Tag: AAUP

  • Preliminary Injunction Halts Dismantling of the Department of Education (Todd Wolfson, AAUP)

    Preliminary Injunction Halts Dismantling of the Department of Education (Todd Wolfson, AAUP)

    We got great news yesterday: In a suit we brought with Democracy Forward, the AFT, and other allies in the labor movement, a district court in Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction halting the Trump administration’s unlawful effort to dismantle the Department of Education. 

    The massive reduction in force proposed by the administration would decimate crucial services the department provides to families across the country, severely limit access to education, and eviscerate funding for HBCUs and tribal colleges.

    We can’t do this work without your support. Will you become a member or make a donation to the AAUP Foundation today?

    Here’s some background on the case. In March, after having repeatedly expressed a desire to eliminate the Department of Education, the Trump administration announced a reduction in force that would cut its staff in half. Recognizing that the department was created by an act of Congress and was mandated to carry out a number of statutorily required programs, the administration claimed that it was not trying to eliminate the department but rather was seeking to improve “efficiency” and “accountability.”

    The court definitively rejected this claim, saying that the “defendants’ true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department without an authorizing statute. . . . A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all. This court cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department’s employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself.”

    The court also highlighted the impact of the cuts on students, educational institutions, and unions. For example, the court found that “higher education is also likely to become more expensive for students” as the staffing cuts “will put federal funding for Pell grants, work-study programs and subsidized loans at risk, reducing the pool of students able to attend college and posing an existential threat to many state university systems such as those intended to serve first generation college students.”

    The court found that the administration had violated two clauses of the US Constitution, and that its actions were beyond its authority as well as arbitrary and capricious. Therefore, the court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the department to reinstate staff and resume operations disrupted by the cuts.

    Perhaps because of skepticism about the administration’s willingness to follow directives of the judiciary, the court specifically required that the administration provide notice of this order of preliminary injunction within twenty-four hours to all its officers, and that it “file a status report with this Court within 72 hours of the entry of this Order, describing all steps the Agency Defendants have taken to comply with this Order, and every week thereafter until the Department is restored to the status quo prior to January 20, 2025.”

    What’s next: It is almost certain that the administration will appeal this decision and will likely seek to have the preliminary injunction stayed by the court of appeals while the case is pending.

    Trump’s agenda is a clear path to setting America back in quality and fairness in education. The AAUP will continue to stand up against these attacks and fight for a higher education system that serves all Americans. We can’t do it without you.

    Please join us as a member or make a donation today!

    In solidarity,
    Todd Wolfson, AAUP President
    Veena Dubal, AAUP General Counsel

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  • AAUP Report Backs Tenured Pro-Palestine Prof. Who Was Fired

    AAUP Report Backs Tenured Pro-Palestine Prof. Who Was Fired

    A new American Association of University Professors investigative report concludes that Muhlenberg College violated the academic freedom of a tenured associate professor who said the institution fired her for pro-Palestinian speech.

    Maura Finkelstein’s situation made headlines last year as the first instance that major academic freedom advocacy groups had heard about of a tenured faculty member being fired for pro-Palestine or pro-Israel statements. Complaints against Finkelstein also became the subject of a U.S. Education Department Office for Civil Rights investigation.

    Finkelstein previously said she was fighting her May 2024 termination and was continuing to be paid during the appeals. But a college spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed this week that Finkelstein has now “resigned from the college to pursue other scholarship opportunities.” Finkelstein didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment.

    Finkelstein, who is Jewish, had said a panel of faculty and staff recommended axing her over her Instagram repost that told readers not to “normalize Zionists taking up space” and called Zionists “genocide-loving fascists” who shouldn’t be welcome “in your spaces.”

    Members of the college’s Faculty Personnel and Policies Committee later unanimously concluded that Finkelstein shouldn’t be fired, according to the AAUP report released Tuesday. The report is from a Committee of Inquiry composed of three faculty from other higher education institutions, and it’s been approved by the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

    The report concludes, among other things, that “by initially dismissing Professor Finkelstein from the faculty solely because of one anti-Zionist repost on Instagram and without demonstrating—in fact, without ever seeking to demonstrate” that she was professionally unfit, “the Muhlenberg administration violated Professor Finkelstein’s academic freedom of extramural speech.” The report says the firing has “severely impaired the climate for academic freedom” at the college.

