of scholars studying different parts of the world to help us set aside American exceptionalist frameworks and understand what is happening in the US in broader geographical, historical, and political contexts.
Educational (e)quality on the Line
Episode 4: This episode takes a look at accreditation, a seemingly complex but essential mechanism for safeguarding both the quality of education our institutions offer as well as the institutional and disciplinary autonomy that allows them to create and enforce standards of rigor without direct interference from the federal government.
Students on the Line
Episode 3: In this episode, we speak with a coalition of student leaders actively organizing against state-level DEI bans in Texas and Kentucky.
Public Life on the Line
Episode 2: In this episode, we ask Dr. Stephanie Hall what the Department of Education is for, why the right perceives it as a threat, and how the right uses “polarizing” language to obfuscate its attacks on civil rights.
Academic Freedom on the Line
Episode 1: This episode kicks off a new limited series hosted by the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom (CDAF), AAUP Presents: Academic Freedom on the Line. The series posits that the attacks on higher education we are seeing today aren't just about the institutions in the news; rather, they are one front in a broader struggle over public life, civil rights, and the future of civil society.