George Washington University AAUP

University Administrations: Reject Trump's "Loyalty Oath" Compacts The Trump administration is trying to blackmail schools to let him and his unqualified bureaucrats run our schools. They want to dictate what schools teach, who they admit and hire, what researchers s...

NO LOYALTY OATHS IN HIGHER ED!

Trump's attacks on our universities are an attempt to consolidate power. This loyalty oath directly undermines our right to academic freedom & goes against every democratic principle our country should uphold.

Please click below, sign, & share.

#DefendHigherEd

UC’s Academic Council calls on the Office of the President & the UC Board of Regents to unequivocally reject governmental demands that compromise institutional autonomy and #academicfreedom.

This is the way.

#DefendHigherEd

Groups File Suit Over Trump’s $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee

“Trump’s restrictions on H-1B visa applications will lead to less lifesaving research, reduced innovation, & diminished competitiveness. This short-sighted policy will hurt every American by slowing research breakthroughs, weakening our economy & putting our global leadership at risk.”
—Todd Wolfson

Universities Must Reject Trump Admin 'Loyalty Oath' Compacts The AAUP and AFT warn that the Trump administration’s offer to give preferential treatment to colleges and universities that court government favor in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological...

The Trump admin’s offer to give preferential treatment to institutions that toe the party line reeks of bribery in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological agenda.

This is corruption.

Adherence to ‘loyalty oaths’ would usher in a new era of thought policing in American higher education.

Just noting that a university that signed this compact would be agreeing to gut clinics and institutes like, say, the Knight Institute, whose mandate is to promote free speech and press freedom. What would it even mean for us to be “neutral”?

In a landmark ruling in our case against the Trump admin on the deportation of international students for protected speech, Judge William Young rejected the government’s justification for the wearing of masks by ICE agents as
“disingenuous, squalid & dishonorable.”

#AAUPvRubio
@knightcolumbia.org

Today I am especially happy to be an @aaup.org member.

Opinion

This case … squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us.”

“The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally ‘yes, they do’.

— Judge William G. Young

#AAUPvRubio

Find a Chapter A list of AAUP chapters, both unionized and nonunionized. (You can also see a list of just union chapters.)

So, at the very least, we all need to be joining or starting an AAUP chapter:

www.aaup.org/chapters/fin...

Findings of Fact & Conclusions of Law – #261 in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio (D. Mass., 1:25-cv-10685) – CourtListener.com Judge William G. Young: ORDER entered. FINDINGS OF FACT AND RULINGS OF LAW, PURSUANT TO FED. R. CIV. P. 52(A)(Sonnenberg, Elizabeth) (Additional attachment(s) added on 9/30/2025: # 1 Main Document) (J...

BREAKING: WE WON!!!
💥 💥 💥

Federal Judge William G. Young ruled today in our lawsuit against the Trump administration that the policy of arresting, detaining, & deporting noncitizen students & faculty members for their pro-Palestinian advocacy violates the 1st Amendment.

Full ruling here:

Kirk assassination raises the political stakes for HE Comments by United States President Donald Trump and his supporters at the memorial service of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk confirmed the worst fe...

“McCarthyism targeted individuals because of their past political activities. They were never asked about their teaching and research. Today, the attack is on the university, on the academic community; not just individuals, but on the higher education community as a whole.”

— Ellen Schrecker

Discretion Is Not the Better Part of Academic Freedom In a free society, we strive to eliminate the punishments that make discretion a rational choice—and not glorify discretion as a virtue when it is actually a vice.

Academic freedom will not survive by encouraging professors to censor themselves more.

“Too much of the response to the Trump admin’s repression has been driven by fear & cowardice. We need to fiercely support #academicfreedom as a fundamental right for all.”

— @johnkwilson.bsky.social

Gift link! www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...

Local colleges targeted amid growing campus culture wars National media and conservative groups are seeking syllabi and student information from public colleges; professors say they feel targeted and harassed.

A network of right wing “pink slime” faux news sites is targeting “anti-American” classes at colleges & universities nationwide.

#DefendHigherEd

The AAUP stands for what we always stood for: a powerful higher education sector that leads to innovation, social mobility, and is a bedrock of democracy.

Read AAUP Todd Wolfson’s Q & A published this week in the Chronicle of Higher Ed.

www.chronicle.com/article/is-t...

@proftwolf.bsky.social

Is the AAUP Too Partisan? Its President Doesn’t Think So. Todd Wolfson has taken heat for some of the organization’s political stances during his tenure. Here’s what he makes of the criticism.

"Look, we are a labor union. We’re going to fight & respond to this moment...We're standing for what we always stood for...a powerful higher-education sector that leads to innovation & social mobility & is a bedrock of our democracy."

