Tag: Statement

AAUP Academic Freedom Statement Needs a Refresh (opinion)

I am a lifetime member of the American Association of University Professors. It is an organization that has done remarkable work in defending academic freedom for people who teach in this nation’s colleges and universities.

But as I contemplate returning to teaching this fall, I worry that the AAUP’s understanding of academic freedom is dangerously behind the times. The AAUP’s understanding of academic freedom urgently needs updating to take account of dangers that could not have been contemplated in 1940 when its statement on academic freedom was issued.

It is time for the organization to think anew about what academic freedom means and what must be done to protect it in an era when the federal government and some state governments are seeking to curtail it. We can understand why its failure to do has been problematic by taking a look at lawsuits filed by the AAUP and its campus-based chapters at universities that have been attacked by the Trump administration.

But before looking at those suits, let me say a bit about the 1940 statement.

The AAUP tells the story of its “Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure” this way: “In 1915 the Committee on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure of the American Association of University Professors formulated a statement of principles on academic freedom and academic tenure known as the 1915 Declaration of Principles … In 1940 … representatives of the American Association of University Professors and of the Association of American Colleges agreed on a restatement of the principles. This restatement is known to the profession as the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.”

Thirty years later, the AAUP considered updating the 1940 statement but ultimately decided not to undertake a wholesale revision. Instead, it added a series of “Interpretive Comments” to the existing document. Those comments, the AAUP explains, were intended to update the document in light of “the experience gained in implementing and applying it for over thirty years and of adapting it to current needs.”

This history reminds us that the thinking guiding that statement goes back more than a century, to a time when the modern university was just taking shape. As Yale Law School professor Robert Post notes, “The American concept of academic freedom was forged early in the 20th century. It emerged from struggles between the newly professionalizing American professoriate and the governmental, business, and parochial powers that controlled American universities.”

And it has been more than half a century since the AAUP’s influential statement on academic freedom was refreshed at all.

The 1940 statement imagined that the main threat to the “full freedom” in research, teaching and extramural speech would come “from institutional censorship or discipline.” The statement was, in that sense, addressed not just to teachers and scholars, but to university administrators.

That is why if they do not follow the principles laid out in the AAUP statement, they can be subjected to censure. As the AAUP explains it, censure is reserved for institutions “that, as evidenced by a past violation … are not observing the generally recognized principles of academic freedom and tenure approved by this Association.”

I searched the censure list, looking for the Trump administration. Alas, it was nowhere to be found.

Not surprising, because by the AAUP’s standards, the Trump administration cannot violate academic freedom except indirectly by pressuring higher educational institutions to do so on its behalf.

To be fair, the AAUP has not been silent about what the administration has done since Jan. 20. In February, it joined a suit seeking to prevent the Trump administration “from using federal grants and contracts as leverage to force colleges and universities to end all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, whether federally funded or not, and from terminating any ‘equity-related’ federal grants or contracts.”

In March, it sued the Trump administration for “unlawfully cutting off $400 million in federal funding for crucial public health research in an attempt to force Columbia University to surrender its academic independence.” As the AAUP noted, “This move represents a stunning new tactic: using cuts as a cudgel to coerce a private institution to adopt restrictive speech codes and allow government control over teaching and learning. “

But here again, consonant with its existing approach to academic freedom, the focus was on what Columbia would do to its faculty.

Also in March, the AAUP joined a lawsuit “seeking to block the Trump administration from carrying out large-scale arrests, detentions, and deportations of noncitizen students and faculty members who participate in pro-Palestinian protests and other protected First Amendment activities.” But note, the primary claim is about freedom of speech, not academic freedom.

In April, the AAUP and its chapter at Harvard University sued “to block the Trump administration from demanding that Harvard University restrict speech and restructure its core operations or else face the cancellation of $8.7 billion in federal funding for the university and its affiliated hospitals.”

Like the suit brought on behalf of Columbia University, it focused on what Harvard might do to restrict the academic freedom of those who teach and do research there.

In one sense, this is a remarkable record for which the AAUP deserves enormous credit. But, as I pointed out in January, there are new threats to individual faculty members “to intimidate them into silence,” as Darrell M. West put it. It is time that the AAUP acknowledged them in its foundational statement on academic freedom.

