2024 AAUP Updates

The AAUP stands with Texas faculty associations in protesting the reported censorship of more than 200 courses at the University of North Texas. The reported removal of words such as “race,” “gender,” “class,” and “equity” from undergraduate and graduate course titles and descriptions appears to represent a troubling departure from widely accepted standards of academic freedom and shared governance.

The AAUP is committed to defending our campuses and the mission of higher education through organizing our communities to face the challenges that lie ahead. Our collective power is needed now more than ever. To that end, we will do everything in our power to protect our institutions, faculty, staff, and students and stand up against those seeking to violate academic freedom and the core principle of higher education conducted for the common good.

After years of cuts to academic budgets at the state’s flagship, the University of Connecticut, dozens of majors and scores of graduate programs are now on the chopping block. According to news reports, majors including philosophy; women’s, gender, and sexuality studies; and animal science could be discontinued, as could all but one program within the university’s Literatures, Cultures, and Languages Department. And this is just the beginning in what could be a series of cuts unless the Connecticut legislature provides a stable funding source for the state’s system of higher education. Without adequate funding, Connecticut students will face larger class sizes, higher tuition , and fewer class offerings. They deserve better.

As Professor Steven Thrasher faces potential discipline for exercising his academic freedom, the AAUP urges Northwestern University to remain committed to academic due process and academic freedom as well as anti-discrimination regulations designed to protect historically marginalized communities.

Thrasher, holder of the Daniel Renberg chair in the Medill School of Journalism, is a nationally recognized, decorated journalist and scholar of race, LGBTQIA identity, and infectious disease. Despite his exemplary research and teaching record, Thrasher has been summarily placed on leave and suspended from teaching while an ad hoc faculty committee has reportedly been assembled to investigate whether he should be sanctioned for alleged antisemitism and “lack of objectivity.” These charges stem from attempts by Thrasher and several colleagues to de-escalate tensions at Northwestern’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment in April by forming a human chain between students and police officers.

AAUP president Todd Wolfson joins the UM AAUP chapter in condemning the reported action of the UM administration and board to rescind a job offer to Professor Raz Segal in response to outside political pressure. 

The AAUP is excited to be kicking off a new organizing campaign, Organize Every Campus. The program will help hone and develop member and leader organizing skills so that we can stand together, fight back, and build a better future for ourselves, our students, and higher education.

The AAUP has released a new statement which holds that, when appropriately designed and implemented, diversity, equity, and inclusion criteria for faculty appointment, reappointment, tenure, and promotion are compatible with academic freedom and may serve as an important means of fostering a diverse and inclusive academic environment.

Aaron Nisenson will serve as interim executive director of the AAUP while a search for a director is underway. Aaron has served as senior counsel and director of the legal department at the AAUP since 2013 and speaks and writes extensively on higher education, faculty rights, and constitutional, labor, and employment law. Aaron has litigated labor, employment, and First Amendment cases in federal and state courts and has directed the litigation and representational work of dozens of attorneys. He has authored amicus briefs submitted in the US Supreme Court, and in federal and state appellate courts on constitutional, labor and employment law issues.