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On September 29, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) announced that it is investigating what it calls “egregious violations of principles of academic governance and persistent structural racism in the University of North Carolina System.” To do so, it has launched a special committee and will release its findings in early 2022. According to the AAUP’s press release, the investigation was prompted by the “widely publicized mishandling of the tenure case of New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones.” But there has already been a significant—one might even say exhaustive—investigation of that incident. Local and national media outlets of all...

One of America’s leading college faculty unions is decrying attempts to define gender as “binary,” and claims that the Trump administration and the “religious fundamentalists” who support such a definition are moved by ideology, not fact. The American Association of University Professors, which has 500 chapters and 39 state associations, released a statement last month titled “The Assault on Gender and Gender Studies.” The statement, which was created by AAUP’s subcommittee of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the Committee on Women in the Academic Profession, railed against the Trump administration for considering a plan to define gender...

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has issued a report on "National Security, the Assault on Science, and Academic Freedom" that might leave readers who have studied such matters scratching their heads. "The Trump administration's alarming hostility to science has exacerbated already troubling threats to academic freedom in the physical and natural sciences in two different areas," the AAUP states. "In the area of international scientific exchange, Chinese or Chinese American scientists have been targeted and charged with espionage." "The second area, the field of climate science, has been subjected to vicious attempts to discredit its validity, which have...

The professoriate is fighting what it perceives as federal budget cuts to higher education proposed by the Trump Administration. Yet and still, it is difficult to find those cuts in the Trump budget proposals. "We already knew from the Trump administration's initial 'skinny' budget proposal, released in March, that higher education would be on the chopping block," Kelly Hand writes on the academe blog maintained by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). "The fleshed-out budget proposal released on May 22 details cuts that would have a devastating impact on student aid, the arts and humanities, scientific research, and international...

The AAUP has dealt a blow to the University of Missouri by concluding that the firing of Melissa Click violated her rights. The American Association of University Professors said the university’s board of curators, which voted by a 4-2 decision to fire Click after months of controversy regarding her conduct during student protests, “violated basic standards of academic due process.” Click became a household name after a video surfaced showing her blocking a student videographer from filming near a tent city set up on the Missouri campus in November. For more than a week, the tent city had been home...

Academia is up in arms. The board of trustees at Florida State University (FSU) just named a Republican to be its president. Something called the FSU Progress Coalition just posted its concerns on the Academe blog maintained by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP): “Throughout the presidential search process at Florida State University, students were told that their voices were being heard. But really? Who was listening? The media was listening, the nation was listening, FSU alumni, faculty, and staff were listening. But the corporate/political elite, the 11 members of the Board of Trustees that voted for John Thrasher...

Noted academics seem to view the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations as a means of recapturing the 1960s, particularly if they missed the latter decade on the first go-round. For one thing, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has endorsed them. “The AAUP’s Council and Collective Bargaining Congress endorsed the Occupy movement last week–a move that, judging from the volume and intensity of e-mail responses, evoked strong feelings among our membership,” Gwendolyn Bradley writes on the Academe Blog. “For many reasons–including the fact that student access to higher education is increasingly threatened by mounting costs and loans and the fact...

A Tale of Two Ramadans Bethany Stotts, April 19, 2010 This month academics Tariq Ramadan and Adam Habib, previously banned from the country, returned to visit U.S. soil after the U.S. government waived the original justifications for their exclusion. They had been cast by ivory tower academics, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), among others, as victims of “ideological exclusion” under the Bush Administration. “…I know why I was banned from this country. [It] has nothing to do with my ‘terrorist views’ or my view about violence,” argued Ramadan at an April 8...

It turns out that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez could have had a much closer relationship with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) if the former head of the AAUP had his druthers. “While admittedly bizarre, Roger Bowen, former general secretary who joined the anti-academic freedom mob in a Wall Street Journal piece seeking the dismissal of University of Colorado Professor Churchill, pursued the purchase of additional office space and suggested seeking external funding from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez,” Peter Kirstein writes in Illinois Academe. Kirstein is currently the vice-president of the AAUP. When I asked the St. Xavier University...

Professors dependent on government subsidies in Texas are complaining about a new law there that forces them to let their students know what is in their courses before they are trapped in their classrooms. “When University of Texas at Austin junior Taurie Randermann complained to her boss that her course titled ‘Communication and Religion’ was actually about fringe cults like Wiccans and Heaven’s Gate, she kicked off a major change in how much information Texas colleges and universities provide students about course offerings,” The Education Reporter reported in the September 2010 issue of the newsletter. “Randermann’s boss, Texas Republican State...

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the 13th General Conference of the National Association of Scholars in Washington, D.C. Among the highlights of the conference was a debate between AAUP President Cary Nelson and NAS President Peter Wood. During the Q & A some of the comments by Nelson made me thankful that I am now a member of the NAS and that I have never been a member of the AAUP. Cary Nelson claims the AAUP shares many of the same goals as the NAS including an atmosphere conducive to open debate on our college campuses. He...

There is evidence for intelligent design in the universe." This does not seem like an especially radical statement; many people believe that God has revealed himself through creation. Such beliefs, however, do not conform to politically correct notions in academia, as Professor Guillermo Gonzalez is learning the hard way. An astronomer at Iowa State University, Professor Gonzalez was recently denied tenure—despite his stellar academic record—and it is increasingly clear he was rejected for one reason: He wrote a book entitled The Privileged Planet which showed that there is evidence for design in the universe.& nbsp; Dr. Gonzalez's case has truly...

The American Association of University Professors is trying to spin the results of a poll it conducted to make it look like a ringing repudiation of the Academic Bill of Rights crafted by author and activist David Horowitz. “They do have an instinctive feel and sense that the kind of legislation that Horowitz is advancing is just not acceptable,” AAUP General Secretary Roger Bowen told the Chronicle of Higher Education. What the AAUP is trumpeting is the poll result that shows that about 80 percent of those questioned do not believe that “The government should control what gets taught in...

Concern is mounting that the US government is using antiterror laws - namely, the Patriot Act - to revive a now-discredited practice common during the cold war: the prevention of foreign intellectuals who are critical of administration policies from entering the country and sharing their views with Americans. The practice, called ideological exclusion, became illegal in 1990. But a recent lawsuit - brought by the American Association of University Professors, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the PEN American Center under the Freedom of Information Act - is asking the Bush administration to explain its decisions to revoke or deny...

College campuses can be political hotbeds. And that has some members of Congress thinking they should get involved. Some Republicans are pushing a measure through the House of Representatives meant to ensure that students hear "dissenting viewpoints" in class and are protected from retaliation because of their politics or religion. Colleges say the measure isn't needed, but with Congress providing billions of dollars to higher education, they are worried. The measure's chief promoter, Marxist-turned-conservative activist David Horowitz, says an academic bill of rights will protect students from possible political "hectoring" and discrimination by their professors.... The federal government provides loans...

The American Association of University Professors on Saturday added three colleges to its list of censured institutions, and took two institutions off the list. The net change leaves 47 colleges on the list of colleges “not observing the generally recognized principles of academic freedom and tenure.” The association voted at its annual meeting to censure Meharry Medical College, the University of the Cumberlands, and Virginia State University. Southern Nazarene and Wingate Universities were voted off the list. In addition, the association condemned recent actions at Benedict College and at the City University of New York. Institutions are placed on the...

On April 11, Jonathan Bean, a professor of history at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC), received the college’s “Outstanding Teacher Award.” But just two days later, Bean became the scourge of the campus, abandoned by teaching assistants and vilified as a purveyor of “racist propaganda.” Behind Bean’s sudden fall from admired academic to campus Enemy Number One was a cabal of eight radical academics in the SIUC history department. Bean's offense was to have assigned as optional reading for his history class a 2001 Frontpagemag report titled “Remembering the Zebra Killings” by James Lubinskas. The class topic was “Civil...

In Professor Joseph Massad's mid-March statement to the ad hoc committee investigating faculty intimidation of students at Columbia University, he listed the support he'd received from various quarters, including petitions and letters. He then added this: The Middle East Studies Association's Academic Freedom Committee also issued a letter defending my academic freedom, as did the American Association of University Professors, or AAUP, the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. I'd seen all of these missives, with a major exception: the letter from the American Association of University Professors. The AAUP...

To: DePaul University Whereas we the undersigned believe that academic institutions have an obligation to promote and encourage the free exchange of diverse ideas and opinions on controversial matters; And whereas, after examining various accounts regarding the circumstances surrounding the unpaid suspension of DePaul Professor Thomas Klocek, we believe that he was punished primarily because of the content of opinions he expressed on a controversial subject; And whereas we believe that his due process rights, including his right to an open, comprehensive hearing on the charges against him, his right to confront his accusers, and his right to academic freedom...

html> American Association of University Professors Political Intrusions into the Academy In many countries, governments have a larger role in their university affairs than is true of government in the United States. In at least a few other places, the ruling political party controls universities directly, determining the faculty to be hired and promoted, the students to be admitted, the subject matter to be taught, the research to be pursued, and the speakers to be welcomed. In the United States, universities and colleges form an independent sector, accountable to the academic disciplines represented in the institutions, and to the judgments...