Main academic professional association dominated by the political left
Supports racial preferences in university hiring and admissions policies
Defended Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian
Founded in 1915 by philosophers Arthur O. Lovejoy and John Dewey, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is a nonprofit organization that defines its mission as follows: "to advance academic freedom and shared governance, to define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education, and to ensure higher education's contribution to the common good." Claiming to represent approximately 45,000 "academic professionals" (including librarians) at American institutions of higher learning, and adopting the official motto "Academic Freedom for a Free Society," the AAUP functions as the voice of the tenured professoriate. It first outlined its principles in its 1915 General Report of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, which admonished faculty to avoid "taking unfair advantage of the student's immaturity by indoctrinating him with the teacher's own opinions before the student has had an opportunity fairly to examine other opinions upon the matters in question, and before he has sufficient knowledge and ripeness of judgment to be entitled to form any definitive opinion of his own."
The AAUP expounded upon this theme in its 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, which stipulates that academics should be entitled to "full freedom in research and in the publication of the results," as well as in the classroom discussion of subject material, but cautions instructors against introducing "into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject." The Statement also admonishes professors to be ever mindful of their status as "scholars and educational officers," given that "the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances." "Hence," the Statement continues, " they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution."
Over the years, the AAUP has subtly modified its positions and focus. In the 1990s it took a passive role regarding campus speech codes, arguably the most extensive infringement of academic freedom since the McCarthy era. Moreover, it has been supportive of the trend towards politicization of the classroom, a possibility that the authors of the 1940 statement explicitly opposed.
The AAUP has supported numerous political ideologues and the terrorist sympathizer Sami Al-Arian of the University of South Florida (USF). The organization attacked USF over its disciplinary action and eventual dismissal of Al-Arian, a tenured professor who was indicted for his leadership role in the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The AAUP claimed that USF was punishing Al-Arian unjustly for what amounted to an "active extramural interest in Palestinian and Islamic developments." (This "extramural interest" included founding an Islamist "think tank" whose directors included two leaders of Islamic Jihad; delivering speeches in which Al-Arian referred to Jews as "monkeys and pigs"; and proclaiming "Death to the Jews" and "Let us Damm [sic] America" -- all while teaching full-time at USF.)
The AAUP has also come to the defense of Tariq Ramadan, a Muslim academic who was hired by Notre Dame but was denied a visa by the State Department because of his connections with al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. On September 18, 2005, Professor Joan Wallach Scott (who was then the Chair of the AAUP's Committee on Academic Freedom) gave a speech at Princeton University in which she defended both Ramadan and al-Arian. A media account of this speech summarized what Professor Scott said about the AAUP's defense of academic freedom as follows: "Of the incidents the AAUP has tracked since 9/11, Scott said, all but one have been instigated by the pro-Israel bloc."
The AAUP is a member organization of the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE), a coalition of groups that believe the American workplace is rife with sexism and discrimination against women.
