Governor Should Withdraw CUNY Interference

After New York governor Kathy Hochul earlier this week ordered the City University of New York to remove a job posting for a professorship in Palestinian studies, AAUP president Todd Wolfson is urging Hochul and CUNY chancellor Félix Matos Rodriguez to withdraw their intervention and defer to the CUNY faculty’s judgment regarding the position and the scholarly and educational expertise it called for. Chancellor Rodríguez echoed Hochul’s criticisms of the posting and it was removed.

As Wolfson's letter points out, "amidst this extraordinarily repressive climate, it is imperative that both government and university leaders serve as bulwarks against authoritarian interference—not as further impediments to academic freedom and inquiry."

According to the Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities (which was jointly formulated by the AAUP, the American Council on Education, and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges and which has guided the actions of colleges and universities for nearly six decades) faculty are responsible for such fundamental areas as curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, research, and faculty status. This primary responsibility falls to the faculty because they are best placed to judge which courses and scholarship represent the state of knowledge within scholarly disciplines.

Read President Wolfson's letter.