Protecting academic freedom is the AAUP's core mission. For ninety years we have been developing standards for sound academic practice and in working for the acceptance of these standards by the community of higher education.
The AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure promotes principles of academic freedom, tenure, and due process in higher education through the development of policy documents and reports relating to these subjects and the application of those principles to particular situations that are brought to its attention. See Committee A reports.
Each year, staff to the committee receive thousands of questions about these standards and complaints of departures from them. The staff provides advice, mediation, and, in extreme cases, may recommend a formal investigation.
Such investigations may lead Committee A to recommend to the Association’s national council and annual meeting that the administration of an institution be censured for failure to adhere to the principles of academic freedom and tenure as endorsed by the AAUP and over 200 other professional and educational organizations. See the list of censured administrations.
In 2006, the AAUP created a special committee charged with reviewing and analyzing post-Katrina developments in New Orleans that impinge on colleges and universities in the city, on their faculty, and on their academic programs. The committee visited New Orleans, interviewed more than fifty faculty members, and corresponded extensively with administrators at affected institutions before publishing a report in May 2007.
In 2002, the AAUP created a special committee, the Committee on Academic Freedom and National Security in a Time of Crisis, to review and analyze post-September 11 developments which impinge on academic freedom. Since that time, the special committee has examined numerous topics and has issued a major report and several statements.
Read more about academic freedom.