2022 AAUP Updates

Today the AAUP released a report of the Special Committee on Governance, Academic Freedom, and Institutional Racism in the University of North Carolina system. The report considers the influence of the North Carolina state legislature on the systemwide board of governors and campus boards of trustees. It discusses how political pressure and top-down leadership have obstructed meaningful faculty participation in the UNC system, jeopardized academic freedom, and reinforced institutional racism.

We note with sadness the death of former AAUP general counsel Michael A. Olivas at the age of seventy-one. Current general counsel Risa Lieberwitz described him as "deeply committed to the AAUP and the principles of academic freedom and shared governance."

Continuing a relentless crusade to destroy higher education in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis staged a performative and disingenuous press conference on April 19 at which he signed into law Senate Bill 7044, further attacking professors and eroding academic freedom in the state.

Thanks to a partnership with the AFT, AAUP members will now get free access to Summer, an online platform that can help you navigate your student loan situation and simplify the PSLF application process. Learn how to access the program. 

The AAUP released the report of an investigating committee on the dismissal of Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a tenured English professor and endowed chair in Shakespeare studies at Linfield University in Oregon. The report finds that Linfield’s administration violated AAUP standards and the institution’s own regulations when it dismissed Pollack-Pelzner without affordance of academic due process.

Provisional data are now available. Preliminary findings are that average salaries for all full-time faculty members increased 2 percent, one of the smallest increases on record since the AAUP began tracking this measure in 1972. Real average salaries decreased 5 percent, after adjusting for inflation, representing the greatest decrease in real wage growth decreased since the 1979–80 academic year.

The AAUP is relaunching its investigation into the terminations or nonrenewals of appointment of faculty members at Collin College. In all three cases, the administration’s actions appear to have been for reasons that violated the faculty members’ academic freedom.

AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure published a statement today that addresses recent partisan efforts in state legislatures to enact bills targeting teaching about Israel and about the history of racism in the United States. The statement urges defeat of such legislative initiatives, which threaten academic freedom and its vital role in preserving democracy.