New Edition of the Redbook Is Available Now

Last week Johns Hopkins University Press published the twelfth edition of the AAUP's Policy Documents and Reports, informally known as the Redbook. The previous edition, the eleventh, was published in 2015 to coincide with the centennial celebration of the AAUP's founding. 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.

The Redbook includes core documents such as the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure, and the Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, along with dozens of others addressing academic freedom, tenure, and due process; academic governance; professional ethics; faculty status; evaluation of faculty members; research and teaching; intellectual property and outside funding; budgets and compensation; collective bargaining; work and family; discrimination; and students' rights and freedoms. Among the highlights of the new edition are documents issued in the past decade, such as the 2024 statement on On Eliminating Discrimination and Achieving Equality in Higher Education; newly revised materials, including Academic Freedom and Outside Speakers and the Statement on Online Education; and important documents on governance and other topics not previously included in the Redbook. The edition has been updated with new statistical information—notably in the section on contingent appointments—and with new legal citations necessitated by recent judicial decisions.

As an indispensable tool for chapters working to incorporate AAUP policy language into faculty handbooks and collective bargaining agreements, the Redbook features an introduction on its effective use. Additionally, two appendixes outline Association procedures in academic freedom and tenure cases and standards for investigations related to college and university governance.

The twelfth edition of the Redbook is available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book versions through the website of the Johns Hopkins University Press. The table of contents and information about a special discount for AAUP and AFT members are available here.