POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN

The following resolutions from the Academic Council of the University of California Academic Senate and from the University of Massachusetts Amherst Academic Senate were published this week.  Their calls for unity and action should be widely circulated and embraced.

Academic Council Statement: The Defense of the University
April 8, 2025

Higher education is under direct and sustained attack. Deliberate and systemic shifts in the federal government’s approach to higher education—which include defunding crucial research, intervening in academic affairs, and policing expression—will have profound downstream consequences, threatening the integrity of knowledge production and the public role of universities in a democratic society. The mission of the University of California is thus existentially at risk.
Unity will be critical in the weeks, months, and years ahead, as the University of California fights to preserve its capacity to prepare the next generation of the workforce. These graduates will be leading health care providers, educators, authors, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Given the opportunity, they will conduct the research leading to breakthroughs in science and technology, new treatments for disease, new forms of creative expression, and new insights about the world we inhabit. Let us remember that our university played a foundational role in the development of the Internet, satellite communications, nuclear energy, biotechnology, agronomy, and many other domains that have substantially improved our collective well-being. If our research and teaching mission is compromised, what future discoveries will be lost, and at what cost to the public health and welfare of all Californians?

The Academic Senate is one of the pillars of shared governance of the University of California, along with the Regents and the administration. Policies and practices of shared governance have served the institution well during previous crises, and we will have even greater need of them as we move forward. The urgency and complexity of the problems we confront necessitate collaborative efforts. We need to stand, speak, and work together—informed by our shared, fundamental principles—in order to guard our mission. This approach requires that the Regents, President, and Chancellors of the University of California actively engage faculty and leverage their expertise to secure a strong future for the University and the many constituencies it serves. Now is the time for bravery to override fear.

We thus call on the Regents, President, and Chancellors of the University of California to expend every effort, commit necessary resources, and use all legal measures to defend our ability to conduct consequential, transformative research and provide high-quality teaching and mentoring. We call on our leaders to ensure the safety and privacy of students, faculty, and staff. And we further call on our leaders to protect academic freedom and faculty control of the curriculum—proactively and publicly.

While current events may seem shockingly unprecedented, there are historical parallels. From these we learn that the future is contingent upon how we respond now. We must come together as a community to strengthen our ability to fulfill our institutional mission and uphold our commitment to the state of California. These collective efforts extend to working together with colleagues at other universities to envision and implement plans for preserving higher education’s ability to contribute to the common good.

Let the future historical record show that we rose to the challenge of defending the University of California, and we did so in ways that did not betray its core values.

The distinctive mission of the University is to serve society as a center of higher learning, providing long-term societal benefits through transmitting advanced knowledge, discovering new knowledge, and functioning as an active working repository of organized knowledge. That obligation, more specifically, includes undergraduate education, graduate and professional education, research, and other kinds of public service, which are shaped and bounded by the central pervasive mission of discovering and advancing knowledge.

Fiat Lux.

University of California
Systemwide Academic Senate Council, 2024-2025

 

Resolution to Establish Mutual Academic Defense Compacts in Defense of Academic
Freedom, Free Expression, Institutional Integrity, and the Research Enterprise

Motion 33-25 adopted at the 837th meeting of the University of Massachusetts Amherst
Faculty Senate, Thursday 4/10/25

Background
A group of faculty requested that the Rules Committee or the Research Council submit this resolution for consideration by the Faculty Senate. In the last several weeks, governmental bodies have defunded multiple institutions, including Columbia University, Harvard University, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania while providing neither evidence nor due process. Restoration of funding has been held out in exchange for government overreach into universities in ways that violate academic freedom and institutional self governance. Executive Orders and Dear Colleague letters seek to censor speech and mandate programming at publicly funded universities. The government has deployed its Homeland Security Department ICE agents to baselessly revoke student visas in order to arrest and detain
international students as punishment for exercising their First Amendment rights. So far, these events have happened in relative isolation, with little communication and coordinated response across affected or soon-to-be-affected institutions. This resolution seeks common ground across institutions uniting in a common defense to collectively safeguard their shared values of academic freedom, free expression, democratic governance, civic responsibility, scientific discovery, and the pursuit of knowledge.

Resolution to Establish Mutual Academic Defense Compacts in Defense of Academic Freedom, Free Expression, Institutional Integrity, and the Research Enterprise

Whereas, escalating actions by governmental bodies threaten foundational principles of American higher education, including the autonomy of university governance, the integrity of scientific research, and the protection of the freedoms of inquiry, speech, and association;

Whereas, political actors have targeted individual institutions with legal, financial, and political incursions designed to undermine their public mission, silence dissenting voices, and exert unlawful control over academic inquiry;

Whereas, governmental actors have signaled a willingness to censor curricula, restrict inquiry, target scholars and students, and carry out politically motivated detentions;

Whereas, America’s Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) represent a longstanding tradition of academic collaboration, research excellence, and commitment to democratic values and shared governance;

Whereas, these nearly 250 APLU institutions represent more than one million faculty and staff members and 6.6 million undergraduate and graduate students;

Whereas, institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—public and private, large and small—share a longstanding commitment to academic freedom, democratic governance, civic responsibility, and the pursuit of knowledge for the public good;

Whereas, Massachusetts is home to a diverse and nationally respected higher education ecosystem that serves hundreds of thousands of students and employs tens of thousands of educators, researchers, and staff whose work supports innovation, critical inquiry, social mobility, and community engagement;

Whereas, the preservation of one institution’s integrity is the concern of all, and an infringement against one institution shall be considered an infringement against all;

Be it resolved that, the University of Massachusetts Amherst Faculty Senate urges the President of the University of Massachusetts system, the Chancellor of the University, and the Rules Committee of the Faculty Senate to formally propose and help establish a Public and Land-Grant University Mutual Academic Defense Compact (PLUMADC) among all public and land grant universities that would like to participate;

Be it further resolved that, the Faculty Senate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst urges the President of the University of Massachusetts system, the Chancellor of the University, and the Rules Committee of the Faculty Senate to formally propose and help establish a Massachusetts Higher Education Mutual Academic Defense Compact (MHEMADC) among public and private colleges and universities across the Commonwealth that would like to participate;

Be it further resolved that, under these compacts, participating institutions shall commit meaningful support—financial, legal, organizational, and/or strategic—to a shared or distributed defense infrastructure designed to respond immediately and collectively to attacks by the governmental actors on any member institution;

Be it further resolved that, these compacts shall facilitate the mobilization of institutional resources—including legal counsel, governance experts, public affairs professionals, faculty governance leaders, research capacity, and media relations—to coordinate a unified and robust response, including but not limited to:

● Legal representation and, where appropriate, countersuit actions;
● Public communication strategies to counter misinformation and defend academic
principles;
● Filing of amicus briefs, publication of expert testimony, and other legal interventions;
● Legislative advocacy and coordinated policy engagement at the state and federal
levels;
● The development of collaborative strategies and frameworks to diversify funding
streams beyond the federal government; and
● Rapid-response research and public-education initiatives;

Be it further resolved that, this resolution be transmitted to the leadership of all Public and Land-Grant Universities across the nation and all institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as well as their shared governance bodies;

Be it finally resolved that, the President of the University of Massachusetts system, the Chancellor of the University, and the Rules Committee of the Faculty Senate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst take leading roles in convening summits of faculty and administration leaders to initiate the implementation of these Compacts and affirm the
collective commitment to defend academic freedom, free expression, institutional autonomy, and the public mission of higher education in the Commonwealth.

Contributing editor Hank Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay; former AAUP vice-president and chair of the AAUP Foundation; and from 2012-2021 Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, based in part on posts to this blog, was published in 2019.  His Understanding Academic Freedom was published in October, 2021; a second edition came out last month.