What Scholars Nationwide are Saying about the AAUP
(thanks to AAUP and the Illinois State Conference)
Kenneth J. Arrow
(Stanford University, Nobel Prize in Economics)
"The American Association of University Professors has, for
nearly a century, been the defender of freedom in the academic community.
Academic freedom is both a moral value in its own right and an essential
component to the innovative and educational function of universities . . .
All those who appreciate the central role of academic freedom in our modern
world should generously help the AAUP as its
indomitable champion."
Robert N. Bellah
(University of California
at Berkeley)
"We cannot afford to take the university for granted; it is
a fragile institution, surviving only because of the dedicated activities of
those who would see it grow and prosper. Now more than ever we need the
stalwart defense that only the AAUP can provide."
Kate Bronfenbrenner
(Cornell University)
"If… [Beverly Enterprises] had succeeded in its
efforts to silence me or gain access to my data, the impact on scholars in
every field would have been devastating. That is why AAUP’s
support for my case was so important not just for me, but for academics in
general."
Jonathan R. Cole
(Columbia University)
"We are witnessing today a rising tide of
anti-intellectualism and an increasing intolerance of university and college
teaching and research that offends external political ideologues. Not since
the dark days of McCarthyism in the 1950s have we witnessed such a sustained
and subtle attack on academic freedom . . . . Professors are being publicly
savaged for the content of their ideas; peer review systems are being
compromised; faculty and student computer and library records are being
accessed by the FBI without probable cause; talented foreign students and
scholars are finding it difficult to study or work in the United States
because of immigration restrictions and visa rules; NIH research on
biological and social science problems are being questioned because they
offend the political sensibilities of members of Congress and the current
administration. Why does this matter? Universities remain perhaps the only
sanctuary for the relatively unbridled and unfettered search for truth and
for profoundly new, but important ideas. Without a climate of free inquiry
where faculty members can challenge existing orthodoxies and dogma and can
dare others to rebut their ideas, creativity and discovery will suffer . . .
If academic freedom is compromised, it won’t be long before the engine
of innovation slows and our great centers of academic excellence lose their
preeminence. What can be done? More than ever, we need to support the mission
of the AAUP to defend aggressively the role that academic freedom plays in
producing true distinction at American universities and colleges. The need to
educate the public on the meaning and place of academic freedom in colleges
and universities is greater today than ever before and that need can best be met by the work of the AAUP."
Deborah Cooperstein
(Adelphi University)
"The AAUP Legal Defense Fund’s support to the
Committee to Save Adelphi was critical in our successful effort to remove 18
of the university’s 19 trustees for serious dereliction of their
responsibilities, and to remove President Peter Diamandopoulos."
Mary Gibson
(Rutgers University)
"Through the AAUP, I make connections with women colleagues
in all disciplines, on my own campus and across the country. We share many of
the same challenges, and, working together, we can create some very sensible
solutions."
Rev. Theodore Hesburgh
(president emeritus, University
of Notre Dame)
"For more than ninety years, the AAUP has been working
conscientiously to protect and preserve academic freedom for all scholars in America,
whatever their ideology, gender, religion, status within the profession,
nationality, or sexual orientation."
Stanley N. Katz
(Princeton University; president emeritus,
American Council of Learned Societies)
". . . there is only one
organization whose primary mission is to promote vigilance in the name of
academic freedom. It is the AAUP."
Louis Menand
(Harvard University)
"The AAUP is our only bulwark, outside the courts, against
threats to freedom of thought. It has served college teachers and scholars
well for almost one hundred years by identifying, publicizing, and working to
correct abuses of the principle of academic freedom, and by scrupulously
distinguishing between abuses of that principle and cases of simple
disagreement or controversy. It is a watchdog, not a lobby, and we are all
indebted to it."
David Montgomery
(Yale University)
"For almost a century the AAUP has provided the most
important instrument through which college and university teachers have
sought to defend their academic freedom against recurrent efforts by
government, business, and other outside agencies to regulate teaching and
discussion on campus or the participation of academics in public affairs. It
has also played an increasingly important role in improving the terms under
which academics are employed. Today those efforts are more important than
ever. Government bodies, both state and federal, and organized and financed
groups claiming to speak for "civil society" intervene
systematically to shape academic curricula and personnel, while reduced
legislative appropriations and the infusion of corporate models of governance
produce rapidly increasing use of contingent faculty. Academics must act
together to uphold the intellectual vitality of higher education through the
courts, public forums, and sound research."
