BY JOHN K. WILSON
In the war of words between advocates of the AAUP and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), we need to recognize the value of both organizations. I wrote an essay at Inside Higher Ed, “In Defense of FIRE,” responding to Joan Scott’s critique of FIRE. FIRE president and CEO Greg Lukianoff has just published a post, “The Fall of the AAUP” which begins, “One of the great disappointments of my professional life has been watching the decline of the American Association of University Professors, formerly the gold standard for defense of academic freedom on campus.” I want to respond to Lukianoff’s similarly misguided six points attacking the AAUP.
1) “The AAUP have championed a stark distinction between free speech and academic freedom, which is dangerous to both.”
I agree with Lukianoff’s defense of the similarities between free speech and academic freedom. But arguing that academic freedom and free speech are radically different is not a left-wing view. It’s a traditional viewpoint within the AAUP and among conservatives outside the AAUP. In recent years, this idea has been embraced by a few leftists such as Jennifer Ruth, but that doesn’t turn this conservative view into a left-wing theory, and it certainly doesn’t lead the AAUP to abandon academic freedom or free speech.
2) “The AAUP have publicly supported political litmus tests for professors.”
No, the AAUP issued a statement opposing bans on faculty adopting diversity statements for hiring candidates. The AAUP has never supported political litmus tests for professors. FIRE’s legislation against this is a bad idea because it involves politicians ordering faculty to ban any consideration of any “statement regarding diversity, equity, [or] inclusion.” Whether or not you think diversity statements are a good idea (I’m very skeptical), banning faculty from considering diversity is a dangerous step. The AAUP is correct that diversity statements are not inherently evil and should not be banned by politicians.
3) “The AAUP came out in favor of academic boycotts and then lied about it.”
No, the AAUP ended their blanket opposition to any academic boycotts, and they didn’t lie about it. According to Lukianoff, “If all they meant was that an individual professor could ‘boycott’ Israel, they didn’t need a statement for that because it’s obvious.” It’s not obvious, not when antiboycott laws have been passed in 38 states since the original statement appeared. When the AAUP officially denounced academic boycotts, it could easily be seen as a violation of professional norms for an individual professor to engage in a boycott. Would Lukianoff claim that organizations and universities don’t need to issue statements in support of academic freedom and free speech because it’s “obvious”? Lukianoff is wrong to assert that the AAUP’s neutrality on some types of academic boycotts is an endorsement of academic boycotts, and he is particularly wrong to accuse anyone who challenges him of having “lied about it.”
4) “The AAUP supported a book that proposed a gaping partisan exception to academic freedom.”
It’s a particularly terrible argument of guilt by association to blame an entire organization for the views of two members expressed in a book. Even if Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth’s book, It’s Not Free Speech, was the worst book ever written, the AAUP would not be blameworthy for supporting it, nor should we say that it “undermined their credibility.” I disagree strongly with Bérubé and Ruth on many points, but it’s an important book that deserves to be argued with rather than banished. Lukianoff’s argument that the AAUP “supported a new exception to academic freedom” is wrong as a summary of that book and unquestionably incorrect as an extrapolation from the AAUP’s alleged (and unproven) “support” for the book. We should not be afraid of books, and we should not denounce organizations for encouraging people to read books.
5) “The AAUP failed to defend professors who got in trouble for speech unpopular with the left.”
Just as I criticized Scott for wrongly claiming that FIRE’s failure to speak out in a particular case is evidence of malicious intent, I must criticize Lukianoff for the same error in condemning the AAUP. Silence is not evidence of complicity. Lukianoff cites a handful of conservative cases where he says the AAUP didn’t intervene, and then lists a few cases with leftist faculty where both the AAUP and FIRE spoke out. We have no evidence that anyone asked the AAUP to get involved or that they refused (or why). FIRE has vastly greater resources than the AAUP, and so it’s not surprising that they would be involved in more cases. FIRE searches the internet for any cases it can comment on while the AAUP has a much more limited approach. It’s notable that all of the left-wing faculty Lukianoff mentions were suspended or fired, while most of the conservative cases he cites involved no punishment by the university and no basis for the AAUP to take action. So when Lukianoff claims that his personal dataset of six examples proves that the “the AAUP’s favorite groups and individuals almost always happen to represent speech popular with the political left,” I am not persuaded.
6) “The AAUP lied about its most effective competitor—FIRE.”
I don’t agree with most of Scott’s critiques, but I do think FIRE is a free-speech absolutist group, and that’s a compliment to them. And while FIRE has fought against some bad legislation, it has also supported politicians exerting greater control over universities. Lukianoff claims that FIRE receives money from across the political spectrum, but it is difficult to believe that FIRE is equally funded by leftists and conservatives—which in no way invalidates their work or arguments. Both the AAUP and FIRE feel wrongly maligned, but unfair criticism is not the same as lying.
