AAUP Presents: Recent Episodes
The AAUP
A new podcast by the American Association of University Professors on issues related to academic freedom, shared governance, and higher education. Visit aaup.org for more news and information.
On today’s episode of Academic Freedom on the Line, we’re talking about students, labor, migration, and what happens at the intersection of all those categories. We talk about how and why higher education workers must resist the rising tide of fascism on and off campus, and get organizing lessons from the front lines.
Our guests today are:
A. Naomi Paik, the author of Bans, Walls, Raids, Sanctuary: Understanding U.S. Immigration for the 21st Century (2020) and Rightlessness: Testimony and Redress in U.S. Prison Camps since World War II (2016). She is a part of the Migration Scholars Collaborative and a founding member of the Sanctuary Campus Network and Sanctuary for All UIC.
Abbie Boggs, who teaches in the department of sociology, college of education studies, and program in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies at Wesleyan University. Her first book, Degrees of Empire: Noncitizen Students and the Making of US Higher Education, is forthcoming this year from Fordham University Press.
César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández holds the Gregory Williams Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at Ohio State University College of Law. His most recent book is “Welcome the Wretched” and he publishes Immigration Law Unhinged, a free weekly newsletter on Substack.
William I. Robinson, distinguished Professor of Sociology, Global and International Studies, and Latin American Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. His latest book is Epochal Crisis: The Exhaustion of Global Capitalism (2025)
Sources mentioned in the podcast
- Degrees of Empire - Abigail Boggs
- Abolitionist University Studies: An Invitation
- Rightlessness by A. Naomi Paik
- Sanctuary Campus Network
- The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (The McCarran-Walter Act)
- Migra: A History of U.S. Border Patrol by Kelly Lytle-Hernandez
Helpful Resources for Deeper Dives
- Interview with William i Robinson on his latest book, Epochal Crisis
- Covering Surveillance, Struggles and Solidarity in the Arab American Community - MERIP
- One Million Experiments
- Schools Drop ICE
- Debt Collective
This episode of the special series “Academic Freedom on the Line” includes an excerpt from the webinar announcing the release of the AAUP’s Report On Title VI, Discrimination, and Academic Freedom last year. Committee A Chair Rana Jaleel and former General Counsel Risa Lieberwitz share big picture findings and key takeaways from the report.
Following the excerpt, CDAF host Vineeta Singh is joined by 3 academics who have faced professional challenges for their support of students organizing in defense of Palestinian rights:
Anna Feder is an educator, curator, organizer, and documentary filmmaker with nearly two decades of experience in higher education. Her termination from Emerson College and the cancellation of her series have become the subject of a lawsuit, alleging that the college violated her free speech rights.
Andrea Brower is an activist-scholar whose work on capitalism, colonialism, and the environment is embedded in movements for collective liberation and ecological regeneration. She recently resigned from her position of Associate Professor and lead instructor of Solidarity and Social Justice at Gonzaga University after facing harassment and repression for her Palestine solidarity activism.
Judith Norman is a professor and chair of the department of philosophy at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. She teaches topics in the history of philosophy and also works in prison education. She has organized with local organizations and also with Jewish Voice for Peace San Antonio.
Links to resources mentioned in our conversation:
AAUP’s Report On Title VI, Discrimination, and Academic Freedom
Andrea Brower's Open resignation letter
On the IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitism
Middle East Studies Association's findings on 60+ cases of retaliation
Jewish Voice for Peace
US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
Anna’s list of films
Israelism documentary
The Unmaking of a College
The Five Demands
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 Keywords
The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom
No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities
Vietnam: history, documents, and opinions on a major world crisis
Palestine Exception (documentary)
To connect with other academic workers:
Historians for Peace and Democracy
Starting an AAUP Chapter, Step By Step
Upcoming AAUP events and trainings
Coalition for Action in Higher Education or email CAHE at DayofAction @ proton.me
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.
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. Rubio
- Summaries about AAUP v. Rubio and arguments by the Knight Institute
- Summaries of the current AAUP litigation against the Trump administration
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 Ed
- Decision-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
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 Foundation
- NSF Funding breakdown by state: Workbook: NSF by Numbers
- NIH 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
This episode of our special series in partnership with the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom zooms out from the “Trump versus Harvard” headlines to situate attacks on US higher education institutions in a transnational context. We ask an interdisciplinary panel of scholars studying different parts of the world to help us set aside American exceptionalist frameworks and understand what is happening in the US in broader geographical, historical, and political contexts.
Our guests:
Audrey Truschke is Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. For the last three years, she served as chair of the Rutgers Faculty and Graduate Student Union Academic Freedom Committee. Her latest book, India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent was published earlier this month (June 2025).
