2022 AAUP Updates

While the AAUP commends several aspects of the ED’s proposed regulations, including clarification that Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, we urge the ED to further amend provisions of the proposed regulations to better enact Title IX’s broad equity goals for higher education.

The AAUP has opened an investigation at Indiana University Northwest, focused on the IUN administration’s summary dismissal last fall of Professor Mark McPhail, a tenured professor of communication who had been initially appointed as the institution’s chief academic officer.

President Biden’s long awaited announcement of a plan to alleviate the student debt of roughly twenty million Americans should be celebrated. The data on student debt makes it clear that people of color, especially women of color, are most heavily burdened. For three quarters of Black borrowers, the student loan balance they owe today is greater than the original balance. It is hard to imagine this kind of injustice going unaddressed if it were directed at a white population. The AAUP will continue to push for more actions and policies that alleviate student debt in ways that move us towards a more just and equitable society. 

The AAUP submitted joint comments with the American Federation of Teachers to the US Department of Education on Tuesday in support of the proposed changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program and to encourage the department to do far better in providing access to this program for all those who do public service work but are currently excluded from accessing the program based on existing regulations.

The conference took place June 16 to 19, and featured remarks by AFT president Randi Weingarten, US Department of Education under secretary for higher education James Kvaal, and secretary of education Miguel Cardona. Delegates to the Biennial Association Meeting voted in new members of the AAUP's governing Council and voted overwhelmingly to affiliate with the American Federation of Teachers. 

The AAUP's 2021–22 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, released today, finds that real wages for full-time faculty members decreased 5.0 percent after adjusting for inflation, the largest one-year decrease on record since the AAUP began tracking this measure in 1972.

The historic partnership will strengthen both organizations and advance American higher education. The AFT and AAUP have a history of collaboration and joint organizing, including dual AAUP/AFT affiliates currently representing more than 20,000 faculty and staff.

Delegates to the AAUP's Biennial Association Meeting voted today for one at-large and five regional members of Council. A warm welcome to the incoming members!