From Kelly Benjamin
AAUP Media and Communications

We are living through a historic moment in the battle for the future of American higher education as antiwar protests are met with crackdowns on academic freedom, free speech, and faculty governance on college and university campuses nationwide.

AAUP members have been on the front lines of this crisis of repression, standing up for students and faculty rights to free expression in the face of authoritarian violence. This month’s press clips offer a glimpse into our efforts to robustly defend free speech, the right of assembly, and associational rights for students and faculty in higher education.

Also, please check out two new episodes of our podcast AAUP Presents that cover this pivotal moment. In the episode on campus protests, we interview three faculty members who’ve been involved in supporting student protests and encampments about their very varied experiences, from negotiated solutions to arrest. In another episode, we look at the history of and the people behind the current wave of political interference in higher ed. All episodes can be found on our website.

As always, to stay up to date on all things AAUP, please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Threads.

AAUP Top Clips:

• “We were just worried that they would be assaulted, and we were right to be worried. It never occurred to me that I, as an older woman Dartmouth professor, would be arrested.” – Annelise Orleck, copresident of the Dartmouth College AAUP chapter, quoted in the Washington Post.
• “What we’ve seen is a silencing of speech without any genuine attempt to talk to the students and understand the concerns that led to the protests, to hear and think about their demands. I’ve spent my entire career on college campuses, and this silencing of speech feels like a crisis of repression.” – AAUP president Irene Mulvey in an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education.
• “Academic freedom, in itself, isn’t a political question, it’s simply a necessity if you want to have a functioning higher education system. You need to have academic freedom or otherwise you just have universities in name only, like you do in dictatorships.” – Joerg Tiede, senior program officer in the AAUP’s Department of Research and Public Policy, quoted in Inside Higher Education.
• “Prior boards have encouraged us to keep up a vigilance on these matters, and so here we are to highlight a state engaged in terrible human rights violations and violations of international law.” – Ernesto Longa, president of the United Academics of the University of New Mexico, quoted in Source NM.
• “It is not intended to be used where the university is unhappy about the fact that you have an encampment and chanting.” – Risa Lieberwitz, president of the Cornell University AAUP chapter, quoted in the New York Times calling for the revocation of student suspensions from outgoing Cornell president Martha Pollack.
• “It didn’t need to happen. It could have been avoided. Our president has missed the boat on this one.” – Walt Heinecke, president of the UVA AAUP chapter, quoted in the Washington Post on the pepper spraying and arrests of students and faculty at UVA.
• “We’re teaching them that even the most deeply held belief has to be subject to scrutiny. In the process of this education, they are asking questions and want to know what their tuition is funding.” – AAUP president Irene Mulvey in a panel discussion on North Carolina Public Radio.
• “The way forward is through education, dialogue, communication, talking with the students, engaging students, letting them have their voices heard.” – AAUP president Irene Mulvey quoted in Politico.
• “The President has shown himself to be unresponsive to urgent faculty, staff, and student concerns. He has violated our trust. The University is no longer a safe and welcoming place for the diverse community of students and scholars who until now have called this campus home.” – UT Austin AAUP chapter statement quoted in the Texas Tribune.
• “The Board must understand that the removal of the president could spiral our campus into crisis yet again, and the faculty rightly would see such an intervention as a provocation to further disruptions of education.” – letter by the executive committee of Northwestern University’s AAUP chapter to the editor of the Daily Northwestern.

In Solidarity,

Kelly Benjamin
AAUP Media and Communications