—Todd Wolfson, AAUP President

#DefendHigherEd
#AcademicSky

On Title VI, Discrimination, and Academic Freedom This report considers how Title VI has been used to create an enforcement apparatus that sidesteps long-established AAUP-recommended procedures of shared governance and offers recommendations for facu...

🚨🚨🚨
NEW AAUP Report Analyzes Trump Admin Weaponization of Title VI
to Undermine Civil Rights Protections.

#Academicfreedom
#AcademicSky
#DefendHigherEd

The AAUP & @aft.org are fighting back to remind our elected leaders that higher education & public health research are transformative public goods.

We must keep life-saving NIH research fully funded & stop the Trump admin’s devastating funding cuts that are halting medical breakthroughs.

Dr. Leonard Bright, VP of @texasaaup.bsky.social on the resignation of Texas A&M president Mark Welsh.

(Watch to the end for a report on how politicians are being appointed to lead university systems in Texas.)

#DefendHigherEd
#AcademicFreedom
#AcademicSky

Manufactured outrage is killing academic freedom in Texas | Opinion Enough with the "gotcha" attacks like the recent firing of a Texas A&M instructor. Let professors teach. Let students learn, writes Pauline Turner Strong.

"Enough is enough. Texas must allow faculty and college students to explore freely the breadth of human knowledge, and administrators must support us in that time-honored quest."

– Pauline Strong, President @utaustinaaup.bsky.social

#AcademicFreedom
#AcademicSky
@texasaaup.bsky.social

How a secret recording of a gender identity lecture upended Texas A&M Officials have struggled to detail the exact reasons for the A&M professor’s termination, citing a technical issue with her course description. Faculty say the move was politically motivated.

The new reality that is emerging in Texas is that certain topics or ideas are simply off the table in the classroom.

The censorship of academic speech and entire fields of knowledge in service to an ideology poses an unprecedented danger to the future of higher education.

#AcademicFreedom

“We will not allow authoritarians to dismantle higher education. We will not allow billionaires to profit while communities suffer. And we will not allow fear to silence students and workers who speak out.”

— Todd Wolfson, AAUP President

#DefendHigherEd
#HigherEdBenefitsEveryone
@aft.org

We just filed a lawsuit on behalf of faculty, staff, students, and unions to protect free speech within the University of California system.

The Trump-Vance admin's use of financial threats against academic institutions in an attempt to stifle views it opposes is both unconstitutional and illegal.

Clemson fires two more faculty members over Charlie Kirk comments Clemson leaders had come under increased pressure from people online as well as South Carolina Republican politicians to take action.

The rampant violations of academic freedom and intrusions on extramural speech are escalating rapidly. Faculty members have the right to speak or write as citizens, free from institutional censorship or discipline. Expression of opinion as a citizen does not constitute grounds for dismissal.

A General Air of Anxiety - Boston Review The Red Scare targeted my father. He taught me the meaning of resistance.

A must-read essay from Joan Scott: “We are again confronting a massive attack on the very foundations of democratic education and, this time around, the stakes feel even higher. In the 1950s, the targets were individual teachers…and their left-wing unions. Now the target is the system itself.” ⬇️

The AAUP notes with great alarm the rash of recent administrative actions to discipline faculty, staff, & student speech in the aftermath of the murder of Charlie Kirk.

1/4

AAUP Condemns Terrorist Threats to HBCUs The AAUP condemns unequivocally the recent and recurring bomb and terroristic threats against multiple HBCUs. Threats targeting HBCUs are attacks not only on individuals but on the legacy of resilienc...

The AAUP stands in full solidarity w/HBCU faculty, staff, students, admin, & alumni. We call on law enforcement & governmental authorities to treat these threats w/ the seriousness they deserve, investigate thoroughly, hold responsible parties accountable, & strengthen preventive measures on campus.

In this episode of AAUP Presents, we discuss AAUP v. Rubio, the lawsuit challenging Trump's policy of arresting & deporting non-citizens, students & faculty participating in pro-Palestine activism.

Feat. Ramya Krishnan of the Knight First Institute

@ramyakrishnan.bsky.social
@knightcolumbia.org

AAUP President Condemns Political Firings of Texas Faculty, Calls for Reinstatements The sudden firings of faculty members this week at two Texas universities are serious violations of well-established standards and principles of academic freedom and tenure and set a dangerous new pre...

The AAUP calls on Texas A&M & Texas State to reverse the ideological firings of faculty members. We condemn the removal of the dean of the College of Arts & Sciences & the chair of the English department at Texas A&M for supporting the academic freedom of an instructor as a draconian abuse of power.

“As we consider how to ‘defend’ academic freedom, I think it is important to admit when it has been lost. Perhaps one day it may return, but at least for now, academic freedom is no longer present at one of the largest public institutions in the country.” ⬇️⬇️