Academic Freedom

Here you will find materials to assist chapters and conferences that are advancing the central mission of the Association through a conference or chapter Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. A campus or state Committee A provides advice and counsel to faculty members experiencing problems relating to academic freedom, tenure, and due process. A conference or chapter Committee A also educates its own academic community about AAUP principles and recommended policies and works to include those into their faculty handbooks and collective bargaining agreements.

As a legal matter, it can be extremely difficult to determine where faculty members’ rights under academic freedom and the First Amendment begin and end. It can also be difficult to explain the distinction between “academic freedom” and “free speech rights under the First Amendment”—two related but analytically distinct legal concepts. Academic freedom rights are not coextensive with First Amendment rights, although courts have recognized a relationship between the two.  

A narrative explanation explaining the process of censuring an institution and the many steps in between.

Academic freedom is indispensable for quality institutions of higher education. As the AAUP's core policy document states, "institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good and not to further the interest of either the individual teacher or the institution as a whole. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition."

This list is published for the purpose of informing AAUP members, the profession at large, and the public that unsatisfactory conditions of academic freedom and tenure have been found to prevail at these institutions.

Censure results from the Association's findings that conditions for academic freedom and tenure are unsatisfactory at a college or university.