Academe

Volume 16 Faculty Coeditors

Three of this year’s #JAF articles focus on philanthropy’s intersection with racial capitalism, “delimiting what knowledge is produced, who produces it, and whose voices are silenced”:

I just read your article in the Fall 2025 issue of Academe. I suppose I'm already in the choir, but I wanted to tell you that it is not only timely but also compelling. Well done, you!

I get emails. The piece in question for @academemagazine.bsky.social : www.aaup.org/academe/issu...

Conspicuously Exercising Academic Freedom as a Response to Incremental Threats Abstract:

"Rights, liberties, and freedoms are never secure when they lie dormant or unused." Interesting article in the latest volume of the Journal of Academic Freedom. Rather than thinking of #AcademicFreedom as a defense against attacks, we should make it an active practice.

www.aaup.org/JAF16/conspi...

Quote from “The State as Donor: How Indiana Uses SEA 202 and HEA 1001 to Reshape Academic Freedom and Faculty Governance” by Carlos Morales: State governments are using their role as donors and primary funders of state universities to exert power over professors and universities in a manner that erodes academic freedom and autonomy.

Carlos Morales, “The State as Donor: How Indiana Uses SEA 202 and HEA 1001 to Reshape Academic Freedom and Faculty Governance”
www.aaup.org/JAF16/state-...

Quote from “Navigating Fiscal Precarity and the Erosion of Academic Freedom in an Era of Resource Dependence in Africa: A Zambian Perspective” by Sibeso Lisulo: Willingness to allow external forces to dictate their internal academic affairs, taking away from their scholars’ intellectual autonomy, creates the uncomfortable tightrope that many resource-dependent institutions in Africa must walk.

Sibeso Lisulo, “Navigating Fiscal Precarity and the Erosion of Academic Freedom in an Era of Resource Dependence in Africa: A Zambian Perspective”
www.aaup.org/JAF16/naviga...

Quote from "Conspicuously Exercising Academic Freedom as a Response to Incremental Threats" by Michael Davis: Understanding that there will not be a single climactic showdown means that academia must bolster its frequent and visible exercise of protected freedoms.

Michael Davis, “Conspicuously Exercising Academic Freedom as a Response to Incremental Threats”
www.aaup.org/JAF16/conspi...

Quote from "Philanthropy, Class, and Cultural Hegemony in Music Education" by Drew X. Coles and Adara Hoyne: The entanglement of philanthropy and music education reveals a deeply entrenched system in which financial power structures dictate artistic and academic priorities.

Drew X. Coles and Adara Hoyne, “Philanthropy, Class, and Cultural Hegemony in Music Education”
www.aaup.org/JAF16/philan...

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

“From attacks on academic freedom to the defunding of life-saving scientific research to arresting peaceful student protesters, Trump’s higher ed policies have been catastrophic for our democracy. We’re excited to build a coalition of workers & students fighting back."
– AAUP president Todd Wolfson

Quote from “The Double Standards of Financial Activism: Academic Freedom, Philanthropy, and BDS in Higher Education” by Noah D. Drezner: If academic boycotts are accepted as legitimate moral interventions, should not donor activism also be viewed as a valid form of expression?

Noah Drezner, “The Double Standards of Financial Activism: Academic Freedom, Philanthropy, and BDS in Higher Education”
www.aaup.org/JAF16/double...

Quote from “The Blueprint for Silencing Dissent in US Higher Education” by Fatemeh Almasarweh: When ideological conformity is tied to the survival of an entire institution, academic freedom shifts from a personal right to an institutional liability.

Fatemeh Almasarweh, “The Blueprint for Silencing Dissent in US Higher Education”
www.aaup.org/JAF16/bluepr...

Quote from “Black Institutions, White Interests: The Dilemma of HBCUs, Academic Freedom, and Philanthropic Capture” by J. R. Caldwell Jr.: HBCUs are subject to philanthropic capture, in which external funding subordinates intellectual production and governance to the interests of donors and corporate partners rather than faculty and students.

J. R. Caldwell Jr., “Black Institutions, White Interests: The Dilemma of HBCUs, Academic Freedom, and Philanthropic Capture”
www.aaup.org/JAF16/black-...

Volume 16 Faculty Coeditors

Three of this year’s #JAF articles focus on philanthropy’s intersection with racial capitalism, “delimiting what knowledge is produced, who produces it, and whose voices are silenced”:

Quote from "Proselytizing Speech: Florida’s Publicly Funded Conservative Centers" by Katie Rainwater and Robert Cassanello: While faculty members opposing donor-funded libertarian centers have typically targeted their university administrations, resistance to publicly funded libertarian centers must also target the state.

Katie Rainwater and Robert Cassanello, “Proselytizing Speech: Florida’s Publicly Funded Libertarian Centers and Elevating Political Speech” 4/4

@cassanello.bsky.social

www.aaup.org/JAF16/prosel...

