A Call for Proactive University Communication Strategies
BY LOUISE PAY Understanding the strategy behind ideological attacks on university employees is the only way to counter them effectively. It’s easy to dismiss cases like the recent incident at the University of Oklahoma (OU), where a graduate instructor’s grading decision was amplified into a public controversy on X (formerly Twitter) by the OU chapter…
The AAUP’s Title VI Statement Denies Reality
BY DON ERON The AAUP’s recent statement On Title VI, Discrimination, and Academic Freedom is a potentially useful report that self-destructs with the use of a single quote, on which the report—and the organization as a whole—wages its credibility. As a result, nobody who doesn’t already agree with everything the report says is likely to take it, or…
Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Fakery
BY DAVID PICKUS AND ROBERT NIEBUHR Artificial Intelligence (AI) is just a tool, they say. For universities, the idea is that this tool enhances learning. Furthermore, the promise continues that AI is a great equalizer that will increase access to knowledge. Our objection to AI in universities does not center on the march of technology,…
Statement from NU AAUP on the University’s “Resolution Agreement”
BY JACKIE STEVENS Northwestern University’s Interim President Henry Bienen announced on Friday the university had violated commitments to its faculty and students in order to appease an autocrat. Bienen claimed the agreement was signed to restore federal funding but has withheld the appendices indicating the affected grants and contracts. The scope of restored funding and…
Global South Scholars Cannot Afford Academic Freedom
BY SIBESO LISULO What happens when a university, the very institution tasked with speaking truth to power, cannot afford the cost of its own voice? This is not a theoretical question but a lived reality for a lot of academics in the Global South. I explore this grim reality in “Navigating Fiscal Precarity and the…
In Defense of an Independent and Representative Faculty Voice: The Case of Faculty Senates
BY AFSHAN JAFAR We have recently seen accelerating legislative and political attacks on faculty governing bodies at state institutions, including legislation recently enacted in Indiana, Ohio, Utah, and especially Texas. In a recently published report titled In Defense of an Independent and Representative Faculty Voice: The Case of Faculty Senates, the AAUP’s Committee on College…
External Influences on Academic Freedom Abroad
BY AMY LAI Academic freedom is generally defined as the freedom to engage in activities involved in the production of knowledge, without unreasonable interference or restriction from law, institutional regulations, or public pressure. Interferences with academic freedom can come from within the academy, such as in the form of institutional pressures, but may also come…
A Tale of Two Compacts
BY SHAWN GILMORE It’s now been a few weeks since the second Trump administration offered its “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” first to nine institutions, then to the rest of us. Containing a range of provisions, the agreement would limit the autonomy of any institution that signed on in exchange for continued access…
Gender Studies and the University in 2025
BY ANDREW JOSEPH PEGODA People have the right to take gender studies classes. These classes include an emphasis on how patriarchy and gender stereotypes affect everyone. Negative impacts of boys being told “don’t cry” and girls being told “be quiet” are important and long-lasting. States controlled by conservative politicians have increasingly sought to ban gender…