Academic Freedom

In one of the best decisions on academic freedom in decades, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, citing AAUP policies and an amicus brief filed by the AAUP, ruled that Marquette University wrongly disciplined Dr. John McAdams for comments he made on his personal blog in 2014. Dr. McAdams criticized a graduate teaching instructor by name for her refusal to allow a student to debate gay rights because "everybody agrees on this." The blog was publicized in the national press, and the instructor received numerous harassing communications from third parties. Marquette suspended Dr. McAdams, and demanded...

The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declared unconstitutional the Trump administration's executive order withholding federal funds from sanctuary cities and counties. The AAUP joined an amicus brief opposing the executive order and supporting a permanent injunction preventing its enforcement. The appeals court held that under the principle of Separation of Powers and in consideration of the Spending Clause, which vests exclusive power to Congress to impose conditions on federal grants, the executive branch may not refuse to disperse the federal grants in question without...

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a Texas law permitting the concealed carry of handguns on campus (the “campus carry law”) and a corresponding University of Texas at Austin (UT) policy prohibiting professors from banning such weapons in their classrooms. Faculty from UT filed suit and argued that the law and policy violated the First Amendment, Second Amendment, and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The lower court dismissed the faculty’s claims and the faculty appealed. In its amicus brief, the AAUP argued that the law and policy requiring that handguns be...

In this decision the Arizona Court of Appeals rejected attempts by a “free market” legal foundation to use public records requests to compel faculty members to release emails related to their climate research. In an amicus brief in support of the scientists, the AAUP had argued that Arizona statute creates an exemption to public release of records for academic research records, and that a general statutory exemption protecting records when in the best interests of the state, in particular the state’s interest in academic freedom, should have been considered. The appeals court agreed and...

In this case the Virginia Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a professor’s climate research records were exempt from disclosure as academic research records, as AAUP argued in an amicus brief submitted to the Court. The Court explained that the exclusion of University research records from disclosure was intended to prevent “harm to university-wide research efforts, damage to faculty recruitment and retention, undermining of faculty expectations of privacy and confidentiality, and impairment of free thought and expression.” While the decision was limited to a Virginia statute, it provided a...

In this important decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinforced the First Amendment protections for academic speech by faculty members. Adopting an approach advanced in AAUP’s amicus brief, the court emphasized the seminal importance of academic speech. Accordingly, the court concluded that the Garcetti analysis did not apply to "speech related to scholarship or teaching,” and therefore the First Amendment could protect this speech even when undertaken "pursuant to the official duties" of a teacher and professor.

Plaintiffs sued, alleging a violation of their First Amendment rights when college administrators banned the distribution of a student-created college yearbook based on its cover and contents.

Several Virginia public college and university professors challenged a law that restricted the ability of state employees to access sexually explicit material on state-owned or state-leased computers, alleging that the law interferes with their academic freedom to research and teach.

Dr. Robert Schrier, a tenured faculty member, alleged that university employees terminated his chairmanship in retaliation for his public speech about the financial feasibility of moving a health sciences center. The district court opined that Dr. Schrier's status as a university professor did not entitled him to rights distinctive from those of any other public employees.

The plaintiffs argued that the University of California’s admission process ,which evaluated high school courses to ensure they were college preparatory, violated their First Amendment rights. The AAUP’s amicus brief urges the Ninth Circuit to affirm the district court’s decision that the University of California’s admission process is constitutional and emphasizes that faculty involvement in the university’s admissions process is crucial to academic freedom.