2020 AAUP Updates

The report will reach findings on whether there have been departures from AAUP-supported principles and standards of academic governance, and may explore other issues, such as the effects of unilaterally imposed mass layoffs on academic freedom and tenure, the enrollment and financial challenges facing many institutions, and the impact of these challenges on higher education, especially the humanities and liberal arts.

AAUP president Irene Mulvey issued a statement on September 9 calling on faculty and administrations to condemn President Trump's attack on critical race theory and to actively support the work of critical race theorists and other academics who offer indispensable resources for understanding the past and present and for building a more racially just society.

The AAUP sent a letter to the president of Illinois Wesleyan University and to the chair of the university's board of trustees regarding action taken by the board to discontinue programs in anthropology, French, Italian, and religious studies and potential termination of tenured appointments. 

The AAUP’s Committee on Contingency and the Profession has issued a statement with recommendations and resources for the higher education community.

AAUP president Irene Mulvey has issued a statement of solidarity with medical faculty who are on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. AAUP members and supporters can send a message of support and donate personal protective equipment.

In a mail ballot election, AAUP chapter and section delegates have elected Irene Mulvey of Fairfield University as the new president of the 105-year-old faculty-led organization. Paul Davis of Cincinnati State Technical and Community College was elected as vice president, and Christopher Sinclair of the University of Oregon was elected as secretary-treasurer. Chapter and section delegates also elected Nivedita Majumdar and Glinda Rawls as at-large Council members.

The AAUP released today a new research report, Policies on Academic Freedom, Dismissal for Cause, Financial Exigency, and Program Discontinuance, that examines the prevalence of AAUP-supported policies in faculty handbooks and collective bargaining agreements at four-year institutions that have a tenure system. 

The AAUP joined over seventy other higher education organizations yesterday in submitting an amicus brief, prepared by the American Council on Education (ACE), in support of a legal challenge filed by Harvard University and MIT against the US Department of Homeland Security in the US District Court in Massachusetts to prevent DHS’s July 6 directive, which rescinds a prior COVID-19 exemption for international students participating in online education, from taking effect.