The AAUP defends the right to free speech and peaceful protest on college and university campuses, a time-honored tradition protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Donald Trump’s unprecedented threats to expel and arrest protesters and end federal funding to colleges and universities that allow student protest have all the markings of a dictator. Such threats to punish students for protected speech are antithetical to democracy and to the aims of higher education.

Jeffrey A. Butts, AAUP secretary-treasurer from 2002 to 2008, died on February 19 in Boone, North Carolina. He was seventy-seven years old. After becoming an AAUP member in 1977, Jeff immediately embarked on a long career of service to the Association on the local, state, and national levels. He was chapter president at UNC–Charlotte and at Appalachian State, among other roles; he held numerous offices in the North Carolina AAUP state conference, including two terms as president; and he undertook a dozen or so national roles besides that of secretary-treasurer, including chair of the Assembly of State Conferences, national Council member, member of the Council executive committee, and first vice president.

After New York governor Kathy Hochul earlier this week ordered the City University of New York to remove a job posting for a professorship in Palestinian studies, AAUP president Todd Wolfson is urging Hochul and CUNY chancellor Félix Matos Rodriguez to withdraw their intervention and defer to the CUNY faculty’s judgment regarding the position and the scholarly and educational expertise it called for. Chancellor Rodríguez echoed Hochul’s criticisms of the posting and it was removed.

As Wolfson's letter points out, "amidst this extraordinarily repressive climate, it is imperative that both government and university leaders serve as bulwarks against authoritarian interference—not as further impediments to academic freedom and inquiry."

Last night, in a case in which the AAUP was a plaintiff, the US District Court for the District of Maryland granted a preliminary nationwide injunction on key parts of a pair of executive orders issued by President Trump. The orders broadly and in vague terms seek to end diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities among federal government grantees and contractors, including virtually all colleges and universities.

A new statement by AAUP President Todd Wolfson speaks out against the potential elimination of federal funding for schools that support and celebrate students from diverse backgrounds, the latest blatant attempt by the Trump administration to punish educators, target communities of color, and undermine decades of hard-won progress toward a multiracial democracy.

The AAUP and three co-plaintiffs last night sought a temporary restraining order from the federal district court to prevent the Trump administration from using two anti-DEI executive orders to terminate essential grants and contracts. As our brief explains, the orders are unconstitutional, usurping congressional power and violating First and Fifth Amendment rights.

The AAUP membership is affected by these orders in multiple ways. Our members include faculty whose work focuses on Black studies; Latino studies; Asian studies; gender or sexual orientation identities; diversity, equity, and inclusion specifically; environmental justice; and other subject matter targeted by the president’s anti-DEIA executive orders. We represent a significant number of members who focus on medical and other scientific research related to whether and how race and ethnicity affect health outcomes.

Absent preliminary relief, irreparable harm will be caused to these members, their students, and communities through the unlawful termination of billions of dollars of grants and contracts, the severe chilling of speech due to unlawful certifications and investigations, and arbitrary enforcement based on unconstitutionally vague executive orders.

Institutional neutrality is neither a necessary condition for academic freedom nor categorically incompatible with it. The statement calls for principles of academic freedom and shared governance to be chief considerations in the issuing of institutional and departmental statements as well as decisions on financial investments and campus protest policies.