BY HANK REICHMAN
The following is the report of the AAUP’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, presented to the AAUP annual meeting in Arlington, Virginia, on June 16 and to be published in the annual AAUP Bulletin issue of Academe later this summer.
Introduction
In the past year Committee A published several policy documents that address emerging issues affecting academic freedom and tenure, reviewed important cases and case reports of investigations, monitored developments at censured institutions, and formulated recommendations on censure and censure removal.
Imposition of Censure
At its spring meeting, Committee A considered one case that had been the subject of an ad hoc investigating committee report published since the 2017 annual meeting. The committee adopted the following statement concerning this case, the Council concurred, and the 2018 annual meeting voted to impose censure.
The University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The report of the investigating committee concerns the administration’s action to suspend from her teaching responsibilities a sixth-year doctoral student with a part-time appointment as lecturer for the entire academic year. At the beginning of the fall semester, the lecturer had protested an on-campus recruitment table for Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a conservative organization that opposes what it views as the liberal agenda in US higher education. TPUSA maintains the Professor Watchlist website. Her protest, which was video recorded by the undergraduate student staffing the table and widely disseminated online, generated significant attention, leading to threats against her and the university. The administration initially removed the lecturer from her teaching responsibilities, allegedly for her safety, but then refused to reinstate her, even in the subsequent semester, thus extending this suspension to the end of her term of appointment.
Under AAUP-supported standards, an action to separate a faculty member from ongoing academic responsibilities prior to demonstration of stated cause in an appropriate proceeding is deemed a suspension, and a suspension that is not followed by either reinstatement or the opportunity for a hearing is considered a summary dismissal in violation of academic due process. The AAUP does not regard continuation of salary as having any bearing on these positions. Although the administration took the position that the action taken against the lecturer was neither a suspension nor a dismissal, the chancellor’s announcement that “she will not teach at our university going forward because of [her] inappropriate behavior” left little doubt as to its actual nature. Thus, the investigating committee deemed the action of the UNL administration to be tantamount to a summary dismissal. Although the administration offered the lecturer a grievance process to contest that its action was tantamount to dismissal, it refused to afford her a hearing on the substantive grounds for her dismissal.
The committee found that political pressure on the university was “in some sense…at the very heart of [the case].” State legislators maintained that her conduct toward the student staffing the recruitment table was representative of a campus climate hostile to conservative views and called for her dismissal, and the Nebraska Republican Party filed open records requests for e-mail correspondence related to the case. The investigating committee’s report states that “[t]he conclusion seems inescapable that the basis for [the lecturer’s] dismissal was related to the political content of her speech and thus may have violated her academic freedom, a conclusion that stands unrebutted absent the affordance of a dismissal hearing.”
Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure recommends to the 104th annual meeting that the University of Nebraska–Lincoln be added to the Association’s list of censured administrations.
Removal of Censure
Committee A adopted the following statement recommending removal of Stillman College from the Association’s list of censured administrations. The Council concurred in the statements, and the annual meeting voted its approval.
Stillman College (Alabama). The 2009 report of the investigating committee dealt with the dismissal of a tenured assistant professor toward the end of his twenty-eighth year of service on grounds of his having violated the faculty handbook proscription of “malicious gossip.” The investigating committee concluded that the administration’s dismissal of the professor on the stated grounds violated the academic freedom to which he was entitled under the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure and that the administration, in suspending and then dismissing him, disregarded basic requisites of academic due process as set forth in the 1940 Statement of Principles and the Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings. The investigating committee further concluded that the policies and practices of the college administration had “created a climate that is inimical to the exercise of academic freedom.”
With the installation of a new president in 2017, the Stillman College administration responded to the Association staff’s annual inquiry by indicating an interest in resolving the censure. The case of the dismissed faculty member was settled some years ago, and the faculty member is now deceased. The main outstanding issues for the removal of censure therefore concerned institutional regulations. The staff reviewed those regulations and recommended several changes, including the removal of the proscription of “malicious gossip,” in order to bring them into closer conformity with AAUP-supported standards. The administration adopted all of the changes proposed by the staff. In May, a representative of the Tennessee conference visited Stillman College to assess the climate for academic freedom and met with representatives of the newly-formed Faculty Organization and with faculty at an open forum. She reported that “[f]aculty emphasized, and my observations confirmed, that Stillman College is on an upward trajectory with regard to academic freedom and shared governance. The culture at Stillman College is changing and the administration seems committed to continuing these changes.”
Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure recommends to the 104th annual meeting that Stillman College be removed from the Association’s list of censured administrations.