Protecting academic freedom now requires that colleges and universities not only refrain from abridging it themselves but that they take measures to protect and support members of their faculties in the face of governmental or other external threats targeting them directly. The AAUP should revise its 1940 statement to make clear that higher education institutions have an affirmative obligation to advance and protect academic freedom. Doing so would encourage recognition of academic freedom as a positive good in which the universities and their faculties have a joint interest.

For colleges and universities, implementing that affirmative obligation requires, among other things, that they stand ready to provide legal assistance, make public statements of support and offer help in devising crisis communication strategies for faculty whose freedom in research, in teaching or in their use of academic expertise as citizens is threatened or abridged by external forces.

That’s a big ask.

It calls on universities to provide resources, spend reputational capital and stand behind faculty whose views administrators might not share. The university, in this new understanding, has to put itself more at risk to promote and protect academic freedom.

Universities won’t do this easily, which is why the AAUP would play such an important role in advancing this goal. Redrafting the 1940 statement is a good place to start.

As the history of its current statement suggests, the AAUP does not move easily or quickly to reconsider its principles. But the need is great, and the time for action is here. By meeting the challenge of the moment, the AAUP will once again demonstrate its essential role in the world of American higher education.

Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.

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August 27, 2025
FIRE statement on President Trump’s executive order to outlaw flag burning

On Aug. 25, President Donald Trump issued an executive order cracking down on flag burning, which is protected expressive activity under the First Amendment. During the signing, Trump remarked, “If you burn a flag, you get one year in jail.” The following statement can be attributed to FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere.

President Trump may believe he has the power to revise the First Amendment with the stroke of a pen, but he doesn’t.

Flag burning as a form of political protest is protected by the First Amendment. That’s nothing new. While people can be prosecuted for burning anything in a place they aren’t allowed to set fires, the government can’t prosecute protected expressive activity — even if many Americans, including the president, find it “uniquely offensive and provocative.”

You don’t have to like flag burning. You can condemn it, debate it, or hoist your own flag even higher. The beauty of free speech is that you get to express your opinions, even if others don’t like what you have to say.

Your burning questions on flag burning

The right to burn the American flag sparks heated debate, but the First Amendment protects flag burning in most cases.

Read More

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August 25, 2025
FIRE statement on Iowa’s book ban

On May 26, 2023, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law Senate File 496, which requires the removal of book depicting “sex acts” from school libraries and classrooms. A federal judge initially blocked the law, citing potential unconstitutional application and the removal of books with “undeniable political, artistic, literary, and/or scientific value.” However, an appeals court later overturned the block.

The following statement is from FIRE attorney Greg Greubel.

Last Friday, FIRE filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Penguin Random House LLC v. Robbins, a case challenging Iowa’s sweeping book ban law, SF496. The law, passed in May 2023, banned public schools from carrying any books that depict a “sex act,” which was broadly defined.

Our brief urges the court to affirm the district court’s order blocking enforcement of the law, which has already forced school districts to purge hundreds of books from library shelves — including classics by George Orwell, Walt Whitman, and William Faulkner — simply because their works contain passages that fall under the law’s broad definition of a “sex act.” The law imposes harsh penalties on educators who fail to comply, threatening not only their jobs but also their professional licenses.

FIRE argues that Iowa’s law ignores centuries of hard-won lessons about the value of free expression and the dangers of government censorship. We explain that public-school libraries are not instruments of government speech, but unique institutions that serve as repositories of knowledge and forums for intellectual exploration. Attempts to impose top-down, politically motivated control over their collections violate students’ First Amendment right to access information.

FIRE is proud to stand in support of students, educators, and authors. The government should not have the power to dictate which ideas are permissible in school libraries — especially not through the blunt force of censorship.

You can read our full amicus brief here.

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August 4, 2025
Pay Attention to “The Manhattan Statement” (opinion)

Earlier this month, the Manhattan Institute released a statement with a proposed “new contract” for higher education and called on President Trump to write the terms of that contract into “every grant, payment, loan, eligibility, and accreditation” and then revoke federal funding for colleges and universities if they aren’t following them. To maintain public funding, universities would, for example, have to “advance truth over ideology,” “cease their direct participation in social and political activism,” and “adhere to the principle of colorblind equality, by abolishing DEI bureaucracies, disbanding racially segregated programs, and terminating race-based discrimination in admissions, hiring, promotions, and contracting.”

