2011 AAUP Updates

SB 5 opponents, including some AAUP members, packed hearing and overflow rooms in Columbus, Ohio, at a committee hearing Wednesday. SB 5, a piece of legislation introduced last week, seeks to prohibit Ohio public employees, including faculty at state universities and colleges, from collective bargaining.

On February 3, AAUP General Secretary Gary Rhoades testified before the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. The committee advises the Secretary of Education on matters of accreditation. 

Because faculty members have long contributed to democratic debate by expressing their views in the public sphere, it is especially notable and worrisome when they become targets of what nearly amount to an American Fatwa.

Update (2/1): Kristopher Petersen-Overton announced that he has been rehired. Cary Nelson called the rehiring "a victory for academic freedom and for the faculty."

The AAUP, along with thirty-seven other groups, urges the Obama administration to promptly adopt strong and enforceable rules on "gainful employment" to help curtail documented abuses by for-profit colleges.

On July 22, 2010, AAUP president Cary Nelson discussed BP, academic freedom, and the perils of corporate funding in "BP and Academic Freedom" with Inside Higher Ed. The story went viral and to Congress.