Fatima El-Tayeb is Professor of Ethnicity, Race & Migration and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. Her research interests include Black Europe, comparative diaspora studies, queer of color critique, critical Muslim studies, decolonial theory, transnational feminisms, visual culture studies, race and technology, and critical European studies. The English translation of her book Un-German: Racialized Otherness in Post Cold-War Europe comes out this month (June 2025).
Eve Darian-Smith is a Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Irvine as well as a fellow at the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom. She is an interdisciplinary scholar trained in law, history, and anthropology. Her book Policing the Mind: The Antidemocratic Attack on Scholars and Why It Matters has just been published by Johns Hopkins University Press in May, 2025.
Links to sources mentioned in the conversation:
- “Fighting on Three Fronts” by Hank Reichmann
- Legal and Academic Resources for Academic Freedom and On-Campus Protests - Rutgers AAUP-AFT
- Policing Higher Education by Eve Darian-Smith
- Un/German by Fatima El-Tayeb Translated by Elisabeth Lauffer
- India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent by Audrey Truschke
Further reading:
- Academic Freedom in India in 6 tables— IAFN
- Punched, choked, kicked: German police crack down on student protests | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera
- Peace Petition Scholars, Turkey –Scholars at Risk
- Hungary broke EU law by forcing out university, says European Court
- Discourse on Colonialism by Aime Cesaire
This episode of our special series “Academic Freedom on the Line” takes a look at accreditation, a seemingly complex but essential mechanism for safeguarding both the quality of education our institutions offer as well as the institutional and disciplinary autonomy that allows them to create and enforce standards of rigor without direct interference from the federal government. Robert Shireman of the Century Foundation joins us to demystify the role of accreditation agencies and help us understand why changes to accreditation threaten academic freedom in the United States.
Links:
- CDAF’s Executive Power Watch Fact Sheet on Accreditation
- Robert Shireman’s June 2024 report“Academic Freedom Is Under Attack. College Accreditors May Be the Best Line of Defense”
- Robert Shireman’s March 2025 Article in the Chronicle “How an Accreditation War Could Start”
- “AAUP Testimony to NACIQI”
- “Accreditation and Academic Freedom: An AAUP and Council for Higher Education Accreditation Advisory Statement”
In this episode, we speak with a coalition of student leaders actively organizing against state-level DEI bans in Texas and Kentucky. This is the third episode in the special series, "Academic Freedom on the Line," being produced in conjunction with the AAUP's Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom (CDAF). Host Vineeta Singh also speaks with Clare Carter at the Freedom to Learn team to help us understand how state legislatures have attacked the principles of academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and shared governance, and then we get to hear from the students about what this has looked like on their campus, and how they have mobilized against these attacks.
The episode guests are:
- Clare Carter, the Program Assistant for the Freedom to Learn Program at PEN America where she and the Freedom to Learn team work to combat state legislation that would censor higher education. You can reach her at ccarter at pen dot org
- Dionicia Berrones, a Texas Students for DEI member who supports the collective with Administrative + Operational Tasks, Onboarding, and Outreach. She is completing an Ed.M. in Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship with a concentration in Identity, Power, and Justice in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
- Angel Yongyin Huang, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, majoring in Sociology and minoring in Social Work. Angel is also the Economic Opportunity Fellow for Every Texan and a leader in Students Engaged in Advancing (SEAT), where she has been at the forefront of protecting students' rights by opposing educational censorship bills.
- Laysha Renee Gonzalez, a proud daughter of Mexican immigrants and a first-generation college student. With the support of the Terry Foundation Scholarship, she achieved her dream of studying at The University of Texas at Austin, majoring in Race, Indigeneity, and Migration and Plan II Honors, with minors in Government and Women’s and Gender Studies, set to be the first in her lineage to graduate from a U.S. university this May.
- Savannah Dowell, a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Louisville double-majoring in history and gender studies with a minor in humanities. She’s also an organizer with the Kentucky Student Coalition for DEI focusing on student outreach and collaboration between public universities across the Commonwealth.
- Bradley Price, from Lexington, Kentucky by way of Natchitoches, Louisiana, is a junior undergraduate student at the University of Louisville, double-majoring in Pan-African Studies and English Literature with a minor in creative writing. She’s an organizer with the Kentucky Student Coalition for DEI, focusing on social media and collaboration between public universities across the Commonwealth.