Another term of the proposed contract would require universities to enact “swift and significant penalties, including suspension and expulsion, for anyone who would disrupt speakers, vandalize property, occupy buildings, call for violence, or interrupt the operations of the university.”

You may be thinking: Well, think tanks and political actors publish things like this all the time. What’s the big deal?

This proposed list of reforms was led by the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo, who has been the architect of many of the attacks on higher ed that we have seen come out of the White House and the Department of Education over the last six months.

But what is more concerning is it was signed by Congresswoman Virginia Foxx—former chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee who oversaw the first subpoena sent to a higher education institution under the pretext of fighting antisemitism on campus. It was also endorsed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who posted on X to congratulate the Manhattan Institute for “envisioning a compelling roadmap to restore integrity and rigor to the American academy!”

All this brings to mind Project 2025—an initiative led by another conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, which Democrats warned the American people about before the election and that has since been largely followed as a policy agenda for the Trump administration. You may remember that the education chapter of this conservative platform was written by the director of Heritage’s Center for Education Policy, Lindsey Burke—the same person now serving as the deputy chief of staff for policy and programs at the U.S. Department of Education.

As predicted, the policy proposals in Project 2025 mirror those being pursued by the current leadership at the Department of Education. Providing universities more flexibility on accreditation; rescinding the Biden administration’s Title IX regulations; eliminating the disparate impact standard in civil rights cases; phasing out existing income-driven repayment plans; eliminating GEAR UP; transferring programs from the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education to the Department of Labor; and capping indirect cost rates for federal science grants are just a few of the policies in Project 2025 that have started to come to fruition in the Trump administration.

We now have another road map that college leadership and policymakers need to be ready to push back on. As noted above, the Manhattan Institute’s agenda is comprised of pledges for colleges and universities that include ending participation in social and political activism; abolishing diversity, equity and inclusion programs; ending race-based decisions in hiring, promotions and contracting; and enacting restrictions on free speech. In other words, it is a road map for a new level of federal interference into the administration of colleges and universities. It is not a road map for reforms that will help students. Rather, it is an attempt to undermine the independence of our higher ed institutions by dictating policies—those based on a specific political ideology—in exchange for federal funding.

What’s next? Just like the proposals in Project 2025, Christopher Rufo’s proposals have had a pretty good track record of being implemented by the Trump administration. If the past is prologue, we can expect to see new language in program participation agreements that ties Title IV funds to restrictions on academic freedom; new accreditation rules that prohibit standards around diversity, equity and inclusion; and certifications sneaked into grant terms and conditions that threaten strict penalties for activities that do not align with this administration’s ideology.

Higher education institutions have been far from perfect, and some may even have drifted from their missions of serving all students in the best way possible. But what students deserve is a reform agenda that leads to student success, college completion and strong postsecondary outcomes. That is the agenda that should be endorsed by our nation’s leading education official. What the Manhattan Institute is proposing is not an agenda that is in our country’s best interest.

We need an agenda that makes access to a college degree or credential of value affordable and accessible. We need an agenda that allows a range of viewpoints to thrive across college campuses and fosters intellectual diversity. We need an agenda that ensures college campuses are inclusive communities and that they serve all students, and we should have a contract between the federal government and colleges and universities that protects investments in our nation’s future and success—not one that threatens disinvestment and opens the door for political interference and federal intrusion.

Amanda Fuchs Miller served as the deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs at the U.S. Department of Education in the Biden-Harris administration. She is the president of Seventh Street Strategies, which advises higher ed institutions, nonprofit organizations and foundations on policy and advocacy strategies.

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July 31, 2025
FIRE statement on FCC approval of Skydance-Paramount acquisition

On July 25, 2025, the Federal Communications Commission approved Skydance’s $8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global and its subsidiaries, including CBS. The agency allowed the deal to move forward after receiving assurances the new company would provide “fair, unbiased, and fact-based coverage” and would not establish programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion. The deal had previously come under scrutiny from the Trump administration over his disputes with CBS about its coverage of the 2024 election.

