New AAUP Foundation Grants

The board of the AAUP Foundation met in November to consider applications for grants from its special funds.

The Foundation board approved grants from the Academic Freedom Fund and the Glick, Rappaport, Tristman Memorial Fund to cover the costs of a special AAUP committee’s report on a pattern of egregious violations of principles of academic governance and persistent structural racism in the University of North Carolina system. Scheduled for release later this year, the report will consider, among other issues, the mishandled tenure case of Nikole Hannah-Jones and the harmful influence of the state legislature on the systemwide board of governors and campus boards of trustees. Other issues of concern include the closing of UNC Chapel Hill’s Center for Poverty, Work, and Opportunity; bans on advocacy and legal representation at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Law Center for Civil Rights; events related to the removal of the “Silent Sam” statue from the Chapel Hill campus; the integrity of and faculty participation in the UNC system chancellor search process; and the persistent denial of resources to the UNC system’s historically black colleges and universities.

The Foundation also approved additional grants to support the work of the national AAUP, including this year’s Journal of Academic Freedom, and funding for an initiative to encourage the creation of guides by and for adjunct faculty members. Caprice Lawless of Front Range Community College in Colorado, chair of the Association’s Committee on Contingency and the Profession, will develop programming to teach AAUP adjunct activists how to develop guidebooks like the Adjunct’s Guide to Working in the Colorado Community College System.