2014 AAUP Updates

A report that the University of Illinois has withdrawn a job offer to a professor in response to his controversial comments on Twitter is troubling, say AAUP leaders in a statement released today. If the report is accurate, there is good reason to fear that academic freedom has been violated.

We're pleased to announce that the council of the American Educational Research Association voted last month to endorse the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure issued by the AAUP and the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Read about how AAUP budget analysis has emerged as a powerful weapon for faculty members battling administrators over spending.

Nearly 500 non-tenure track faculty at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) won a major victory by forming a union, which was certified in July by the labor relations board. This win is part of a trend in higher education where faculties are pushing back against college administrators turning university teaching into an unstable, temporary job.

The AAUP filed an amicus brief with the National Labor Relations Board arguing that graduate assistants at private sector institutions should be considered employees with collective bargaining rights.

In this case, the Supreme Court declined requests to radically alter agency fee law, but refused to allow the charging of agency fees to certain “partial-public” employees.

Representative Peter Welch of Vermont was chosen as the recipient of this award, given annually to a member of Congress who has championed the causes of higher education. He was nominated for the award by the Executive Committee of United Academics (AAUP/AFT), the union representing 850 full- and part-time faculty members at the University of Vermont.

Allowing any third-party control of academic matters is inconsistent with principles of academic freedom, shared governance, and the institutional autonomy of colleges and universities. Confucius Institutes function as an arm of the Chinese state and are allowed to ignore these principles.