The following statement is from FIRE Legal Director Will Creeley.

This has been an unconstitutional shakedown from start to finish. Per the First Amendment, federal law, and longstanding precedent, the FCC has no business dictating the editorial choices of media outlets or conditioning merger approval on the viewpoints a network chooses to air.

But yesterday, Chairman Carr crowed over his shameful success doing just that. No federal bureaucrat should ever be allowed to play-act as our nation’s editor-in-chief.

The chairman’s hypocrisy is staggering.

Less than a year ago, Brendan Carr, if you could take him at his word, seemed to understand that the First Amendment bars the FCC from operating as “the nation’s speech police.” But he’s more than happy to wear that badge now.

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July 25, 2025
FIRE statement on Columbia University’s settlement with Trump administration

On July 24, 2025, Columbia University announced that it reached an agreement with the Trump administration to restore federal funding that was revoked over allegations of its handling of anti-Semitism on campus. As part of the deal, Columbia will pay a fine and change numerous campus policies related to campus protests, including restrictions on demonstrations and new disciplinary procedures.

The following statement can be attributed to FIRE Legal Director Will Creeley.

FIRE sounded the alarm months ago about the administration’s blatant disregard for federal law in its response to allegations of discrimination at Columbia. Yesterday’s agreement can’t be separated from the unlawful pressure campaign that produced it.

The reforms themselves require Columbia students to commit to laudable values like free inquiry and open debate. But demanding students commit to vague goals like “equality and respect” leaves far too much room for abuse, just like the civility oaths, DEI statements, and other types of compelled speech FIRE has long opposed.

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July 24, 2025
The Dangers of the Manhattan Statement

After several decades of writing books and blogs about the culture wars, academic freedom and campus free expression, I’ve started this column to illuminate some of the key debates about these issues, past and present, as I see them. I hope my thoughts spark disagreement and discussion, both of which I welcome.

Something that caught my eye last week was news of a statement calling for even more government control over higher education from a group of conservatives. This comes as the right fully embraces Donald Trump’s authoritarian commands against universities. Developed by Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute, the Manhattan Statement was carefully designed using public polling to create vague, popular-sounding principles (“truth” “freedom of speech” “equality” “civil discourse” “transparency”) that obscure its plan for massive federal control over colleges and repression of dissent.

The Manhattan Statement is a recipe for tyranny. Even if some people might agree with its goals, what’s important are not the ends but the repressive means used to achieve them. It calls for “a new contract with the universities, which should be written into every grant, payment, loan, eligibility, and accreditation, and punishable by revocation of all public benefit.” We’ve already seen how the Trump regime has terribly, illicitly abused its power over government contracts to punish colleges without due process. The Manhattan Statement would vastly expand this power to include all federal funding and student loans, making every college held hostage for its existence to any demands of the government.

Instead of pretending that “antisemitism” somehow justified cutting off federal funds in direct defiance of the due process required under Title VI, the Manhattan Statement would provide a wide array of reasons for political ideologues to destroy a college, with its amorphous calls to abolish “ideology” and “activism” and require “swift expulsion” of anyone deemed to violate “civil discourse.”

And what if some poor deluded student still wants to attend a college deemed to have violated the Rufo rules? Sorry, he’s from the government, and he’s here to help, whether you like it or not. The Manhattan Statement demands that colleges give total obedience to the reigning president and his interpretation of what the politically correct ideas are.

In recent years, many conservatives have abandoned their past commitments to free speech and the rejection of federal control over academia. The nearly 50 signers of the Manhattan Statement represent a broad range of the alt right and the old right, with celebrities like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro joining serious scholars such as Dorian Abbot, Victor Davis Hansen, Lee Jussim and Eric Kaufmann, as well as several professors whose academic freedom I have defended, such as Peter Boghossian and Joshua Katz. It’s disturbing to see so many thoughtful conservatives that I respect joining a call for massive expansion of government control over colleges.

One of the signers, Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC), is a member (and former chair) of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, a sign that the Manhattan Statement is not some theoretical wish list aimed at reforming universities, but a very real political threat that could easily be enforced on colleges in the near future.

