2017 AAUP Updates

The AAUP urges Congress to use a resolution of disapproval to overturn the FCC's vote to dismantle net neutrality rules. We must preserve the internet as space as a place where all ideas can be heard and where all people regardless of their age, race, and socioeconomic standing have access.

The AAUP has joined with other higher education organizations in urging Congress to slow down its reauthorization of the Higher Education Act to allow the consequences of its provisions to be understood and revised as necessary. After several years of inaction, the bill is suddenly being rushed through committee with hastily crafted provisions that would make higher education more expensive for millions of students and families. In addition, it would make significant changes in federal higher education policy without a clear understanding of the likely consequences.

A new report, National Security, the Assault on Science, and Academic Freedom, released by the AAUP details troubling threats to academic freedom in the physical and natural sciences that have been exacerbated by the Trump administration’s hostility to science. International scientific exchange and, especially, the charging of innocent Chinese or Chinese American scientists with espionage in the name of national security is one focus of the report. The second is climate science, which has been subject to vicious attacks that have intensified significantly under the current administration.

The AAUP sent a letter to University of Nebraska–Lincoln administrators today regarding concerns about due process and academic freedom in the dismissal of a doctoral student with a part-time appointment as a lecturer in the English department. 

Taxation of tuition waivers would send us back to an era in which only the independently wealthy are able to pursue advanced education.

The AAUP filed an amicus brief last night supporting a challenge to a statute and policy in Texas that compelled faculty to permit concealed handguns in college classrooms. We argue that the policy violates faculty members’ academic freedom.

Last month, the Board of Directors of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) issued a statement on shared governance. The AAUP's Committee on College and University Governance commends this statement and urges members to bring it to the attention of their governing boards and administrations.

The AAUP, along with other higher education groups, strongly opposes proposed tax legislation that would tax tuition waivers for campus employees and graduate students, causing a devastating tax increase for thousands of graduate students, as well as repealing the current Student Loan Interest Deduction. You can help stop these provisions from becoming law.