Links:
- Get involved with Texas Students for DEI
- Students for DEI at the University of Louisville
- Follow these orgs on social media through the handles:
- @txstudentsfordei
- @kystudents4dei
- @students4deiuofl
- PEN America’s work on Education Censorship
- America’s Censored Classrooms 2024 is an excellent introduction to the work of PEN America’s Freedom to Learn Team
This is the second episode of the limited series AAUP Presents: Academic Freedom on the Line. Our guest Dr. Stephanie Hall is a leading expert on college accountability and the for-profit higher education industry. Her research and advocacy in these areas have been instrumental for federal and state legislation, congressional oversight, and federal agency action. We ask her what the Department of Education is for, why the right perceives it as a threat, and how the right uses “polarizing” language to obfuscate its attacks on civil rights.
CDAF host Vineeta Singh is joined for this episode by Hall and Barrett Taylor. Dr Hall began her more than 20-year career in education as a middle and high school teacher in Atlanta and then Brazil. She has spent the past decade focused on policy issues including the governance of education policy and institutions, teacher education policy, undergraduate pathways, and workforce development, most recently as the senior director for higher education policy at the Center for American Progress (CAP). Prior to CAP, Dr. Hall worked with the Century Foundation and the University System of Maryland office of Academic and Student Affairs. Barrett Taylor is professor and coordinator of the higher education program at the University of North Texas. His research focuses on the relationship between universities and their environments, with particular attention to state politics and policy, the organization of academic work, and institutional inequality.
Links:
- Stephanie Hall: What Will Happen to Your Student Loans if Trump Closes the Department of Education? | Teen Vogue
- Dear Colleague Letter
- Legal threat to Section 504 sets precedent for civil rights attacks, advocates say
- CDAF Fact Sheet on Antisemitism Executive Order
- Stephanie Hall: Invasion of the College Snatchers
- Stephanie will be on stage at ASU GSV next month discussing and debating the oversight of higher ed.
UPDATE from May 23, 2025: Educators and Unions Unite to Challenge Trump Attempt to Dismantle Department of Ed
In this episode we discuss the AAUP's statement "Against Anticipatory Obedience" which offers guidelines about how to respond to attacks on higher ed like those being launched by the Trump administration and its right wing allies. The statement says in times like these, "it is the higher education community’s responsibility not to surrender to such attacks—and not to surrender in anticipation of them. Instead, we must vigorously and loudly oppose them." Henry Reichman, a professor emeritus of history at California State University–East Bay and one of the statement's writers, walks us through the history and the recommended actions in the face of attack.
In part two of the episode, we discuss what specific steps faculty can take to strengthen their CBAs and handbooks to safeguard academic rights and governance. The guests in part two are Mark Criley, a senior program officer in the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance at the AAUP, and Monica Owens is a senior program officer and field services representative in the Department of Organizing. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn.
Links:
- Against Anticipatory Obedience,AAUP
- 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, AAUP
- Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, AAUP
- Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure, AAUP
- Statement on Procedural Standards in the Renewal or Nonrenewal of Faculty Appointments, AAUP
- Understanding Academic Freedom, Henry Reichman, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025
This episode kicks off a new limited series hosted by the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom (CDAF), AAUP Presents: Academic Freedom on the Line. CDAF serves as a resource and knowledge hub for all people—including faculty, students, campus workers, alumni, administrators, trustees, parents, journalists, policymakers, and business leaders—seeking to build a flourishing higher education system, rooted in institutional autonomy, workplace democracy, and freedom from coercion and external interference. Its current projects include an Academic Freedom field guide that curates resources for individuals, institutions, and organizations facing attacks on academic freedom and Executive Power Watch, tracking executive orders that impact higher education with fact sheets that break down what these new policies are intended for and how campus leaders can resist them.
The guests are center Director Isaac Kamola and CDAF fellows Tim Cain, Don Moynihan, and Vineeta Singh. Isaac Kamola is an associate professor of political science at Trinity College. He is also the founder of Faculty First Responders, a program that monitors right-wing attacks on academics and provides resources to help faculty members and administrators respond to manufactured outrage. Tim Cain is a professor in the University of Georgia’s Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education and associate editor for the Review of Higher Education. Don Moynihan is the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and co-director of the Better Government Lab. Vineeta Singh is associate director of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at Virginia Commonwealth University and will be the host for this limited series.
Links:
- AAUP Presents episode Political Interference in Higher Ed: Escalations, Attacks, and the Billionaires Behind It
- Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom | AAUP
- Academic Freedom on the Line Newsletter
- Publications: Executive Power Watch, Action Reports, etc.
- Academic Freedom Syllabus
- Academic Freedom Field Guide
- Joan Scott on Academic Freedom as Ethical Practice
- Ellen Schrecker: Worse than McCarthy
In this episode we discuss the AAUP's new statement On Institutional Neutrality. As college and university communities begin to suffer the consequences of unchecked power, the statement reaffirms that institutional neutrality is neither a necessary condition for academic freedom nor categorically incompatible with it—and that respect for faculty voices and shared governance procedures is essential to sound decision-making and the protection of those who dissent.
Our guests are the report's coauthors, Joan Wallach Scott and Brian Soucek. Scott is a historian and an emerita professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and a member of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Soucek is professor of law and chancellor’s fellow at the University of California, Davis, School of Law. He is also a member of AAUP’s Committee A. The episode is hosted by Anita Levy, a senior program officer in the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance.
Links:
- The statement, On Institutional Neutrality
- FAQs on Institutional Neutrality
In this episode we discuss the Nonpartisan College Voter Registration and Education Project, a student voter registration project being led by, among others, the Johns Hopkins chapter of the AAUP. The project aims to increase student voter registration and turnout by asking faculty to devote five minutes of class time to voter education and on-the-spot voter registration
The guests are Sam Novey, Chief Strategist at the University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement, and Michael Rosenblum, professor of biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University and affiliate of the Johns Hopkins SNF Agora Institute for strengthening global democracy.
Episode links:
- Nonpartisan College Voter Registration and Education Project registration form
In this episode we discuss academic boycotts and the AAUP's revised policy on boycotts, released this August. We’ll hear more about the statement, how it came about, and where it fits in the current debates about academic freedom in higher education. The guests are Rana Jaleel, an associate professor at the University of California at Davis and chair of the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, and Risa L. Lieberwitz, a professor at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the general counsel of the AAUP. She is also a member of Committee A.
Episode links:
- 2024 Statement on Academic Boycotts
- “The AAUP Has Always Defended Academic Freedom. We Still Do,” Rana Jaleel and Todd Wolfson, The Chronicle of HIgher Education, August 21, 2024
- “The AAUP Is Right, Supporting Boycotts is Academic Freedom.” Joan Wallach Scott, The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 20, 2024
- “Changing My Mind About Boycotts, Joan W. Scott,” Journal of Academic Freedom, Volume 4, 2013
- 2006 Statement on Academic Boycotts
In this episode, I discuss the AAUP’s involvement in the Black Freedom Struggle in the 1950s and 1960s as it related to higher ed with Joy Ann Williamson-Lott, dean of the graduate school and professor of social and cultural foundations in the College of Education at the University of Washington. Drawing on her recently published article of the same name in AAUP's Academe, we discuss how Black private institutions, Black public institutions, and white public institutions in the period approached the civil rights movement as it related to academic freedom on campus; Williamson-Lott gives us examples and perspective on how these different types of institutions “understood their self-interest differently.”
Links:
"The AAUP and the Black Freedom Struggle, 1955–1965," Joy Ann Williamson-Lott, Academe, Spring 2024
As campus protests in support of Palestine are met with often violent and repressive crackdowns, we talk to three faculty members, all AAUP members, who report on what's happening at their respective campuses. We speak to Annelise Orleck at Dartmouth College, whose arrest at a May 1 protest at Dartmouth garnered significant press coverage, Todd Wolfson at Rutgers University, where faculty supported students as they came to a negotiated solution to end their encampment, and Nivedita Majumdar at John Jay College in the City University of New York system, where 173 people were arrested during protest at the the end of April. AAUP president Irene Mulvey also weighs in on the ongoing crackdown and threats to higher ed.
The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.
Links:
- In Defense of the Right to Free Speech and Peaceful Protest on University Campuses, AAUP statement and sign-on, April 29, 2024
- "Police Treatment of a Dartmouth Professor Stirs Anger and Debate," The New York Times
- "Rutgers students — reluctantly — end Gaza solidarity encampment," New Jersey Monitor
- "CUNY and Columbia organizers hold press conference and rally after Tuesday police sweeps," The Colombia Spectator
In this episode we dive into how data, educational technologies (or “EdTech”), and other technological forces are shaping and sometimes harming higher education. The guests are Martha Fay Burtis, an associate director of the Open Learning and Teaching Collaborative at Plymouth State University, and Jesse Stommel, a faculty member in the writing program at the University of Denver and cofounder of Hybrid Pedagogy: The Journal of Critical Digital Pedagogy.
In a recent article for the AAUP's Academe magazine, Burtis and Stommel explain how “increasingly, technology companies are treating educational institutions as conglomerations of data, reducing the human teachers, staff, and students to bits and binary. Too many of these companies are more interested in selling solutions to problems of data than they are in genuinely supporting the people represented by those data.” Listen for more.
