2024 AAUP Updates

This week, the AAUP filed amicus briefs in two important legal cases involving the right of faculty members to teach and to speak publicly about curriculum standards and shared governance. Our briefs are a key component of our work to defend higher education for the common good, and they aim to shape the law to support academic freedom, which continues to face an unprecedented barrage of attacks. The AAUP hopes that these amicus briefs will spur the courts to issue decisions that will be favorable to the individual professors involved and that will protect the rights of faculty more broadly in the years to come.

The AAUP’s governing Council voted to add New College of Florida and Spartanburg Community College to the Association’s list of institutions sanctioned for substantial noncompliance with widely accepted standards of academic government.

We, along with other members of the American labor movement, mourn the loss of life in Israel and Palestine. We express our solidarity with all workers and our common desire for peace in Palestine and Israel, and we call on President Joe Biden and Congress to push for an immediate ceasefire and end to the siege of Gaza. Read the whole statement.

The AAUP has received a grant from the Mellon Foundation to establish a Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, with the aim of examining and confronting the recent surge of political and ideological attacks on American higher education.

The AAUP released a statement today commenting on the recent US House Committee on Education and the Workforce demand for documents and information from the University of Pennsylvania on attempts to curb antisemitism. The statement calls on administrators, faculties, trustees, and all who care about higher education as a public good in a democracy to resist political interference and reaffirm their commitments to academic freedom, freedom of expression, shared governance, and institutional autonomy.

New guidance is out from the AAUP and AFT to help our members navigate campus free speech and academic freedom in politically charged contexts.

After identifying four trends in political interference in higher education, a new statement on political interference suggests practical ways faculty members can counteract legislative interference and includes a sample resolution faculty members can adopt to call upon university administration to safeguard AAUP-supported principles and standards of academic freedom, tenure, and governance.

The AAUP is seeking qualified candidates for the position of executive director in our Washington, DC, office. Application packets and resumes for this position will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Screening will continue until the position is filled. This position requires a commitment to racial equity and involves working with diverse individuals both inside and outside of the AAUP office.

Learn more.