Academic Freedom

On the Relationship of Faculty Governance to Academic Freedom

Report linking the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the Association's 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities. 

Freedom and Responsibility

Statement addressing the ethical responsibilities that go along with academic freedom.

AAUP Releases Statement on Confidentiality in Academic Governance

A draft statement released in November by the AAUP argues that requiring faculty members to sign confidentiality agreements as a condition of serving on university committees is in most cases inconsistent with widely accepted standards of shared governance and with the concept of serving as a faculty representative. This argument does not apply to those serving on promotion and tenure committees and similar bodies, where faculty members do not serve as representatives but instead are elected to exercise their own professional judgment in interpreting and applying relevant criteria.

Terminations of Tenured Faculty Appointments at SUBR

An AAUP investigating committee’s report on Southern University, Baton Rouge, focuses on the termination of nineteen tenured faculty appointments in spring 2012. The actions followed a declaration of financial exigency in October 2011 by Southern University’s board of supervisors in response to a budgetary shortfall and a concurrent plan to reorganize SUBR by reducing the number of its colleges from nine to five.

The Red Scare in the New York City Schools

Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge by Marjorie Heins. New York: New York University Press, 2013.

Berkeley, the American Police State, and the Making of a Governor

Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power. Seth Rosenfeld. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2012.

Universities in the West Bank and Gaza

In 1990, I wrote in Academe about higher education in Palestine, in particular the difficulties of operating under military occupation. Then, in 2004, I updated the information, noting how much more difficult communication had become but mentioning some hopeful developments in teaching and research. I wish that I could now write a more optimistic piece. The West Bank and Gaza are still under varying degrees of occupation, as shown to some extent by the map below. Traveling even short distances can be a daily trauma for faculty members and students.

America’s Pastime

We Americans are an argumentative lot. There’s nothing we enjoy more than a good debate, especially if the “debate” actually consists of little more than the vociferous expression of contrary opinions with little supporting evidence. Radio and television careers are made of such stuff! Arguing about religion, particularly about religion and science, seems to hold perennial fascination for our compatriots. It’s my candidate for America’s favorite pastime.

Appeals Court Expands Protections for Academic Speech

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued an important decision that vigorously affirms First Amendment protections for academic speech by faculty members. Demers v. Austin arose when Washington State University disciplined professor David Demers after he distributed a pamphlet that made proposals to change the direction and focus of the Murrow School of Communications. Demers sued the university, alleging that the university’s actions violated his First Amendment rights. The trial court applied the Supreme Court’s analysis in the 2006 Garcetti v.

Academic Freedom and Electronic Communications

A newly revised report issued for comment in December, Academic Freedom and Electronic Communications, brings up to date and expands the Association’s 2004 report on the same topic.

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