BY MICHAEL SCHWALBE Most Americans are accustomed to authoritarianism by virtue of their daily experiences in the workplace. Managers make, interpret, and enforce the rules by which private companies operate; they say what goes, and they can use force to impose their will. Employees who resist can be disciplined or fired, often without due process…
BY RACHEL BOUVIER Act I: Collateral Damage The letter came by FedEx. Inside: A formal notification that my tenured position as an economics professor had been eliminated—the second time in a matter of months my line had been retrenched, along with fifty colleagues and entire departments. The first had been noisy and public. The second…
This blog post originally appeared on Academic Freedom on the Line, the Substack newsletter of the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom (CDAF). We are republishing it here with the author’s permission. BY JOHN WARNER I want to believe at this point that I am immune to shocks to the system when it comes…
BY MYIA CLARISSE WILLIAMS AND VERNON C. LINDSAY One “big beautiful bill” has introduced ugly stress responses and expanded job duties among diverse higher education practitioners. Current provisions impose additional limits on Grad PLUS and Parent PLUS loans. Federal loan restrictions, the loss of DEI initiatives, and other meaningful programs that impact student retention also…
BY CATHERINE D’IGNAZIO As a professor at MIT, I find myself navigating strange waters these days. Last semester, I advised the thesis of a student who left the country because she did not feel welcome in the United States (and she is a citizen). I listened to exceptional students from around the world tell me…
BY AARON NISENSON The Trump administration has successfully buried a key component of the Columbia settlement agreement. The focus on monetary damages paid by the university and restrictions on campus protests and diversity policies obscures the Trump administration’s imposition of the right to interfere directly in university admissions, hiring, and promotion decisions. The Trump administration…
BY THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CHAPTER OF THE AAUP The Agreement between the federal government and Columbia University announced on July 24, 2025, has been presented as a settlement of Title VI violations, specifically the university’s alleged failure to curtail bias and harassment directed toward Jewish faculty, staff, and students. However, as has been pointed out by…
BY AUDREY BERLOWITZ The recent announcement of the founding of the Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE) reveals another “axis of power” in the multiwebbed right-wing war on the US university. Though the new body entails only the seven southern public university systems of Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A & M,…
BY BRITT S. PARIS, LINDSAY WEINBERG, AND EMMA MAY Tomorrow, July 23, the Trump administration plans to release an “AI action plan” that reflects the White House’s priorities for expanding the artificial intelligence industry. It builds on one of the first directives from the second Trump administration, Executive Order (EO) 14179, “Removing Barriers to American…
BY AN ANONYMOUS IRANIAN STUDENT On June 4, 2025, the Trump administration issued a proclamation that restricts or denies entry to the United States of foreign nationals from a list of specific countries, including Iran. In the weeks since then, the AAUP has received numerous emails from current and prospective students affected by the travel…