BY AMY HAGOPIAN Public health professionals are charged with responding to humanitarian crises. When hospitals are bombed, when children are deliberately starved, when doctors are assassinated, we’re supposed to speak up. That’s the job. Last week, I was informed my American Public Health Association membership has been revoked, my annual meeting registration cancelled, and I…
BY LAURA GOLDBLATT, MELISSA LEVY, AND DAN SEGAL With scant exceptions, US colleges and universities have a board of trustees that is the institution’s highest decision-making or governance body. In response to the current widespread assault on academic freedom, rights of speech and assembly on campus, and the role of campus governance, the Academic Council…
BY THE AAUP-PENN EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE We were alarmed to read reports that Penn has been “invited” to sign a so-called “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” by the federal government, and that failing to do so would jeopardize federal funding. When an invitation is accompanied by consequences for not accepting it, it is in fact…
BY JOHN WARNER AND ANNA FEDER The following is a repost of a piece that originally appeared on “Academic Freedom on the Line,” a Substack run by Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom fellow John Warner. The past few weeks have seen a volume of violations of academic freedom not seen since the Red…
BY DALE E. MILLER In “Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity,” Professor Lisa Siraganian throws down a gauntlet. After offering “seven theses against viewpoint diversity in any of its guises,” she writes that “if viewpoint diversity means committing oneself to a robust debate about truth and values, then the movement should be open to responding to…
BY JONATHAN REES In the last week of classes of the spring 2025 semester, our administration announced a deal that would allow Barnes & Noble to take over our university bookstore. It included an arrangement that would guarantee students access to all their textbooks on the first day of classes, in exchange for students paying…
BY HANK REICHMAN Charlie Kirk did not deserve to die. As so many have pointed out, political violence—whatever the source—must be condemned for both its immorality and its destructiveness. Much as I have abhorred Kirk and the movement he represented, we are all worse off today than we were before he stepped to a podium…
BY THE TEXAS CONFERENCE OF THE AAUP This week’s events are the clearest example yet: We are bargaining away Texas’s future so politicians can have material for fundraising emails and viral social media content. This week, Texas A&M University has presented the most startling example yet of the consequences of our state and federal governments’…
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 JENNIFER RUTH “We stand determined to see that Mason—the largest public institution of higher education in Virginia with one of the most diverse student bodies in the US—remains a university of, by, and for the people.” — Bethany Letiecq, Professor in the College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University George Mason University…