Other Committee Activity
At its October 27–28 meeting, Committee A approved National Security, the Assault on Science, and Academic Freedom. The report, which was endorsed by the Council in November and published online in December, is printed in this issue of the AAUP Bulletin. It documents “troubling threats to academic freedom in the physical and natural sciences in two different areas. 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 intensified significantly since Donald Trump took office.” If you have not yet read this timely report, I urge you to do so. I want to thank the other members of the subcommittee that prepared the report for their work—Joan Wallach Scott and Michael E. Mann from Committee A and Temple University physicist Xiaoxing Xi, himself a target of an unfounded national security investigation.
At its June 1–2 meeting the committee successfully concluded its long discussion—extending over multiple meetings—of Regulation 13 (“Part-Time Faculty Appointments”) of the Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure (RIR), about which I have previously reported. I am pleased to report that the committee agreed to streamline the language of that regulation and to make other changes elsewhere in the RIR that together provide greater clarity to what has always been the Association’s policy on the rights of part-time faculty members, namely that—as new language added to the regulations makes clear—”There should be no invidious distinctions between those who teach and conduct research in higher education, regardless of whether they hold full-time or part-time appointments or whether their appointments are tenured, tenure-track, or contingent. All faculty members should have access to the same due-process protections and procedures.” Because these changes confirmed rather than altered existing AAUP policy, Council approval was not necessary. However, we feel strongly that these clarifications will facilitate assistance to part-time faculty members facing challenges to their academic freedom or job security. Committee A member Don Eron deserves special thanks for his outstanding and persistent work on this issue. Don will be offering a session at the Summer Institute on the rights of contingent faculty members that will provide advice on how this regulation may best be utilized by activists.
At its June meeting the committee also discussed two troubling developments related to the academic boycott of Israel. The committee continues to oppose all academic boycotts, including such a boycott of Israel, as inconsistent with principles of academic freedom. At the same time, however, we defend the right of faculty members to advocate such a boycott. In that light we were deeply troubled by the action of the state of Israel in denying entry to Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke. When Professor Franke sought to visit Israel solely on academic business, Israeli officials denied her entry because of her alleged advocacy of a boycott, apparently determined by her listing on a notorious blacklist. A Committee A subcommittee is in process of preparing a letter to the Israeli government indicating our concern and pointing out that this action undermines the efforts of those who seek to oppose academic boycotts, since it would appear that the Israeli government has in this case imposed its own academic boycott.
In a similar vein, the committee discussed legislation in as many as seventeen states criminalizing support for the BDS movement. As a result, some public universities in those states have begun to ask that external speakers invited to campus and others who contract with these universities, such as external reviewers of tenure and promotion materials, sign a statement pledging that they do not now, nor will they in the future, endorse BDS. Specifically, we are deeply alarmed by reports that Arizona State University and the University of Houston require speakers and other academics to certify that they are not involved with the BDS movement and that the University of Houston has even extended the requirement to its own faculty and students. A subcommittee is currently preparing a statement opposing such practices that will be released this summer.
This spring executive director Julie Schmid, on the recommendation of the staff committee on investigations, approved an academic freedom investigation at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. Two tenured associate professors, who happen to be husband and wife and who were instrumental in founding an AAUP chapter, had their appointments terminated—allegedly for “unprofessional and disruptive behavior,” but really, they charge, for having questioned the administration’s efforts to exert control over their department. An investigating committee has been appointed, a visit has been scheduled, and we look forward to receiving its report in the fall.
Throughout the year, the Committee A staff has been reporting to the committee about developments at institutions on the list of censured administrations. Given positive movement at several of these institutions, the staff and the committee are optimistic that Committee A will be bringing before next year’s annual meeting several recommendations for removal.
Finally, I want to mention that the committee heard reports on the growing and horrific trend of targeted online harassment, against which the Association has been campaigning; on the Committee on Government Relations’ recent report on so-called “free speech” legislation, which I commend to you; on the April global congress of Scholars at Risk, which the AAUP Foundation supported financially and which executive director Julie Schmid attended; and on the situation at European University of St. Petersburg, which I visited this spring courtesy the U.S. State Department to speak about academic freedom and the work of the AAUP. The committee also in June discussed at great length a thought-provoking memorandum from staff member Joerg Tiede on the history of the AAUP’s support for extramural expression as a key element of academic freedom.
Conclusion
A year ago I reported on the addition of Cheryle Adams to the AAUP staff as program coordinator in the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance. While Cheryle, unfortunately, accepted a position elsewhere earlier this year, I am happy to report that long-time AAUP staff member Debra Hanible has stepped into this gap on a part-time basis with enthusiasm and her usual diligence. Debra organized our successful June meeting with grace and aplomb, and we look forward to working with her in this new role.
Lastly, I want to thank the members of Committee A for their tireless work on behalf of the principles of academic freedom, our profession, and the AAUP. I would also like to thank the members of the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance, as well as other members of our devoted and hard-working national staff, for their support of the committee and for their tireless efforts on behalf of academic freedom, shared governance, and the common good throughout higher education.
HENRY REICHMAN (History), chair
California State University, East Bay
