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Academic Freedom and Tenure: Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

2011 report finding violations of academic freedom in two cases at Louisiana’s flagship public institution, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, that are different in the administrative officers involved and in the matters under dispute but alike in putting core issues of aca demic freedom to the test. The first case, affecting a nontenured associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in his seventeenth year of full-time service on the faculty, tested the rela tionship between freedom of research and publication and freedom of extramural utterance in a politically charged atmosphere. The second case, affecting a tenured full professor in the Department of Biological Sciences in her thirty-first year on the faculty, tested the freedom of a classroom teacher to assign student grades.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Northwestern State University of Louisiana and Southeastern Louisiana University

Report finding that administrators at two Louisiana universities used program discontinuances as an excuse to get rid of selected tenured faculty members.

AAUP Audit Reports

Audited reports of the AAUP's financial statements from the past three years.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Bethune-Cookman University

Report dealing with due process, tenure, sexual harassment, and financial exigency in 2009 at Bethune-Cookman University, a historically black university. The report concerns the actions taken by the administration to suspend and then dismiss four professors, two with tenure, without having demonstrated cause for its actions in hearings before faculty peers. The report also deals with the administration's actions to terminate the appoint ments of three other professors without advance notice, without affording academic due process, and in two cases without the protections of due process that under the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure should have been provided because of the length of their service.

Campus Sexual Assault: Suggested Policies and Procedures

The AAUP’s Committee on Women in the Academic Profession has issued a statement about the serious and continuing problem of sexual assault on campus.  The statement, adopted by the Association’s Council at its November 2012 meeting, represents the work of a subcommittee on sexual assault formed to research the issue thoroughly; meanwhile, recent events have highlighted its importance and perhaps underlined the need for its wide distribution and careful consideration. The statement, Campus Sexual Assault: Suggested Policies and Procedures, reviews the scope of the problem, cites the frequently disappointing evidence about current campus practices and preparedness, analyzes the legal issues at stake, and gives special attention to faculty responsibilities.

Regulation of Research on Human Subjects: Academic Freedom and the Institutional Review Board

Local institutional review boards, which make decisions about the permissibility of research, often have no special competence; the AAUP recommends improvements. Read the report.

Recommended Principles to Guide Academy-Industry Relationships

This book-length report offers general advice on basic faculty intellectual property rights; mechanisms to ensure academic freedom in publishing; handling faculty and administrator conflicts of interest; and grievance procedures for faculty members, academic professionals, and students. An appendix provides language appropriate for inclusion in faculty handbooks and collective bargaining agreements.

Tenure and Teaching-Intensive Appointments

Recommendations on stabilizing the faculty infrastructure by converting contingent faculty positions to the tenure track.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of Texas Medical Branch

The report of the investigating committee concerns the actions taken by the administration of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, after a declaration of financial exigency at that institution by the University of Texas Board of Regents, to terminate the appointments of more than 120 faculty members, approximately one-third of them tenured. The actions followed a suspension of operations at the medical branch and its affected hospital as a result of the devastation inflicted on September 13, 2008, by Hurricane Ike. Faculty members received between six and nine months of notice, depending on their tenure status and length of service.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Clark Atlanta University

Report discussing the declaration of an enrollment emergency by the administration of Clark Atlanta University and its subsequent action to terminate the appointments of approximately one-fourth of the total faculty, with no notice and four weeks of unconditional severance salary.

Protecting an Independent Faculty Voice: Academic Freedom after Garcetti v. Ceballos

Report examining the potential impact on academic governance of the Supreme Court Garcetti v. Ceballos decision. It recommends actions to be taken in both public and private colleges and universities to preserve academic freedom in governance even in the face of judicial hostility or indifference.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Stillman College

Report concerning the suspension and subsequent dismissal of a faculty member by the administration of Stillman College on grounds of “malicious gossip or public verbal abuse" without due process.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Cedarville University

The report of the investigating committee concerns the action taken by the administration of Cedarville University to dismiss a professor in the Department of Biblical Education from his tenured faculty position with thirty days' notice, without first demonstrated cause for its action in an adjudicative hearing before faculty peers.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Olivet Nazarene University

Report concerning action taken by the administration of Olivet Nazarene University to remove a tenured professor from his usual teaching responsibilities and to prohibit the use of his book in all university courses. The president took this action after a controversy arose within the university’s denominational constituency over the professor’s views on evolution.

The Status of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty

Recommendations for improving the professional status of the growing number of non-tenure-track faculty; suggests minimum standards designed to protect the professional standing of all faculty.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: North Idaho College

Report regarding North Idaho College policies, part-time instructors lack basic protections of academic due process, therefore, making them vulnerable.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Nicholls State University

Report addressing tenure and de facto tenure, due process, adequacy of notice and the ramifications of grading issues and academic freedom

The Use and Abuse of Faculty Suspensions

Report analyzing AAUP policy on the suspension of faculty members from teaching or research.

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