The Decline and Fall of the AAUP as a Principled Defender of Academic Freedom

Matthew Finkin dissects how the American Association of University Professors has abandoned a principle defense of academic freedom.

Professor Matthew Finkin has published "The Unraveling of the AAUP," a pointed critique of the American Association of University Professors in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The essay, adapted form a longer paper, explains how the AAUP's change in its positions on academic boycotts and embrace of DEI statements in academic hiring betray its longstanding principles and undermine its purported commitment to academic freedom.

From the essay:

From its founding in 1915, the AAUP has gained the respect of the academic community and of the judiciary in explicating the meaning and application of academic freedom and tenure. Its work has had a significant impact on both. Its credibility has been earned by the consistent adherence to principle uninfluenced by exogenous policies or organizational ends, and by the sheer quality of its work. The latter was captured a half century ago by Judge J. Skelly Wright, who noted the "thoroughness and scrupulous care" in the AAUP documents placed before the court.

Recent actions have departed from these standards — and radically. The AAUP, acting through its Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, has, first, abandoned its prior position that systematic participation in the boycott of Israeli universities could threaten academic freedom and, second, declared that adherence to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) dictates as a condition of faculty retention can be consistent with academic freedom. These actions reveal a body now driven by considerations other than fidelity to principle. As a result, the deep well of communal respect has been drained dry; the AAUP's credibility has been destroyed.

The balance of the essay explains, in some detail, how the AAUP has departed from its own prior positions, without meaningful explanation, and is allowing contemporary political considerations to trump principles of academic freedom.

In closing, Finkin notes that the AAUP will likely defend university policies consistent with its new position, without regard for what the AAUP used to stand for. In such an instance, Finkin notes, the proper response would be to say to the AAUP: "You are the successor in title, but no longer in principle, spirit, or scrupulous care."