    A college spokesperson said the institution “has not been afforded the opportunity to review the amended report,” but pointed to the administration’s response to an earlier AAUP draft. That response, included in the final AAUP report, says Finkelstein “was afforded a fair and equitable process” and that “the cumulative effect of Professor Finkelstein’s conduct and post that called for the shaming of Zionists and to ‘not welcome them into your spaces,’ violated College policy.”

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  • Harvard Faculty, AAUP Challenge Trump Administration’s $8.7 Billion Funding Threat

    Harvard Faculty, AAUP Challenge Trump Administration’s $8.7 Billion Funding Threat

    In what legal experts are calling a landmark case for academic freedom, Harvard faculty and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging unconstitutional attempts to control campus speech and governance through threatened funding cuts.

    The legal action, filed Friday, seeks to block the administration from withholding $8.7 billion in federal funding for Harvard University and its affiliated hospitals after demands that the university implement specific policy changes and restructure its operations.

    According to court documents, the administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism issued a demand letter on April 3 outlining “immediate next steps” Harvard must take to maintain its “financial relationship with the United States government.” These demands reportedly extend far beyond addressing antisemitism, including new speech restrictions, elimination of all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and mandatory cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security.

    “The First Amendment does not permit government officials to use the power of their office to silence critics and suppress speech they don’t like,” said Andrew Manuel Crespo, Morris Wasserstein Professor of Law at Harvard and general counsel of the AAUP-Harvard Faculty Chapter. “Harvard faculty have the constitutional right to speak, teach, and conduct research without fearing that the government will retaliate against their viewpoints by canceling grants.”

    The lawsuit comes after the task force chair announced on Fox News in March that “the academic system in this country has been hijacked by the left, has been hijacked by the Marxists,” and threatened to “bankrupt these universities” by removing federal funding.

    Harvard professors involved in the lawsuit claim the administration’s threats have already begun to impact academic freedom on campus.

    “The research and teaching of Harvard faculty have already been chilled by the Trump administration’s attempt to coerce the university into changing its curriculum and governing structure,” said Dr. Kirsten Weld, professor of History and president of the AAUP-Harvard Faculty Chapter. “If Trump can threaten to withhold billions of dollars from our colleagues unless we stop teaching about diversity and inclusion, he can make the same threat to try and stop us from teaching about science, his critics, or anything else.”

    The plaintiffs have requested an immediate temporary restraining order to prevent any funding cuts while the case proceeds.

    The AAUP warns that allowing such governmental intrusion at Harvard could set a dangerous precedent for institutions nationwide.

    “Our students and faculty members across the nation are terrified,” said Veena Dubal, AAUP General Counsel. “If the administration’s lawless and unconstitutional attempts to control speech and governance at Harvard are allowed to proceed, then any one of our institutions could be next.”

    Dr. Todd Wolfson, president of the AAUP, characterized the administration’s actions as “an attack on democracy and economic mobility” with harms that “will be so irreparable that they will last generations.”

    At the heart of the case is whether the federal government can legally condition billions in funding on compliance with policy demands that appear to target specific viewpoints and academic content.

    Nikolas Bowie, Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard and secretary-treasurer of the AAUP-Harvard Faculty Chapter, argues there is no legal basis for the administration’s actions.

    “No law in this country permits President Trump to suspend billions of dollars from universities like Penn, Princeton, or Harvard simply because he doesn’t like their policies on transgender athletes, their research on climate change, or the constitutionally protected speech of their students and faculty.”

    Legal experts note that the case could potentially reach the United States Supreme Court, given its significant First Amendment and separation of powers implications.

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  • AAUP, Middle East Studies Group Sue Trump Over Deportations

    AAUP, Middle East Studies Group Sue Trump Over Deportations

    Accusing the Trump administration of creating a “climate of repression and fear on university campuses,” two faculty groups sued the federal government Tuesday to stop the president’s efforts to deport noncitizen students and faculty who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

    The Middle East Studies Association and the American Association of University Professors argue in the lawsuit that what they call Trump’s “ideological-deportation policy” violates the First and Fifth Amendments and the Administrative Procedure Act. They are asking a federal judge to rule that the policy is unconstitutional. This is the second lawsuit challenging the policy, though this legal action includes more faculty and students.

    The litigation comes after immigration officers have, over the past month, targeted international students and postdoctoral fellows for alleged participation in pro-Palestinian protests, raiding their dorm rooms and revoking their visas.