Lukianoff is upset that a now-deleted tweet from the AAUP called FIRE an “elite” organization, because he thinks he is a “counter-elite.” I think everyone involved in this dispute is part of a very small elite—the people working hard to defend academic freedom and free speech against its numerous and growing threats. Sometimes this passion can generate defensiveness when views about the best tactics and ideals diverge. I would say this to the AAUP and FIRE: There are many people who want to repress free inquiry on campus, but these two organizations—despite all of their arguments and occasional mean-spirited sniping at each other—are both part of the solution.
John K. Wilson is the author of eight books, including Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies and the forthcoming book The Attack on Academia.
Doubletalk, the AAUP has indeed abandoned its principled stand against academic boycotts–with a clear agenda of supporting such boycotts against Israel and nobody else.
When one of these organizations takes up a lawsuit do they work on a case on a contingency basis? Is there a difference between them in terms of who gets paid and how much?
The AAUP doesn’t have the resources to sue on behalf of faculty. FIRE typically takes cases on a pro bono basis, but it can recover attorney fees for its work if it is successful in a lawsuit or settlement. Both the AAUP and FIRE can also recommend lawyers who set their own terms. And both the AAUP and FIRE sometimes submit amicus briefs in important cases, which are not compensated.
I’m a life member of AAUP who has closely followed and often worked with FIRE since its founding in 1999. Thanks to John K. Wilson for his defenses of both of these admirable and important organizations. No human institution is infallible, but both AAUP and FIRE are deeply committed to the principled defense of intellectual freedom for all.
“For all”?
The AAUP is not at all “committed to the principled defense of intellectual freedom for all.”
Take a look at the AAUP list of institutions censured for academic freedom and try to find an Ivy League institution among them – even though the Ivy League is notorious for basic violations of the 1940 Statement. When a faculty member at Yale of my acquaintance approached the AAUP for an academic freedom violation, the AAUP wasn’t interested.
Next let us look at the AAUP list of institutions sanctions for governance violations, for good governance is essential for “intellectual freedom for all” in higher education.
When the State University of New York Board of Trustees appointed a chancellor during the pandemic without any search whatsoever, and the AAUP was approached by faculty related to SUNY, the AAUP refused to get involved, saying it required a formal request from the SUNY Faculty Senate in order to consider an investigation. This from the AAUP which is constantly supporting DEI initiatives being fostered as litmus tests for faculty courses and general education: one of the two largest state university systems in the country appoints a white male chancellor without a search, and the AAUP refused to take a stand when asked by SUNY faculty (including yours truly) to protest the lack of a search.
Again, the lists of censured institutions tell the story: AAUP is very comfortable defending academic freedom and governance at small private colleges and at major institutions where one of its leadership is affiliated (that was the case with the University of Virginia censure), but “for all”? Not by a long shot.
AAUP’s own governance and free speech history leaves much to be desired. After being forced by the US Department of Labor to re-run two of its national officer elections for violations of the LMRDA, the AAUP totally revised its national governance to eliminate the one-person one-vote principle and to institute a delegate structure for officer elections. And the AAUP leadership, in similar Politburo-style, also extended the length of terms of office for national positions.
Indeed, when the AAUP had a listserv called aaup-general a few decades ago for member discussion, this member was removed from the list in retaliation for having posted the URL to the US Department of Labor Website which showed the complete filed financial statements of the organization — which had been religiously withheld from the membership, indeed from the national staff. Only after a formal appeal within the AAUP was this member reinstated to the listserv — and then a few months later the listserv was shut down. Communication in AAUP is top-down only: there is no “intellectual freedom for all” in the AAUP.
The current leadership of the AAUP openly states its number one priority is “organizing” higher education, and the AAUP has signed a legal compact with the American Federation of Teachers to try to unionize the nation’s higher education workforce under joint auspices. “Intellectual freedom for all” would, if the current AAUP Politburo has its way, henceforth be “bargained” at the nation’s campuses, with no evident concern for any absolutist principles based on the First Amendment and case law. “Organizing” and collective bargaining “ueber alles” are the watchwords of the new AAUP Politburo.
Be careful what you wish for, dear AAUP Politburo — you just might get academic freedom based only in collective bargaining at the negotiations tables of American universities. And you will almost certainly get the more limited academic freedom that the nation’s school teachers have, for AFT has proven over the years not to understand the difference evidenced in the hard-fought legal battles for the more expansive higher education academic freedom. School teachers submit their lesson plans to administrators for approval; AAUP and AFT apparently would have the nation’s higher education faculty doing the same for DEI review.
Just what are you willing to give up for true academic freedom, dear AAUP leadership? Certainly not the hubris or the evident will to power over the AAUP membership exhibited by the national AAUP during recent decades.
