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American Association of University Professors (AAUP)


Self Description

April 2002: "The mission of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is to advance academic freedom, to define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education, and to ensure higher education's contribution to the common good. Founded in 1915, the AAUP has helped to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that have maintained quality education and academic freedom in this country's colleges and universities for most of the twentieth century, and now in the beginning of the twenty-first century. The AAUP's Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure is the definitive articulation of these principles and practices, and is widely accepted throughout the academic community. The Association's procedures ensuring academic due process remain the model for professional employment practices on campuses throughout the country. AAUP's amicus briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal and state appellate courts a

Third-Party Descriptions

November 2007: "Professors with tenure or who are on a tenure track are now a distinct minority on the country’s campuses, as the ranks of part-time instructors and professors hired on a contract have swelled, according to federal figures analyzed by the American Association of University Professors."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/education/20adjunct.html

August 2007: According to the norms of academia, a professor denied tenure has the right to a final year of teaching at the university that turns him down. The watchdog of those rights is the American Association of University Professors, the umbrella organization of college teachers, which can censure a school found in violation of its ground rules. Such a finding also can be the preliminary to a lawsuit against the university by the faculty member.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-depaul28aug28,0,7661996.story

September 2005: Two major publishers, the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), sent letters to Google asking them to stop the project as digitizing entire works of literature was a fundamental violation of copyright and would, in their opinion, hurt publishers and writers financially.

http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/searchinsider/wpn-49-20050920GooglePrintHasLegalSupport.html

March 2005: When asked about the findings, Jonathan Knight, director of academic freedom and tenure for the American Association of University Professors, said, "The question is how this translates into what happens within the academic community on such issues as curriculum, admission of students, evaluation of students, evaluation of faculty for salary and promotion." Knight said he isn't aware of "any good evidence" that personal views are having an impact on campus policies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8427-2005Mar28.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Organization Executive (past or present) Jonathan Knight Person Aug 31, 2007

Articles and Resources

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Apr 11, 2011 Survey Finds Small Increase in Professors’ Pay

QUOTE: Pay is substantially less at liberal arts colleges and community colleges. And at every type of college and university, men continue to earn substantially more than women… “Even in a period when they’re asking everyone else to sacrifice, university presidents seem to think it’s still O.K. for their salaries to go up significantly,” Mr. Curtis said.

 New York Times
May 09, 2010 U-Va. urged to fight subpoena of climate scientist's documents

QUOTE: Academics from across the country are rallying against a subpoena issued by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II seeking documents related to the work of a former University of Virginia climate scientist, even as the university says it is preparing to comply with Cuccinelli's request.

 Washington Post
Nov 20, 2007 Decline of the Tenure Track Raises Concerns

QUOTE: Rutgers University agreed in a labor settlement in August to add 100 tenure or tenure-track positions. Across the country, faculty unions are organizing part-timers. And the American Federation of Teachers is pushing legislation in 11 states to mandate that 75 percent of classes be taught by tenured or tenure-track teachers.

 New York Times
Aug 28, 2007 DePaul pulls plug on controversial professor: Course cancelled a week before class

QUOTE: According to the norms of academia, a professor denied tenure has the right to a final year of teaching at the university that turns him down. The watchdog of those rights is the American Association of University Professors, the umbrella organization of college teachers, which can censure a school found in violation of its ground rules. Such a finding also can be the preliminary to a lawsuit against the university by the faculty member.

 Chicago Tribune
Feb 27, 2007 As Ethics Panels Expand Grip, No Field Is Off Limits

QUOTE: Ever since the gross mistreatment of poor black men in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study came to light three decades ago, the federal government has required ethics panels to protect people from being used as human lab rats in biomedical studies. Yet now, faculty and graduate students across the country increasingly complain that these panels have spun out of control, curtailing academic freedom and interfering with research in history, English and other subjects that poses virtually no danger to anyone.

 New York Times
Aug 18, 2006 Teacher's radical 9/11 views raise red flags: A university lecturer casts doubt that terrorists plotted the attacks. Is that academic freedom?

QUOTE: the case raises questions about academic freedom: Are there limits to what can be taught, and if so, who decides them? Are certain views indicative of incompetence...or does such criticism lead to censorship?

 Christian Science Monitor
Aug 04, 2006 Advocates Say U.S. Bars Many Academics: Government Says It Rarely Uses Law Regarding Those Who 'Espoused Terrorism'

QUOTE: growing number of foreign scholars whose visas have been revoked or whose applications have been denied -- barred, according to civil rights and academic groups, for their ideological or political views...

 Washington Post
May 30, 2006 Academic Anti-Semitism: Boycotting Israeli scholars in Britain’s universities.

QUOTE: This weekend, as expected, and despite an international petition drive launched by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Britain’s National Association of Teachers in Higher and Further Education (NATHFE) voted to boycott Israeli academics.

 National Review
May 11, 2006 Uncle Sam doesn't want you: Foreign scholars denied visas say they are still waiting to hear why.

QUOTE: Since passage of the USA Patriot Act after Sept. 11, 2001, a number of academics have been denied visas or had them revoked...Universities and scholarly associations have written letters to the government to no avail.

 Christian Science Monitor
Mar 29, 2005 College Faculties A Most Liberal Lot, Study Finds

QUOTE: Even after factoring in levels of achievement, as measured by published work and organization memberships, "the most likely conclusion" is that "being conservative counts against you," he said.

 Washington Post
Aug 05, 2004 Background checks rile professors

QUOTE: Criminal background checks...have invaded the upper echelons of higher education. Now the professors, once vouched for by clubby collegial networks, increasingly undergo scrutiny all too familiar outside academia.

 Christian Science Monitor
Oct 08, 2002 University backs down on link ban

QUOTE: The University of California at San Diego has abandoned plans to discipline a student group for linking to an alleged terrorist Web site.

 CNET
Aug 05, 2002 Privacy Vs. Security On Campus

QUOTE: 'The total surveillance society is happening in the dorms sooner than anywhere else'...The campus, then, is becoming a testing ground for the kinds of security measures that are being recommended for the rest of the nation...

 New York Times
Aug 04, 2002 The Baby Bias

QUOTE: ...By all accounts, the intense competition, the long hours and the unspoken expectations of the academy's traditionally male culture conspire to make it really, really hard to have a baby and be a professor.

 New York Times
Jul 12, 2002 'Collegiality' As a Tenure Battleground

QUOTE: A number of young professors, especially women, have recently contended that their bids for lifetime academic appointments were derailed by...collegiality.

 New York Times
Apr 30, 2002 Scholar's Pedophilia Essay Stirs Outrage and Revenge

QUOTE: ...likening the "moral panic" surrounding pedophilia to the outrage of previous generations over feminism and homosexuality....Dr. Mirkin is being celebrated as a hero for academic freedom.

 New York Times
Aug 18, 2001 College Suspends Professor for Vietnam Fabrications

QUOTE: Joseph J. Ellis...who admitted in June that he lied to his students and others when he said he had been a combat soldier in Vietnam, has been suspended for a year without pay by Mount Holyoke...

 New York Times