Links:
- "Bad Data Are Not Better Than No Data, Academe
- "Counter-friction to Stop the Machine: The Endgame for Instructional Design", Hybrid Pedagogy
- "Undoing the Grade: Why We Grade and How to Stop,'" Hybrid Pedagogy
- Design Forward faculty development program
As violent, militarized responses to protests on campuses across the country continue, in this episode we look at how political interference in higher education has expanded in dangerous ways. We discuss how the right (and increasingly the center) have demonized higher education as a public good, and examine the historical origins of the current onslaught of political interference in higher ed.
Isaac Kamola, an associate professor of political science at Trinity College in Connecticut guests. He is the director of the AAUP’s newly established Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, which will examine and confront the recent surge of political and ideological attacks on American higher education. It was established by the AAUP with funding from the Mellon Foundation. Ruth, a professor and associate dean at Portland State University also guests. She is the coauthor, with Michael Bérubé, of It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom and coeditor, with Valerie C. Johnson and Ellen Schrecker, of the forthcoming The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom.
Links:
- "Subnational Authoritarianism and the Campaign to Control Higher Education," Jennifer Ruth, Academe
- Will Academic Freedom and Campus Free Speech Survive? Inside Higher Ed
- In Defense of the Right to Free Speech and Peaceful Protest on University Campuses, AAUP statement
Faculty and student groups at more than 50 U.S. college and university campuses will hold a National Day of Action for Higher Education on Wednesday, April 17 in a coordinated nationwide counterprotest against the sustained right-wing assault on American higher education as a public good.
Organizers say the Day of Action for Higher Education will demonstrate how cross-rank organizing, robust faculty governance, labor solidarity, and protection of the freedom to teach and learn are crucial to the survival of higher education and to its vital social purpose in a democracy.
In this episode host Mariah Quinn, the AAUP's digital organizer, talks to two of the organizers of the April 17 movement about how it came about and the path forward. Our guests are Rebecca Karl, a professor of history at New York University and president of NYU-AAUP, and Amy Offner, an associate professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and president of AAUP-Penn.
Links:
- Day of Action for Higher Education website
From Florida to Texas to Ohio to Indiana politicians in some states are trying to substitute their own ideological beliefs for educational freedom by passing legislation that interferes with how colleges and universities operate. They’re introducing bills that mandate or prohibit content in the classroom, empower partisan political appointees to determine campus policy, limit the freedom to learn, teach, and conduct research.
In this episode we look at member-led efforts to fight legislative interference in Texas and Ohio, specifically pushing back against bills targeting diversity equity and inclusion programs, tenure, and collective bargaining. We talk about each campaigns successes, failures, and the lessons learned.
The guests are Karma R. Chávez, the Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor and Chair in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also serves on the executive committee of the AAUP chapter, and Sara Kilpatrick, the AAUP Ohio Conference Executive Director. She previously worked as the political director for the Ohio Senate Democratic Caucus. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.
Links:
- Lessons from AAUP Advocacy in Texas, Karma Chávez, Academe, Fall 2023
- A Provisional Victory in Ohio, Sara Kilpatrick, Academe, Fall 2023
- Ohio Conference website with information about SB 83
- AAUP UT Austin chapter website page tracking Texas higher ed bills
- AAUP resources on political interference
In this podcast we discuss the AAUP's special report Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education System. The report offers an in-depth review of a pattern of politically, racially, and ideologically motivated attacks on public higher education in Florida, which have largely occurred during the term of Governor Ron DeSantis.
The guests are Afshan Jafar, a professor of Sociology at Connecticut College and a co-chair of the special committee, Henry Reichman, professor of history California State University, East Bay, also a co-chair of the committee, and Liz Leininger, a neuroscience professor who was previously affiliated with New College. The program is hosted by Anita Levy, senior program officer in the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance.
Show notes:
- Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education System
- AAUP's Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities
- Resources from the AAUP on political interference in higher ed
- The Administrative Overhaul of New College of Florida, Inside Higher Ed, September 2023
In this episode, Michaele Turnage Young, a senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, discusses this summer’s Supreme Court affirmative action decision and talks about how creating equity in higher ed requires reimagining and reexamining what the education system can do to expand access to higher education. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.
Show Notes:
- AAUP resources on diversity in higher education
- The Legal Defense Fund website
In this episode, we discuss the unprecedented strike earlier this year at Rutgers University with Todd Wolfson, the president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT. Of the strike and their common good model of organizing, he had this to say: “For 50 years, I’d say public universities have been on the defensive.” Now, he said, “I think we turned the tables and we moved the ball perceptively in the other direction.”
The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.