However, even terrible legislation is too slow a process for these conservatives, who write that “we call on the President of the United States to draft a new contract with the universities” with these extraordinary requirements. It shows a breathtaking ignorance of basic American civics for so many conservatives to believe that the President single-handedly has the power to impose extraordinary conditions at his whim on any college receiving any grants or student loans, and even personally dictating the accreditation status of colleges.

To legitimize government intrusion, the Manhattan Statement invents pure historical fiction: “During the Founding era, schools of higher education were established by government charter and written into the law, which stipulated that, in exchange for public support, they had a duty to advance the public good, and, if they were to stray from that mission, the people retained the right to intervene.”

The first American colleges were chartered in the Colonial era, not the Founding era, and there is no mention of any “right to intervene” by “the people” in any college charter. That imaginary “right to intervene” would be prohibited now by the First Amendment. The AAUP’s 1915 Declaration of Principles—revered by this Statement’s signers such as Peter Wood—states that politicians and even college trustees “have neither competency nor moral right to intervene” in the professional work of academics.

The Manhattan Statement claims, “The American people send billions to the universities and are repaid with contempt.” The “American people” represent a wide range of views. They are repaid for their money with scientific and medical advances of enormous value, with educated students who expand the productivity of the leading economy in the world, and with the general expansion of knowledge. And contempt for the American people is pretty rare among academics. But I oppose this anti-contempt rhetoric on a deeper, moral level. Universities should have more expressions of contempt. We need more arguments on campus, more core disagreements, even when it offends people. If contempt is forbidden, many of the Manhattan Statement’s signers would be the first against the wall. And the belief that universities should precisely mirror the public’s views and identities is wrong, as these same conservatives have repeatedly said when denouncing diversity.

A Manhattan Institute poll last month found that a strong majority of Democrats and independents support free speech on campus. But only 44% of Republicans agreed that “it’s more important for universities to protect free speech, even if some find it offensive.” Conservatives are retreating from principles of free speech and limited government because they want to purge their enemies, and the Manhattan Statement is a clear declaration of this move.

What the Manhattan Statement claims to be the problem—“a new kind of tyranny—one in which ideology determines truth, and the university functions as a political agent …”—is, in fact, the perfect description of Rufo’s solution. He’s simply taking a deluded fantasy of left-wing tyranny on campus as a justification to impose a very real proposal for right-wing tyranny.

We are witnessing the worst government attacks on academic freedom in the history of American higher education, as the Trump regime has launched an assault on campus free inquiry that’s unconstitutional, illegal, immoral and indefensible. It’s a moment when all principled defenders of academic freedom, regardless of their critiques of academia, should speak out strongly against repression and the belief that government control can be a solution to academia’s problems. Instead, these so-called conservatives are standing up to applaud authoritarianism, and calling for greater destruction of their enemies, the universities.

I want this column to be a space for interviews with authors and debates with those who disagree with me, and I encourage readers to write letters to the editor in response ([email protected]) and to email me ([email protected]) with their own ideas.

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July 22, 2025
FIRE statement on Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton upholding age verification for adult content

Today, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to uphold Texas’s age-verification law for sites featuring adult content. The decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton effectively reverses decades of Supreme Court precedent that protects the free speech rights of adults to access information without jumping over government age-verification hurdles.

FIRE filed an amicus brief in the case, arguing that free expression “requires vigilant protection, and the First Amendment doesn’t permit short cuts.” FIRE believes that the government’s efforts to restrict adults’ access to constitutionally protected information must be carefully tailored, and that Texas’ law failed to do so.

The following statement can be attributed to FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere.

Today’s ruling limits American adults’ access to only that speech which is fit for children — unless they show their papers first.

After today, adults in the State of Texas must upload sensitive information to access speech that the First Amendment fully protects for them. This wrongheaded, invasive result overturns a generation of precedent and sacrifices anonymity and privacy in the process.

Data breaches are inevitable. How many will it take before we understand the threat today’s ruling presents?

Americans will live to regret the day we let the government condition access to protected speech on proof of our identity. FIRE will fight nationwide to ensure that this erosion of our rights goes no further.

