AAUP Presents

Defending Academic Freedom: Learning to Resist

The 9th episode of our special series “Academic Freedom on the Line” is a conversation among 4 authors who contributed to the recently published University Keywords, a volume on how universities operate as social and economic engines that shape society beyond their traditional educational roles. Andy Hines, the volume editor,  Senior Associate Director of the Aydelotte Foundation at Swarthmore College, and author of Outside Literary Studies: Black Criticism and the University; Jennifer Ruth, professor in the School of Film at Portland State University, and co-director of The Palestine Exception, who serves on the steering committee of Coalition for Action in Higher Education; and Ellen Schrecker, renowned historian of McCarthyism and US higher education, and most recently the co-editor of The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom with Jennifer Ruth and Valerie C. Johnson; and interviewer Vineeta Singh, a fellow at the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom. We share this conversation with you in the hopes that it helps you leverage your curiosity, drive for knowledge, and research skills in the service of creating more just universities and more just societies. Links to resources mentioned in our conversation: To read/watch with your study group:University KeywordsThe Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic FreedomNo Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities Vietnam: history, documents, and opinions on a major world crisisPalestine Exception (documentary)To connect with other academic workers: Historians for Peace and DemocracyStarting an AAUP Chapter, Step By Step Upcoming AAUP events and trainingsCoalition for Action in Higher Education  or email CAHE at DayofAction @ proton.me 

Faculty on the Front Lines (Intro)

In this special episode of our series Academic Freedom on the Line, Vineeta Singh interviews Anna Feder, an organizer, curator, and cinema exhibition consultant who serves as the Director of Programming for the Resistance of Vision Film Festival. Anna has collaborated with the Palestine Anti-Repression Network and the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom to create a series of video testimonies from educators who have faced backlash for standing with their students or for questioning the Palestine exception. We also hear the testimony of one of her interviewees, MIT professor Michel De Graff. You can find the rest of the series here. You can learn more about Anna’s case on the Academe blog.And you can read the AAUP’s new report on Title VI, Discrimination, and Academic Freedom here.  

AAUP v. Rubio: The AAUP Takes the Trump Administration to Court

Update: Judge William G . Young ruled in favor of the AAUP and its fellow plaintiffs in the case. The full ruling is here. In this episode we discuss case AAUP v. Rubio, the lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration's policy of arresting, detaining, and deporting non-citizens, students and faculty who participate in pro-Palestinian activism, with Ramya Krishnan, the lead attorney for the AAUP  in the case. We also hear from Todd Wolfson, the AAUP's president, about the AAUP's broader legal work and strategy as it fights to protect higher education from the onslaught of attacks by the Trump administration. The guests are ​​Ramya Krishnan, a senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute and a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School, and Todd Wolfson, the AAUP president. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn.Episode links:Ruling in AAUP v. RubioSummaries about AAUP v. Rubio and arguments by the Knight InstituteSummaries of the current AAUP litigation against the Trump administration

Understanding Governing Boards & Academic Freedom

A new episode of our special series Academic Freedom on the Line with the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom focuses on university governing boards and their workings. Raquel Rall, Associate Professor in the School of Education at UC Riverside and Demetri Morgan,  Associate Professor of Education at University of Michigan Marsal School of Education and CDAF fellow, join us to explain the differences between public and private boards, what an “advisory role” actually means, and how to create meaningful communication between board members and academic workers and community members. Be sure to visit the website of the Center for Strategic and Inclusive Governance, the Rall’s and Morgan’s new project designed to equip higher education boards and leaders with research-informed tools for mission-centered decision-making. The website includes open access resources and rapid-response guides bridging scholarship and practice. And you can submit suggestions for additional resources or areas of investigation! Further Reading for the Board-Curious: Boards Must Fight for Institutional Independence (opinion)| Inside Higher EdDecision-Making for the Public Good: Leveraging Higher Education Governing Boards for Equitable Student Success |Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning  Introducing boards to the equity conversation: State-level governing boards and discourses of social justice| Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. New national center supports higher education governance | UCR News

Academic Freedom on the Line: Science Funding

We’ve all heard about the changes to federal research funding since the beginning of the Trump administration. This episode of our special series Academic Freedom on the Line takes a deeper look at the landscape of federal research funding. How is research funding allocated? What is disrupted when these funds are precipitously cut? What could this mean for the future of research in the United States? To help us answer these questions, we call on experts in the fields of federal bureaucracy and legal studies. Our guests are Mary Feeney and Ethan Prall. Feeney is the Frank and June Sackton Chair and Professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University and Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Prall is an environmental legal scholar and scientist, a Harvard Law School grad, and currently an Abess Fellow, Society of Conservation Biology Graduate Student Fellow, and doctoral candidate in environmental science and policy at the University of Miami. Links to resources mentioned in the conversation: AAUP Action Report: Understanding the Law and Policies for Grant Terminations for the National Science FoundationNSF Funding breakdown by state:  Workbook: NSF by NumbersNIH in your state: NIH In Your State - United For Medical Research Science is US: Do science and engineering drive economic growth?Grant Watch tracker compiled by Noam Ross and Scott Delaney: https://grant-watch.us/ 75th anniversary edition of The Endless Frontier by Vannevar Bush