Episode links:
- Rutgers AAUP-AFT website
- "Reclaiming Paul Robeson in the Time of COVID-19," Todd Wolfson and Donna Murch, Academe magazine
In this episode we talk to Atia Sattar, an associate professor (teaching) in the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California, about the article she wrote for AAUP’s Academe magazine entitled “Academic Motherhood and the Unrecognized Labors of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Women of Color.”
In it, she wrote, “while women in higher education often face a career penalty for their struggles with infertility and motherhood, women of color do so within an institutional context that also frequently undervalues them and is dismissive of their abilities.” Listen to episode for more.
The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.
Links:
- "Academic Motherhood and the Unrecognized Labors of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Women of Color," Academe, Spring 2022
- Ten simple rules for a mom-friendly Academia
In this episode we examine the changing higher ed landscape after the Supreme Court decision in the case Students for Fair Admissions, INC, v. President and Fellows of Harvard College which effectively ended effectively end race-conscious admissions.
The guests are Charles Toombs and Risa Lieberwitz. Charles Toombs, a Professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University and president of the California Faculty Association. He is the immediate past chair of AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Risa L. Lieberwitz, a professor of labor and employment law in the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She also serves as the General Counsel of the AAUP and is a member of AAUP Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.
Links:
- Link to the Supreme Court decision
- AAUP resources on diversity in higher education
- Webinar by the AAUP “After Affirmative Action” (member login required)
- San Diego State University diversity policies
In this episode we focus on AAUP’s work around racial justice. This is the first in a series of podcasts this season that will examine issues around the fight for greater racial equity in higher education. Tune in to hear our discussion about efforts to restrict teaching about race, the racial equity initiative at the AAUP, and what's ahead.
The guest are Irene Mulvey and Glinda Rawls. Irene Mulvey is the president of the AAUP. She taught mathematics for 40 years, first at Swarthmore College and then Fairfield University in Connecticut. In Fall 2022, she retired as a full professor from Fairfield, and was awarded the title of professor emerita of mathematics. Glinda Rawls is an Associate Professor of Counselor Education and Unit Director at Western Michigan University (WMU), a member of AAUP’s national Council, and the chair of the AAUP Racial Justice Committee.
Additional links:
- Resources about racial justice on the AAUP website
- Resources about political interference in higher education
We’re returning to the topic of student debt after this week’s arguments before the Supreme Court over the Biden administration’s student debt relief program. Risa Lieberwitz, AAUP’s general counsel and a professor of labor and employment law in the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and Jenna Sablan, AAUP’s senior program officer for government relations, weigh in on what happened at the high court this week and what's next.
In August, the Department of Education announced that borrowers with federally-held loans making less than $125K for individuals or $250K for households would be eligible for up to $20,000 in debt relief to Pell Grant recipients and up to $10,000 in debt relief to non-Pell Grant recipients. On February 28, the justices heard two cases challenging the debt relief plan, one from six Republican-led states and one from two individuals.
The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.
Links:
- AAUP Files Brief Supporting Student Debt Relief
- The Past, Present, and Future of the Student Debt Crisis (AAUP Presents, Season 1, Episode 11)
In this episode we discuss the AAUP’s new investigative report on the summary suspension and dismissal of Dr. Mark McPhail, at Indiana University Northwest.
In September 2021, the administration dispatched campus police officers to McPhail’s home to inform him that he had been dismissed and banned from campus, supposedly for making racially charged threats of physical violence. No accuser was identified, and no criminal charges were filed.
An AAUP investigation found that, in acting against McPhail, the administration disregarded AAUP-supported standards of academic due process. The committee deemed “implausible” the charge that McPhail had made violent threats, and it found “highly credible” McPhail’s allegation that the administration’s actions were prompted by his criticism of the administration’s handling of racial equity issues and therefore violated his academic freedom.
The guests are Afshan Jafar, a professor of Sociology at Connecticut College, and the chair of the investigative committee for the report, and Mark Criley, a senior program officer in the AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance, who staffed the investigation. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP’s digital organizer.
Links:
- Read the full investigative report here
- The Disenchantment of a Black Professor, Oyin Adedoyin, The Chronicle, May 2022
As student debt has grown astronomically over the past few decades, topping $1.7 trillion in federal and privately held debt, there seemed a moment of (limited) hope over the summer after years of activism and pressure when the Biden administration announced a federal plan to cancel $10K of debt for most federal loan holders and $20K of debt for those who had received Pell Grants. That plan ground to a halt in November when Republican-led courts halted the program. In this episode we discuss the current state of student debt in the U.S., how we got here, and where we could go next.