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June 27, 2025
FIRE statement on immigration judge’s ruling that deportation of Mahmoud Khalil can proceed

This afternoon, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that Mahmoud Khalil’s deportation could proceed under immigration law. But the fight over the constitutionality of that law continues.

The Immigration and Nationality Act gives the secretary of state nearly unchecked authority to deport a legal permanent resident on nothing more than his whim if the secretary believes the person poses “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”

Below is FIRE’s statement, attributable to Legal Director Will Creeley:

Can expressing an opinion that the government doesn’t like justify a green card holder’s arrest, detention, and deportation? That’s what this case comes down to — and it’s a question the courts must answer. The government is holding up a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that purports to say “yes.” But the principles enshrined in the First Amendment say “no.”

Allowing a single government official sweeping and nearly unchecked power to pick and choose individuals to deport based on beliefs alone, without alleging a single crime, crosses a line that should never be crossed in a free society.

The only “crime” the government has offered was that Mahmoud Khalil expressed a disfavored political opinion. If that’s a crime in America, every single one of us is guilty.

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April 11, 2025
Teachers need support to understand what’s needed in the UCAS personal statement
Our recent paper found substantial misalignment between state-school teachers and university admissions staff on what makes a high-quality UCAS personal statement.

In our study, 409 state school teachers were presented with ten paragraphs from UCAS personal statements and asked to select between two pieces of feedback. One ‘correct’ feedback was provided by an admissions tutor, and the one ‘incorrect’ feedback was supplied by another teacher. These paragraphs and feedback were all real-world examples derived from Steven Jones’ (2016) study, used as part of Causeway Education’s pre-training programme for state school teachers.

We found:
- There was significant misalignment between teachers and admissions staff. In only 56.5% of cases did teachers select the ‘correct’ feedback response.
- There are a number of pervasive myths regarding the UCAS personal statement. Teachers had a dual tendency to:
1. Advise for the incorporation of personal content that aimed to demonstrate a holistic view of the student rather than course-related competencies; and
2. Suggest reducing content that demonstrated course-related knowledge and skills.
To give one example, teachers were presented with the paragraph below and asked to choose between two pieces of feedback: (1) Strong reasons backed up by detailed examples; and (2) Too much detail; doesn’t give a sense of the student as an individual. The first of these is from an admissions tutor and the second from a teacher in Jones’ (2016) work.

My main reason for wanting to study Japanese is because I enjoy studying complex grammar rules to see how languages come together. This is why I chose to undertake Latin at A-Level as I enjoy translating pieces of complex texts. Analysing writers techniques in presenting ideas and characters is also interesting, in particular how Tacitus in Annals I, presents Tiberius as an unsuitable emperor by often comparing him to his father Augustus, an emperor who was deemed ‘an upholder of moral justice’.

In 58.4% of cases teachers selected the first ‘correct’ answer, and 41.6% selected the ‘incorrect’ second answer.

These findings should not be interpreted as a criticism of teachers. In the context of studies finding a considerable lack of transparency on how universities use the UCAS personal statement (Fryer et al., 2024), the burden of responsibility for misalignment falls primarily on universities. Without clear and transparent guidance, this misalignment between teachers and admissions staff is inevitable.

There is an important opportunity to address this situation, as many universities will currently be in the process of updating their public-facing guidance in response to the upcoming UCAS personal statement reform. The shift to three short questions for the 2025-26 application cycle and the corresponding need to update guidance present universities with an opportunity to address and counter the misalignments noted in our paper.

To support this goal, our paper contains a table of key implications (Table 5, pp.14-15), which can be downloaded directly from this link.

We hope this is of practical use to admissions staff in updating and developing guidance on the UCAS personal statement. We contend that this new guidance, alongside transparent explanations of how the personal statement is used in selection decisions, is crucial to enable UCAS’s reform to widen participation and address inequalities.

This blog is based on a paper ‘Investigating the alignment of teachers and admissions professionals on UCAS personal statements’ by Tom Fryer, Anna Burchfiel, Matt Griffin, Sam Holmes and Steven Jones. Due to its time-sensitive nature, the paper has been published as a preprint, and therefore has not yet been subject to peer-review.

The table summarising the implications for public-facing guidance is available for download here.
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April 1, 2025