Martha Nussbaum
(Harvard University)
" . . . For many years, without fanfare, the AAUP has
provided effective support for academic freedom, courageously defending all
scholars in the U. S.,
whatever their political views, gender, religion, nationality, sexual
orientation, or status in the profession. This has not always been easy, and
it is not likely to be easy in the future . . . Academic freedom and the free
search for truth are essential to a genuinely free and democratic
society."
Robert M. O’Neil
(Director, Thomas Jefferson Center
for the Protection of Free Expression; former president, University of Virginia)
"The AAUP is so many ways the conscience of the academic
profession in the United
States. Its unwavering commitment to the
protection of academic freedom, tenure and due process for faculty has never
been more vital than in the perilous times since the September 11 attacks.
The Association’s vigilance is the more remarkable for several
qualities that distinguish it from other faculty organizations – that
an embattled or beleaguered professor who seeks aid and counsel need not be
an AAUP member, that AAUP actively collaborates with and supports
administrators and governing boards when faculty interests warrant doing so,
and that AAUP demands rigorous adherence to its basic principles even within
its own ranks. The Association’s leadership has recognized over the
years that academic freedom is only as secure as its ability to withstand
utmost stress and pressure from hostile forces, both within and outside the
academy."
Rosa Maria Pegueros
(University of Rhode Island)
"Women often find that the teaching and research they
pursue takes them into nontraditional fields and perspectives. We especially
need the AAUP’s solid protections of academic
freedom."
Donald L. Uchtmann
(University of Illinois)
"I knew little about AAUP in the
early days of my academic career, nor did I appreciate the unique role of the
university in American society. More recently, I have come to realize
the critical role AAUP has played, in Illinois
and across the nation, in protecting academic freedom and tenure. AAUP
has served the higher education community in many valuable ways, and it needs
the continuing support and participation of faculty so that it can continue
to fulfill this invaluable role."
Cary Nelson
(University of Illinois)
When new technologies emerge, new arguments have to be made. New
policy has to be written. The wide range of policy documents the AAUP
disseminates could not be produced by any one campus. We involve people from
a wide variety of colleges and universities in crafting statements. We have a
professional staff devoted to researching issues. We are the only game in
town, and we do this work very well indeed. The strongest advocacy chapter,
the strongest CB local, the strongest faculty senate, could not build the
necessary support for academic freedom into its rules or contracts without
Academe and the AAUP's 300-page Redbook as sources.
Over the last decade alone, the AAUP has published over 30
policy statements and some 26 investigative reports. Recent policy statements
range from "The Faculty Role on the Reform of Intercollegiate
Athletics" to "Academic Freedom and National Security in a Time of
Crisis," from "Academic Freedom and Electronic Communications"
to "Academic Freedom and Outside Speakers," along with statements
on the rights of graduate students, part-time faculty, and academic
professionals. They offer campuses detailed language they can incorporate
directly into their regulations.
Your AAUP membership is often described as an insurance policy
for the professoriate. It is that and more. Your dues pay for this elaborate
process of researching and writing policy about emerging--and often
unanticipated--matters that are critical to the survival of an effective
professoriate. These policies are necessary if you are to do your job. Your
academic discipline needs them; you need them in your daily life. The most
powerful and the most vulnerable faculty members benefit from them every day.
Without them, the academy would be a chaos of conflicting policy established
by administrative fiat.
What would the academy be like today without the 1940 statement
on academic freedom and tenure? At will employment and summary dismissal
without cause or due process would rule the day. There would be hundreds of
wildly different employment policies across the country, many of them
concealed from the faculty. Take scores of AAUP policies off the books,
eliminate our history of censuring rogue institutions, withdraw the legal
briefs we have sponsored for dozens of court cases, cancel tens of thousands
of academic freedom cases we have negotiated, erase our assistance to local
chapters, and virtually all colleges and universities would be outlaw
institutions.
We need the AAUP now more than ever. Perhaps it is time to ask
not what the AAUP can do for you but what you can do for the AAUP today.
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