Claremont Colleges Chapter of AAUP

Academic Freedom Panel Series. Academic Freedom and International Institutions. Tuesday, Jan 27, 2026. 9 AM-10 AM (ET). 2 PM-3 PM (UTC). ISA logo. Background: University buildings.

#AcademicFreedom is essential for #Academics to #Teach & #Research, but what it means around the #World varies. Join ISA & @aaup.org to discuss how academic freedom manifests #Globally & how #Professional associations can help #International #Scholars in the fight to preserve it: buff.ly/cOo1aZE

"When universities censor topics involving race, gender, sexuality, power & inequity, they are not protecting students. They are underpreparing them. They deprive students of the intellectual tools to become informed citizens."

— Dr. Leonard Bright, AAUP Texas A&M

Trump administration drops legal appeal over anti-DEI funding threat to schools and colleges The Trump administration is dropping its appeal of a federal court ruling that blocked a campaign against diversity, equity, and inclusion threatening federal funding to the nation’s schools and colle...

Trump administration drops legal appeal over anti-DEI funding threat to schools and colleges. This leaves in place a federal judge's ruling that the anti-DEI effort violated the First Amendment and federal procedural rules. (Via AP) apnews.com/article/dei-... #ncpol #nced

Judge warns Trump administration from changing plaintiffs immigration status in First Amendment case A federal judge ruled that the academics, who are party to a lawsuit alleging U.S. policy singles out noncitizens for detention or deportation over their pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses, ...

“Students and scholars shouldn’t have to live in fear that ICE agents could seize them from their homes merely for engaging in political expression. Today’s judgment makes emphatically clear that the administration’s campaign of intimidation must end.”

—Ramya Krishnan, @knightcolumbia.org

‘Big Brother’ looms large as Texas A&M cancels ethics course Another course at America’s Texas A&M University has fallen foul of state policy on teaching gender, race and sexual orientation – this time a...

www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?sto...

The AAUP | Instagram, Facebook | Linktree Visit aaup.org to find news, events, and organizing tools.

📣 🆘 ✊We'll be adding a lot of these resources to our own linktree but in the meantime @aaup.org has a good repository for resources, guidelines, and events and actions.
https://loom.ly/EgHpzlc

Photo of the Target Center in Minneapolis as it fills up for the post-march rally.

Post-march Day of Truth and Freedom Rally in Minneapolis! Amazing turnout, amazing vibes. Commemorate today's solidarity by contributing to Unite HERE Local 17's Solidarity Fund! Tell us & we'll send you a postcard AND a sticker: higheredlaborunited.org/postcards-fo... #ICEOUT #ICEOUTMN #ICEOutofMN

Cannot see the end of it.

‘I sometimes wake up in tears for friends still there.’ Rümeysa Öztürk’s six weeks in ICE detention. - The Boston Globe As she was held in Louisiana, the fight to free Öztürk took place in protests and in the courts.

After co-authoring an op ed in the Tufts student paper, Rümeysa Öztürk was doxed by the Canary Mission, an anonymous website that publishes personal information of academics they consider anti-Israel. ICE then used the data to target her in carrying out Trump's brutal student protest crackdown.

UNC System faculty take a new stand against push to publish course details | Opinion People might wonder why employees are reluctant to post the details. But the request to publish syllabi is not an honest one from conservatives. | Opinion

"The request to publish syllabi is not an honest one. It is an effort to intimidate faculty whose instruction ventures into subjects some conservatives don’t want explored...It’s about protecting free inquiry. It is a process that is essential to serving society by pursuing truth."

The AAUP chapter at Oklahoma University released a statement demanding that the President and Board of Regents defend Mel Curth, the instructor put on administrative leave after the viral fallout for failing Samantha Fulnecke’s essay, from death threats and targeted harassment.

WHAT PROFESSORS CAN SAY Texas A&M is limiting how instructors may discuss gender identity and race in classrooms amid statewide debates over academic freedom.

Let me fix that for you:

Texas A&M is limiting how instructors may discuss gender identity and race in classrooms in an assault on academic freedom unseen in America since the Red Scare.

Here is the statement on the initial TAMU system proposal. The adopted rule apparently prohibits "advocacy" of "race and gender ideology" without approval.

Democrat’s Win May Upend a Conservative Push in Virginia Universities

"Bethany Letiecq, a professor at George Mason University...said she expected Ms. Spanberger, a former member of Congress, to defend the state’s university system against the White House [and] to rescind initiatives imposed in recent years by appointees of Glenn Youngkin [the outgoing governor]."

