BY DANIEL SPARKS Federal and state policy landscapes are changing rapidly in higher education. In July 2025, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which includes a “do no economic harm” accountability provision limiting all colleges’ access to Title IV loans if programs fail to meet state earnings thresholds as determined by the Department…
BY JOAN W. SCOTT Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber has carefully curated his public reputation as a defender of free speech and academic freedom against the wanton attacks by the Trump administration. In a recent book, widely publicized and distributed by his university, he offers advice to others about how to maintain an atmosphere of…
AI / Governance
BY PRISCILLA JEBARATNAM Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming workplace practices, including how employee performance is assessed. Organizations are increasingly adopting AI-enabled evaluation systems because they promise greater consistency, efficiency, and objectivity. But an important question remains: Do more accurate evaluations automatically lead employees to perceive them as fair? A recent rapid evidence assessment examining…
BY HANK REICHMAN In a long-awaited ruling a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, on July 7 ruled that Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” restricting how race and gender can be taught in colleges and universities violates the free speech rights of professors. As the AAUP’s Special Committee Report on…
BY GRANT A. MINCY Last year, when Tennessee’s HB2194 threatened to eliminate faculty peer review from tenure termination proceedings across the Tennessee Board of Regents system, those of us challenging the bill had a meaningful argument available: The bill created accreditation risk. SACSCOC’s Principles of Accreditation—especially principle 6.4 on academic freedom and principle 6.5 on…
BY ROBERT OVETZ The wave of unionization in higher education over the past decade has resulted in a new breakthrough. The first exclusive student worker union at a community college has been certified by the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). While there are some unionized student workers at private colleges and public universities, most…
BY HANK REICHMAN In a major victory for academic freedom and freedom of expression, on June 19 an arbitrator reversed San Jose State University’s despicable decision to dismiss a tenured full professor for her participation in pro-Palestinian protests, ordering her immediate reinstatement. The case of Professor of Justice Studies Sang Hea Kil has gained international attention. …
BY DANIEL A. SEGAL We—meaning both faculty and the AAUP—know that when our teaching and research disturb powerful interests, we risk repression on our campuses from administrators, trustees, donors, and elected office holders. This has certainly been the case in recent years in the context of both the second Trump administration and widespread efforts to…
BY ION MORARU, NEENA QASBA, AND MARK MACIEJEWSKI This op-ed was originally published by the Connecticut Mirror on June 16, 2026. Two Connecticut chapters successfully pushed the state legislature and governor to backfill $35 million in state funds to offset federal research cuts at the University of Connecticut and its academic medical center. Read the…
BY VEENA DUBAL The following report by AAUP General Counsel Veena Dubal, Professor of Law at the University of California at Irvine, was delivered to the AAUP’s biennial meeting in Chicago on June 13 by AAUP Council member Samuel Bagenstos, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, and received a standing ovation. I’m grateful…
BY KATIE RAINWATER In 2011, Eric Barron, the then-president of Florida State University, gave a presentation to FSU’s board of trustees. His talk concerned how Florida could adopt and exceed the “7 Breakthrough Solutions” that the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a conservative, market-fundamentalist think tank, had put forward to reform higher education. The seventh…
BY BRITT PARIS As AI companies are flailing, financial forecasters warn of an AI bubble. There is an extensive list of harms AI poses to workers, students, communities, the environment, and the social contract, yet campus leaders press forward with AI partnerships and initiatives. Administrators and technology officers have signed multimillion dollar contracts with technology…
BY MARTHA LINCOLN AND MARTHA KENNEY Earlier this spring, we published an essay in Academe about the California State University’s secretive and costly initiative to provide ChatGPT Edu, a general-purpose AI chatbot, to all CSU faculty, students, and staff. With many colleagues at Cal State, we have spent the past year organizing against the “AI-Empowered…
BY JONATHAN REES I wrote the first draft of “The AI Nuisance,” my contribution to the latest issue of Academe on artificial intelligence, back in November. The AI news kept coming at such a fast pace that I felt the need to revise it again in mid-January, just before it was due at the end…
BY DESIREE ZERQUERA I am often home alone in the evening with our two young children, carrying the weight of after school activities, dinner, bathtime all alone, holding our lives together while my husband, the professor, teaches late at another lecture or event or seminar or student meeting. I’m often up alone in the mornings,…