AAUP founder John Dewey was also the founder of the AFT and he knew the difference between higher education and the nation’s schools. For the former, there was the prioritization of unionization; for the latter, professional association. The current AAUP leadership is selling higher education academic freedom for the thirty pieces of silver from AFT to “organize” the nation’s higher education into the limiting structures which dominate the nation’s schools.
John Dewey is turning in his grave….
I find it hard to believe that John Dewey would be rolling in his grave at the thought of two great organizations he co-founded, the AFT and the AAUP, working together to protect freedom of thought. As for the censure list, elite institutions generally work very hard to avoid censure, although the AAUP has done so in the past (as at Cornell). With regard to SUNY, it has been on the AAUP censure list since 1978, so it might not be very productive for the AAUP to investigate it over the appointment of a chancellor without an adequate search (which is, sadly, a common occurrence but not a violation of academic freedom). The AAUP cannot address every incident that violates academic freedom, and much of its work is behind the scenes. It’s unfortunately if you were temporarily removed from a listserv many decades ago, but I do not think that makes the current AAUP leadership a “Politiburo.” AcademeBlog posts and comments provide an opportunity to hear many different views about the AAUP, and I see no evidence that the AAUP supports any kind of “litmus test” for courses, or that it refuses to defend the academic freedom of faculty based on their opinions.
John Dewey understood the differences between the K-12 and the higher education sectors and he certainly would be scandalized that AFT demands subservience from the AAUP.
Have you actually read the entire AAUP-AFT contract — which is NOT posted on the members-only AAUP Website, of course? This is my “favorite” section: “AFT Executive Council will have authority over the AAUP as outlined in Article VI of the AFT Constitution as it does over locals and state federations of the AFT. However, AFT and its subordinate bodies may not contravene the terms of this Agreement.”
AAUP’s leadership has not acted and does not act like a Politburo, you say? Keep reading.
AFT demands so much money from its members that, in UUP, for example, only a quarter to a third of the 1% of salary imposed as member dues stays in UUP to benefit the local’s members. Thank God for the Janus decision or that “taking” of 1% would have continued to be mandatory “agency fee” rather than voluntary.
We are talking figures like $12 million one year to the AFT state affiliate, $8 million for AFT, and that left $8 million for UUP member issues locally (these are figures that I recall from the annual report of UUP several years back, the exact numbers now may have changed slightly, but likely not much). AAUP has sold its soul to the AFT Saturn that eats its own children — and all for a paltry 30 pieces of AFT silver.
Indeed, elite universities do wish to avoid being on the censure list- and, unfortunately, AAUP has been only too willing to oblige them. How quickly the “moderator” slides over that fact which condemns the entire censure enterprise to an exercise in petty politics.
As for the SUNY System censure by AAUP dating back to 1977, indeed, its history is of great interest today because it began with financially unjustified retrenchments, effectuated without consultation of the faculty: bad governance leading to curtailment of academic freedom.
Hardly anyone (even in AAUP) knows that added to the censure in the 90s was the Dube case of a Black faculty member who was denied tenure by System at the SUNY Stony Brook campus because his academic criticism of Zionism was considered anti-Semitic (see https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-fred-dube-affair/_). How’s that for history repeating itself in American higher education? — yet SUNY System’s continued flawed governance and tenure policies are not germane, implies the “moderator” — simply because the original censure is nearly a half century old.
Additionally, the “moderator” of the Academe Blog appears so unfamiliar with the history of academic freedom in this country as to be ignorant of its foundation and grounding in faculty governance. So when the Board of Trustees of the largest higher education system in the nation appoints a white male chancellor without a search, the “moderator” thinks that has nothing to do with academic freedom.
Now let’s get to the AAUP Politburo. It doesn’t bother the current AAUP leadership that the majority of the membership of the AAUP is so disaffected by the systematic silencing of their voices that they did not vote in the election of officers by which the current AAUP Politburo came into power. The story is even worse for the AFT Local 6741 where a paltry few thousand votes were cast out of the lists of literally tens of thousands of members who are not in collective bargaining chapters. The current AAUP and Local 6741 leadership appear attracted to this new union “bossism” power despite the fact (or because of it) that the preceding AAUP leadership had signed a devil’s pact with AFT and forced all advocacy chapter members of AAUP into an AFT local — whether those members wanted this status or not: AFT Local 6741 whose Constitution and Bylaws and election of officers were all top-down written and directed by the immediate past AAUP national leadership with absolutely no input into those documents permitted from the membership.
The current AAUP leadership gives no evidence of understanding the writings and legacy of past AAUP luminaries like Walter Metzger and the hard-won case law that underpins the 1940 Statement, etc. because if they did, they would understand that their top-down declaration that their priority is to “organize” the nation’s campuses for AFT — and perhaps even try to change the AAUP into an American Association of University Professionals — totally ignores once again what academic freedom is and for whom it was defended historically by the AAUP in the courts. Academic freedom “bargained” campus by campus appears to be the planned legacy of the current AAUP leadership. Once the administrations of American higher education understand this, they will likely rejoice at the increased control over their faculty such “organizing” in service of this AAUP leadership “vision” is preparing to hand off to them. Academic freedom and freedom of speech? No longer “absolutes” for the new AAUP Politburo.
Further, the hypocrisy of the AAUP’s new AFT Local 6741 leadership — given that the entire governance structure of the local and the election of its officers were orchestrated by the immediate past AAUP leadership — is manifest in the fact that they have not bothered to call for input of the membership in the re-writing of the local’s governance documents to reflect the priorities of the actual membership.
No member democracy in either the AAUP or its step-child, the AFT Local 6741. In fact, the local’s leaders have not even understood how legally questionable and anti-democratic it was for AAUP and AFT to dictate to tens of thousands of advocacy chapter and non-collective bargaining-affiliated members that they are now members of a local of AFT, a union against their will.
No, like true union “bosses” the AAUP’s AFT Local 6741 mini-Poliburo is reveling in its unjustified power to “speak” for these further-silenced AAUP members who did not even choose to be members of the AFT, let alone members of an AFT union local.
If those facts are not persuasive of the Politburo style of the AAUP leadership, consider the “panem et circenses” of the Zoom membership meetings called by the new AAUP President to placate the AAUP membership and to indoctrinate it in its union “bossism” philosophy. Understand that everything is done to ensure the ephemeral nature of those Zoom meetings. Members of the AAUP do not receive copies of the chat discussions, the meeting recordings are not, to my knowledge, posted on the AAUP Website where members only would be acceptable, of course — but no.
For the AAUP national leadership and the AAUP’s AFT Local 6741 leadership, all major communications are written top-down and sent from “communications@aaup.org”. Members do not have access to a directory to be able to email each other, the aaup-general listserv was killed o silence the drive for information, and the current AAUP Politburo does not care to resurrect it — because their “vision” for the AAUP is the “only authorized vision” for the AAUP and they appear intent on beating the membership into the contractual AFT submission, whatever it takes.
Freedom of thought in AAUP (and AFT)? Go back to the preceding paragraph with the excerpt from the binding AAUP contract that subjugates AAUP to AFT “authority” despite the legal autonomy of their separate corporate status.
No “litmus test for courses” you say? How about the mantra of DEI ueber alles? The lamentation when a major university apparently recently eliminated a formerly-required DEI statement for faculty candidates. The drive to have general education structures organized around DEI. The movement to have the past US general election the subject of every higher education course in the country in order to “get out the vote.” For which US Presidential candidate is not a subject of speculation — the AAUP leadership is already making statements “fearing” the Trump administration.
The irony of the situation where the AAUP leadership appears to want to do exactly what they accuse the right of trying to do — dictate how higher education is taught and what is taught — is not lost on the “old guard” AAUP members. We live, in the words of that famous Chinese curse, in “interesting times.”
Politburo does appear to be an apt nomenclature for much of the AAUP leadership style for the past few decades, in fact, with the current leadership simply taking it all one step further, by reveling in subjugating itself to the money- and power- hungry K-12 union “bosses” in AFT. Remember that a previous AAUP Politburo already eliminated the one-person one-vote franchise for national officer elections in favor of “delegates” as a backlash against member democracy after the US Department of Labor re-ran two sets of national officer elections for violations of the LMRDA (Landrum-Griffin Act).
No doubt about it: John Dewey is indeed turning in his grave.
In imitation of the French proclamation announcing royal regime change: “The AAUP is dead. Long live the AAUP!”
John and the AAUP, I am a member of an elite set of one (maybe three) who thinks the institutional model you assume is absurd and for thirty years now have worked to defend a person’s freedom and right to earn and learn in higher education without the need for academic freedom, on the premise that there is no need for the universities and colleges that are used and abused, while they invite the introduction and defense of protections like academic freedom and trade unions.
It is simple: If there were no exclusive institutional employment in higher education then there would be no need for academic freedom (as you understand it). Turn the model inside out.
To help make my point, notice how you can’t answer this question: Are higher education institutions – universities and colleges – the most effective, efficient, economical, or ethical means of service and stewardship for higher education? If you figure out why you can’t answer this question (or many others like it) and why this inability should concern you, then you will get closer to archiving this absurd inheritance (https://bit.ly/IronyAbsurdAAUP1). Try harder. Try some research: https://bit.ly/AofResPSA
I had to comment here because I literally just finished this post (https://bit.ly/PSA-AAUPonFIRE) when the Academe notification arrived in my email.