The episode's guests are Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, an associate professor of history at Loyola University Chicago and the author ofIndentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in College Debt,and Charlie Eaton, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Merced, where he co-founded the Higher Education, Race, and the Economy Lab. He is the author of Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of Financiers in US Higher Education.Links:
- “American Higher Education’s Past Was Gilded, Not Golden," Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, Academe, Fall 2022
- “Student Debt Cancellation on Campus," Charlie Eaton, Academe, Fall 2022
- College Score Card from the Department of Education with information on debt held by students
- "The Private Side of Public Universities: Third party providers and platform capitalism," Laura T. Hamilton, Heather Daniels, Christian Michael Smith, and Charlie Eaton, University of California, Merced, Berkeley Center for Studies in Higher Education, June 2022
- Information on SUMMER debt counseling from the AAUP
- The Debt Collective
- Cancel My Student Debt
Visit our website aaup.org for more information on our work.
In this episode we sit down with Professor Lori Latrice Martin, an associate dean in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and professor in the Department of African and African American Studies at Louisiana State University, to discuss her article “Black Out: Backlash and Betrayal in the Academy and Beyond,” which examines what Professor Martin describes as the "predictability of efforts to silence conversations and actions related to combating anti-Blackness in America and the continued use of Black deaths to further the social, economic, and political progress of non-Black groups in the academy and beyond" in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. You can find the article in the most recent edition of AAUP’s Journal of Academic Freedom; the entire issue is devoted to the intersection of disinformation and academic freedom.
Links:
- "Black Out: Backlash and Betrayal in the Academy and Beyond," Lori Latrice Martin, Journal of Academic Freedom, Volume 13, 2022
- "Racial Realism," Derek Bell, Connecticut Law Review, 1992
- Journal of Academic Freedom, Volume 13, 2022
Visit our website at aaup.org for more information on our work.
In this episode of the podcast we discuss the issue of the massive transfer of wealth from tribal nations who underwrote the founding of land-grant universities and how institutions are beginning to address and contend with difficult questions about their relationship to Indigenous communities. The issue is the topic of a recent article in AAUP’s Academe magazine entitled “Confronting the Wealth Transfer from Tribal Nations That Established Land-Grant Universities” written by today’s guests, Stephen M. Gavazzi, a professor of human development and family science in the College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State University, and John N. Low, an enrolled citizen in the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi Indians and the director of the Newark Earthworks Center. He is associate professor of comparative studies at Ohio State, and the author of Imprints: The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi and the City of Chicago.
Suggested reading:
- "Confronting the Wealth Transfer from Tribal Nations That Established Land-Grant Universities," Stephen M. Gavazzi & John Low, Academe, Spring 2022
- "Land-grab Universities," Robert Lee & Tristan Ahtone, High Country News, March 30, 2020
On April 28 the AAUP released a report of the Special Committee on Governance, Academic Freedom, and Institutional Racism in the University of North Carolina System. The report considers the influence of the North Carolina state legislature on the systemwide board of governors and campus boards of trustees. It discusses how political pressure and top-down leadership have obstructed meaningful faculty participation in the UNC system, jeopardized academic freedom, and reinforced institutional racism.
The guests are the co-chairs of the special committee that wrote the report, Nicholas Fleisher, professor of Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and Afshan Jafar, professor of Sociology at Connecticut College. The episode is hosted by Anita Levy, senior program officer in the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance at the AAUP.
Visit aaup.org to for more of our work or to become a member.
Episode links:
- Governance, Academic Freedom, and Institutional Racism in the University of North Carolina System
In this episode we discuss AAUP’s recently released statement from Committee A, Legislative Threats to Academic Freedom: Redefinitions of Antisemitism and Racism, which addresses partisan efforts in state legislatures to enact bills targeting teaching about Israel and about the history of racism in the United States, in ways that present a significant threat to academic freedom.
The guests are Rana Jaleel, an associate professor of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies at the University of California, Davis, and a member of the AAUP’s Committee A, and Risa Lieberwitz, who is AAUP’s general counsel and a professor of labor and employment law in the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She is also a member of Committee A. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer. Episode links:
- Legislative Threats to Academic Freedom: Redefinitions of Antisemitism and Racism
- Statement on Legislation Restricting Teaching about Race
- The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX
The AAUP’s Kelly Benjamin talks to Michele Rayner, a member of the Florida House of Representatives, about attacks on academic freedom, the motivation for anti-critical race theory bills, and the state of the broader political situation in Florida.
Episode update: When the episode was recorded, a bill Kelly and Rep. Rayner discussed that would make public college presidential searches in Florida secret had not passed the state legislature. It has since passed and Florida governor Ron DeSantis is expected to sign it. See the article below for more information.