Quote from “Faculty Governance and the Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest in Private University Donations” by Jarvis Tyrell Curry: Donor contributions should support, rather than dictate, the future of higher education

Jarvis Tyrell Curry, “Faculty Governance and the Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest in Private University Donations” 3/4

www.aaup.org/JAF16/facult...

Quote from "UnKoch My Philosophy Department: A Case Study in Billionaire Philanthropy" by Mich Ciurria: We, as academics, should avoid complicity in academia’s depressing descent into corporate sycophancy.

Mich Ciurria, “UnKoch My Philosophy Department: A Case Study in Billionaire Philanthropy” 2/4

@michciurria.bsky.social

www.aaup.org/JAF16/unkoch...

Quote from "From Direct to Diffuse Donor Influence: Charles Koch Foundation Funding in Higher Education, 1990–2024”: The Koch network funds academic programs and centers as part of a political project of normalizing and legitimatizing their procorporate and libertarian agenda, pushing massive deregulation, tax cuts, and privatization of public goods.

Isaac Kamola, Aaron Supple, and Ralph Wilson, “From Direct to Diffuse Donor Influence: Charles Koch Foundation Funding in Higher Education, 1990–2024” 1/4

@isaackamola.bsky.social

www.aaup.org/JAF16/direct...

Volume 16 Faculty Coeditors

Four of this year’s #JAF articles examine how “philanthropic agendas directly reshape academic life”: 🧵

A Tale of Two Compacts BY SHAWN GILMORE It’s now been a few weeks since the second Trump administration offered its “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” first to nine institutions, then to the rest of u…

New on Academe Blog:

Quote from “The Responsible Use of Academic Freedom in an Age of Polarization” by Aaron Ansell: Under conditions of polarization, intrusions into academic freedom come from both sides and leave individual faculty who wish to practice bracketed viewpoint diversity vulnerable.

Aaron Ansell, “The Responsible Use of Academic Freedom in an Age of Polarization” 3/3

Quote from "Neoliberal Philanthropy and Academic Freedom" by Ruben Martinez: While public policy advocacy by philanthropy foundations is not new, the neoliberal framework in which advocacy is nested is different.

Rubén Martinez, “Neoliberal Philanthropy and Academic Freedom” 2/3

Quote from "Shaping Public Sentiments About Higher Education in an Era of Philanthropic Dependency” by Natasha N. Johnson and Thaddeus L. Johnson: As a result of funding pressures, higher education has become a site of contestation between those who advocate for public investment and those who support private philanthropy.

Natasha N. Johnson and Thaddeus L. Johnson, “Shaping Public Sentiments About Higher Education in an Era of Philanthropic Dependency” 1/3

Volume 16 Faculty Coeditors

Three of this year’s #JAF articles “interrogate the compatibility of neoliberalism and academic freedom”: 🧵

Quote from "Editors' Introduction: Philanthropy, Public Funding, and the Future of Academic Freedom" by Michael Dreiling and Pedro Garcia-Caro: The convergence of private philanthropy and state power threatens to redefine the university not as a space of free inquiry but as a site of ideological enforcement.

The 2025 volume of #JAF is now live! This year’s volume brings together articles that probe the uneasy relationship between philanthropy and academic freedom and the financial infrastructures and political economies that sustain or threaten it. Check out the full issue at www.aaup.org/JAF16

Gender Studies and the University in 2025 BY ANDREW JOSEPH PEGODA People have the right to take gender studies classes. These classes include an emphasis on how patriarchy and gender stereotypes affect everyone. Negative impacts of boys be…

New on Academe Blog: academeblog.org/2025/10/28/g...

@aaup.org

The Three-Legged Stool BY YASHA HARTBERG Across the country, the foundations of academic freedom and shared governance are under strain. Legislatures are rewriting university missions. Boards are bypassing faculty senate…

New on Academe Blog:

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.

W/ @genevievelakier.bsky.social, the @aaup.org today released a letter to the Offices of the General Counsel at US colleges & universities. We detail why the Compact violates the Constitution & urge that no one signs it.
www.aaup.org/sites/defaul...

AAUP TV: live update tonight, Tuesday, October 21 at 7:30 PM ET. AAUP president Todd Wolfson and AAUP General counsel Veena Dubal will discuss why Trump‘s university compact is unconstitutional.

TONIGHT!

Join AAUP president Todd Wolfson & AAUP General Counsel Veena Dubal for an update on the AVALANCHE of universities rejecting Trump’s loyalty oath compact & how the compact violates the US Constitution.
7:30PM ET / 4:30 PM PT
Live on both IG &
YouTube.

Link: youtube.com/live/h-H-ETa...

What’s New About the Attack on Academic Freedom? Attempts to bar some speech by academic units in the name of “institutional neutrality” disregard the associational nature of academic freedom.

Writing in #Academe, Ajay Skaria of @umn-tc-aaup.bsky.social breaks down how recent attempts to bar speech by academic units in the name of "institutional neutrality" undermine academic freedom: