Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed: The Unraveling of the AAUP, by Matthew W. Finkin (Illinois; Co-Author, For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom (with Robert C. Post (Yale):
This organization no longer knows what it stands for.
An article on threats to academic freedom on college campuses in last week’s New York Times Magazine [A Professor Was Fired for Her Politics. Is That the Future of Academia?] touched on a running debate between the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). The former has long been the expositor of the meaning of academic freedom; the latter is active in litigating free-speech cases. The quarrel between the two organizations raises some hard questions about the AAUP’s current role.
From its founding in 1915, the AAUP has gained the respect of the academic community and of the judiciary in explicating the meaning and application of academic freedom and tenure. Its work has had a significant impact on both. Its credibility has been earned by the consistent adherence to principle uninfluenced by exogenous policies or organizational ends, and by the sheer quality of its work. The latter was captured a half century ago by Judge J. Skelly Wright, who noted the “thoroughness and scrupulous care” in the AAUP documents placed before the court.
Recent actions have departed from these standards — and radically.
The AAUP, acting through its Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, has, first, abandoned its prior position that systematic participation in the boycott of Israeli universities could threaten academic freedom and, second, declared that adherence to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) dictates as a condition of faculty retention can be consistent with academic freedom. These actions reveal a body now driven by considerations other than fidelity to principle. As a result, the deep well of communal respect has been drained dry; the AAUP’s credibility has been destroyed.
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