Opinion | Flipping fairness: California's "colorblind" laws fail Black students A scholarship meant to repair racial terror now must include descendants of those who were never targets of it. But is it, and programs like it, truly discriminatory?

“ A scholarship at UC San Diego — created to honor victims of Klan violence & help Black students — was forced open to white applicants after a legal challenge…A program meant to repair racial terror…has to include descendants of those who were never targets of it.”

calmatters.org/commentary/2...

Volume 16 Faculty Coeditors

The final four #JAF articles in this year’s volume address tensions and schisms between the private and the common good and “the urgent need to defend academic freedom not as an abstract principle but as a lived practice in concrete institutional contexts”:
www.aaup.org/JAF16

Surge in antisemitism investigations at US universities after October 7 attacks, data shows A report shared exclusively with the Guardian documents how a civil rights law has become a tool to impose ideological priorities on US schools

Important new report out from AAUP & MESA, “The data…offers a detailed account of how landmark civil rights legislation – and particularly Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act – has become a primary tool to restrict speech on campus.”
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

University of Virginia AAUP calls to immediately rescind the standstill agreement with Trump admin!

It poses these threats to academic freedom:

❌Divergence from Existing Civil Rights Law
❌Unconstitutional Coercion
❌Conflict with Virginia Law
❌Lack of Due Process
❌Preventing Legal Challenges

AFT Student Debt Clinic

Have questions about your student debt? AFT is hosting a virtual student debt clinic tomorrow, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m. EDT to help members navigate their debt. Learn more about PSLF, income-driven repayment plans, how the latest news affects these programs and ways to save.
web.cvent.com/event/44eafa...

UConn professors union calls for stronger protections for academic freedom. Why they are worried. Union officials say they are looking for stronger protections for professors to be able to “teach, research, and express ideas freely.”

“We consider these protections essential given the ongoing climate of threats to academic freedom” -- Jeffrey Dudas (President of @uconnaaup.bsky.social)

Autocracy and the university in America today From its immigration and deportation policies to its highly publicized assault on several of America’s leading universities, the Trump administration seems determined to upend decades of close…

Leon Botstein, president of @bardcollege.bsky.social, examines what the Trump administration could mean for the future of scientific research, education, and democracy in the United States—and calls for a renewed university and college system after the end of the Trump era. ⬇️

At long last, after costly litigation in which UCOP refused to make public the Trump demand letter to UCLA — here it is!!!

Many thanks to CUCFA for their appeal of the PRA denial. Here is to shared governance and academic freedom! @aaup

ucop.edu/communicatio...

UC has released the Trump settlement demand to UCLA after losing a court effort to block its release.

Here it is.

www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/s...

This is a shocking document.

Please understand that the only reason this has been released is because of the UCLA faculty association who filed a request and challenged the refusal in court. If you are a UC faculty member, join your FA!

Gatekeepers of the Ivory Tower Executive search firms have played a significant, often underexamined, role in the erosion of shared governance and the corporatization of American higher education.

New in #Academe: Judith A. Wilde and James H. Finkelstein examine how executive search firms have played a significant, often underexamined, role in the erosion of shared governance and the corporatization of American higher education.

Community colleges are losing millions in funding under Trump Public community colleges are losing millions in federal funding as the Trump administration redirects money to support the president’s priorities.

Federal cuts are hitting community colleges hard, these lean institutions don't have endowments to fall back on. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

Executive Committee Statement on the Closing and Erasure of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Indiana University The IUB AAUP, as the organization representing all IUB faculty, strongly denounces the termination and erasure of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs currently occurring at Indiana Univ…

Executive Committee Statement on the Closing and Erasure of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at #IndianaUniversity @iubaaup.bsky.social iubaaup.org/2025/10/23/e...

1000 people doesn't just happen--this took incredible collaboration between UCWVA-UVA and @aaup.org, as well as Wahoos4UVA, UVA Undergrad Student Council, Professors emeriti of UVA, UndocUVA, and UVA chapters of the National Campus Jewish Alliance, Rise Up, Indivisible, and Jewish Voice for Peace.

Today, with a 31-4-6 vote, BSU's Faculty Council approved our resolution on Free Expression!

bsuaaup.com/fc-resolutio...

This shows that faculty across 31 depts remain concerned about the firing of an employee for private statements and are not ready to forget the threat this poses to us all.