    Tuesday afternoon, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting a Columbia student, who moved to the United States from Korea when she was 7 but is now a legal permanent resident. The New York Times reported that the government argued Yunseo Chung’s “presence in the United States hinders the administration’s foreign policy goal of stopping the spread of antisemitism.”

    But the judge said Tuesday that “nothing in the record” showed that Chung posed a “foreign-policy risk,” according to the Times.

    Chung has not yet been detained. She’s just the latest student to come under fire from the administration’s crackdown on those who protested the Israel-Hamas war. That crackdown has included revoking the visas of students and faculty, giving universities names of students to target, and a social media surveillance program, according to the AAUP lawsuit.

    The MESA and AAUP lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, specifically cites the cases of Chung; Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University postdoc; and Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate. Judges have also blocked the government from deporting both men.

    “While President Trump and other administration officials have described pro-Palestinian campus protests as ‘pro-Hamas,’ they have stretched that label beyond the breaking point to encompass any speech supportive of Palestinian human rights or critical of Israel’s military actions in Gaza,” the suit says. “They have left no doubt that their new policy entails the arrest, detention and deportation of noncitizen students and faculty for constitutionally protected speech and association.”

    Attorneys from the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia are among the lawyers representing the scholarly groups.

    MESA and the AAUP—along with the AAUP chapters at Harvard, New York and Rutgers Universities—filed the suit against the federal government, Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem and Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Todd Lyons, plus their agencies.

    A DHS spokesperson said in a statement that “taking over buildings, defacing private property, and harassing Jewish students does not constitute free speech.”

    “It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America,” the spokesperson added. “When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country.”

    The White House provided a similar statement from a Justice Department spokesperson, who said, “This department makes no apologies for its efforts to defend President Trump’s agenda in court and protect Jewish Americans from vile antisemitism.”

    Beyond the immediate implications for students and faculty who face deportation, the policy has a broader chilling effect on campus free speech, the lawsuit argues.

    “Out of fear that they might be arrested and deported for lawful expression and association, some noncitizen students and faculty have stopped attending public protests or resigned from campus groups that engage in political advocacy,” the suit says. “Others have declined opportunities to publish commentary and scholarship, stopped contributing to classroom discussions, or deleted past work from online databases and websites. Many now hesitate to address political issues on social media, or even in private texts.”

    The lawsuit adds the policy harms the plaintiff associations “because they are no longer able to learn from and engage with noncitizen members to the extent they once did, and because they have had to divert resources from other projects to address the all-too-real possibility that their noncitizen members will be arrested, imprisoned, and deported for exercising rights that the Constitution guarantees.”

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  • Columbia AAUP Urges University to Reject Trump’s Demands

    Columbia AAUP Urges University to Reject Trump’s Demands

    The American Association of University Professors chapter at Columbia University is urging officials there to reject the Trump administration’s demands, which include putting an academic department under receivership, abolishing the University Judicial Board and giving security employees arrest authority.

    “Compliance would make Columbia complicit in its own destruction, stripping shared control of academic and student affairs from the faculty and administration and replacing the deliberative practices and structures of the university with peremptory fiats from outside the institution,” the AAUP chapter said in a statement Tuesday. “We see no evidence that compliance would assuage the hostility of the White House.”

    The Trump administration announced March 7 it was canceling about $400 million in federal grants and contracts for Columbia due to what it claims is the university’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” Then, in a letter last week, federal officials listed “next steps that we regard as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.” They set a March 20 deadline for complying with the demands, which also include a mask ban, a plan for changing admissions and more.

    The Columbia AAUP’s statement said, “The government’s demands read like a ransom letter, dictating to the university what principles it must sacrifice and what ideological positions it must adopt to restore research funding.” As for the justification of fighting antisemitism, the AAUP chapter said the university took “many actions over the last year to accommodate its Jewish students, sometimes at the expense of the grievances of other campus groups.”

    The AAUP chapter said this “assault on Columbia will serve as a model for attacks on other universities across the nation” and urged colleagues to speak out and “march in the streets.”

    The White House didn’t return a request for comment Tuesday.

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  • ADL, other pro-Israel groups condemn AAUP Palestine webinar

    ADL, other pro-Israel groups condemn AAUP Palestine webinar

    The Anti-Defamation League and four other pro-Israel groups accused the American Association of University Professors of “demonizing Israel” in its framing of and publicity around a webinar titled Scholasticide in Palestine.