Episode Links:
- "Florida legislature passes bill making public college presidential searches confidential," Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Higher Ed Dive
- "Late bill change would weaken tenure at Florida universities, faculty say," Divya Kumar and Ana Ceballos, Tampa Bay Times
- "Florida Memorial University Lays Off Four Tenured Professors, Discontinues 16 Degree Programs," Alex Deluca, Miami New Times
After the University of Florida administration blocked faculty from testifying in a voting rights case, a battle over academic freedom broke out in the state, garnering national attention and a court case. Paul Ortiz, professor of history at the University of Florida and president of the United Faculty of Florida-UF, talks to host Mariah Quinn about how faculty in the state are geared up to protect academic freedom and the first amendment.
Episode links:
- AAUP President Cautions Against Lack of Transparency as University of Florida Seeks New President
- University of Florida's Politically Motivated Violation of Academic Freedom Undermines the Common Good
- "Judge rules for professors in University of Florida academic freedom case,"
Susan Svrluga and Lori Rozsa The Washington Post - "UF researchers felt pressure to destroy COVID-19 data, faculty report says," Divya Kumar, Tampa Bay Times
This podcast discusses the student debt crisis, which affects than forty-five million people in the United States who are saddled with debt in excess of $1.7 trillion, and perils and promise of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. The guests are Kaitlyn Vitez, Federal Government Relations Specialist, AAUP national office and Jessica Sponsler, art historian and adjunct professor and AAUP’s Pennsylvania state conference president. The podcast is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer.
Episode links:
- AAUP Joins Coalition to Call for Student Debt Cancelation
- "The Miseducation of the Indebted Student," Academe, Jason Thomas Wozniak, Spring 2021
- US Department of Education Overhauls Public Service Loan Forgiveness
- "Fixing Public Service Loan Forgiveness", Academe, Kaitlyn Vitez, Winter 2022
- Jessica Sponsler's testimony to the Department of Education on PSLF
- Debt Collective Petition Calling for Student Debt Cancelation
All of AAUP's podcast can be found on our website, here. Thanks for listening.
**We're joined on the podcast by Irene Mulvey, a professor of mathematics at Fairfield University and the AAUP’s current president. We'll cover the AAUP's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, current fights to protect academic freedom and shared governance, and plans for a new deal for higher education.
Episode links:**
- AAUP's COVID-19 resources
- Special report on COVID-19 and Academic Governance
- Coverage of the University of Florida and the fight over academic freedom
- University of Georgia system under investigation
- Special Committee to Report on Structural Racism and Violations of Shared Governance at UNC
- New Deal for Higher Education website
As always, check out our website aaup.org for news, resources, and links to join the AAUP.
This podcast focuses on the 2020-2021 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, which presents findings from the AAUP’s annual Faculty Compensation Survey, as well as taking a deeper dive into the issue of institutional debt, which is covered in a special section of the report. This annual report outlines how years of unstable funding, combined with the impacts of the COVID‑19 pandemic, have created an existential threat to shared governance and academic freedom in higher education that severely weakens our nation’s ability to effectively educate our communities.
The guests are Glenn Colby and Eleni Schirmer. Glenn is the senior researcher at the national office of the AAUP. Eleni is a research associate on UCLA’s Initiative for the Future of Finance, which is part of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, the AAUP's senior program officer for digital organizing and chapter services.
Episode links:
- The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2020-21
- Faculty Compensation Survey Results Tool
- It's Not Just Students Who Are Drowning in Debt -- The Nation
- Debt Reveal Toolkit
Follow the AAUP on Facebook and Twitter.
This podcast focuses on shared governance in higher ed. The AAUP released three reports this year looking at data collected from our national shared governance survey. The reports looked at the impact of the pandemic on shared governance, the demographics of senate chairs and governance structures, and faculty roles in decision-making.
We’ll be discussing those reports and more, as well as discussing the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on shared governance. This podcast features guests Joerg Tiede and Michael DeCesare. Joerg is the director of research at the AAUP, who conducts survey research on academic freedom, tenure, and governance. He has also written on the history of the AAUP and the development of academic freedom, tenure, and governance in the United States. Mike until recently chaired the AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance. He is professor of sociology at Merrimack College and a consultant with AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Shared Governance. The episode is hosted by Mariah Quinn, AAUP's senior program officer for digital organizing and chapter services.
Episode links:
- Survey Data on the Impact of the Pandemic on Shared Governance
- Findings on Demographics of Senate Chairs and Governance Structures
- Findings on Faculty Roles by Decision-Making Areas
- Special Report: COVID-19 and Academic Governance
- AAUP's Shared Governance Assessment Tool
- Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities
Follow the AAUP on Facebook and Twitter.