    Scholasticide is the intentional eradication of an education system. In a joint letter Thursday, the same day as the webinar, the ADL, the Academic Engagement Network, Hillel International, the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Federations of North America condemned the event’s use of this term.

    “Language used in the event’s description—including ‘scholasticide’ and ‘exterminationist’—suggests the adoption and promotion of a one-sided and inflammatory narrative which deviates from the mission of the AAUP,” the letter said. The groups said there’s “no evidence of any intent by Israel to ‘systemically destroy’ the education system in Gaza or elsewhere. The destruction of institutions, including educational ones, is a tragic byproduct of war, exacerbated when terror groups like Hamas embed their operations within school buildings and other civilian centers.”

    Six months into the latest war in Gaza, a group of independent United Nations experts said in a news release, “It may be reasonable to ask if there is an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system.” By then, the release said, the last Gazan university had already been destroyed and “more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors have been killed in Gaza, and over 7,819 students and 756 teachers have been injured.”

    Miriam Elman, the Academic Engagement Network’s executive director, provided Inside Higher Ed with an email from Donna Murch, a member of the AAUP’s elected national council, inviting members to the webinar. Murch said the event would feature “academics and right-to-education organizers who have experienced, documented and challenged Israel’s ongoing and systematic destruction of the education system in Palestine.”

    An AAUP spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed, “We are not aware that anyone who is objecting to AAUP’s programming actually attended the event, which is part of an extended series of conversations about diverse topics of interest to our members. We take antisemitism very seriously and plan our programming consistent with the principles of academic freedom and academic responsibility that AAUP vigorously defends.”

    The pro-Israel groups also criticized the AAUP event’s promotional material for not mentioning Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israelis. The letter says, “We note with dismay that this divisive event is taking place within a wider context of the AAUP being perceived as increasingly moving in a virulently anti-Israel direction.”

    The AAUP has received criticism for its council’s August decision to abandon the group’s nearly 20-year categorical opposition to academic boycotts—such as those often called for against Israel.

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  • Political Attacks on Higher Education (AAUP)

    Political Attacks on Higher Education (AAUP)

    The Trump administration and many state governments are accelerating
    attacks on academic freedom, shared governance, and higher education as a
    public good. We are working with our chapters and with allies in higher
    ed and the labor movement to defend and advance our vision: Higher
    education that is accessible and affordable for all who want it. Freedom
    to teach, to learn, to conduct research, to speak out on issues of the
    day, and to assemble in the organizations of our choice. Colleges and
    universities that create opportunity for students, workers, and
    communities. Sufficient funding to provide true education and
    sustainable working conditions. Information and resources to help in
    this fight are being added below as they are developed.

    Immigration

    Attacks on Science and Research

    Federal Funding 

    Accreditation

    Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

    Anticipatory Obedience

    Administrations sometimes go farther than the law requires to placate those who are attacking higher ed.

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  • AAUP opposes “anticipatory obedience” to Trump, GOP

    AAUP opposes “anticipatory obedience” to Trump, GOP

    The American Association of University Professors released a statement Thursday urging universities not to engage in “anticipatory obedience,” which it defined as “acting to comply in advance of any pressure to do so.”

    “As Donald Trump assumes the presidency for a second time, the outlook for higher education is dire,” begins the statement, which the AAUP said its elected national council approved this month.

    “The Trump administration and many Republican-led state governments appear poised to accelerate attacks on academic freedom, shared governance and higher education as a public good,” the statement says. “They will attack the curricular authority of the faculty on a number of fronts … 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.”

    The White House did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment. Before JD Vance was elected vice president, AAUP president Todd Wolfson called him a “fascist.”

    In the fall, media reported that the University of North Texas removed words such as “race” from course titles, despite Texas’s anti–diversity, equity and inclusion law specifically exempting “course instruction.” The AAUP statement says that was part of a trend.

    “Under no circumstances should an institution go further than the law demands,” the AAUP wrote. “Yet, the examples above depict an eagerness to obey on the part of administrative officers, portending a bleak future.”

    The association recommended that faculty act by reviewing “handbooks and contracts to strengthen and reinforce faculty rights” in employment decisions and curricular changes. It also suggested reforming “policies to strengthen faculty oversight in areas currently being used to exercise excessive and undue discipline against faculty, staff and students,” including policies on Title IX, Title VI, acceptable use of institutional resources, outside speakers and campus protests.

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