Critics of the AAUP and the Delusions of Neutrality

On July 30, the American Association of University Professors made the first political endorsement in its history, supporting Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed for the U.S. Senate.

The decision has sparked the usual criticism of the AAUP for being too “political.” Sean Westwood of Dartmouth College, director of the Polarization Research Lab, claimed, “The AAUP is speedrunning its own demise” and accused the AAUP of “antisemitic narcissism.”

Should the AAUP be neutral on academic freedom? Obviously not. Is it the case that some politicians support academic freedom and others attack it? Obviously yes. Then what can be the objection to endorsing political candidates who will support academic freedom? Political endorsements represent the AAUP’s values rather than undermining them.

Perhaps some might fear that the AAUP endorsement would somehow silence its members who disagree. But unlike a university, the AAUP has no power over its members and cannot punish them for disagreeing with its endorsements.

Some might also fear that the AAUP endorsement would undermine its protections for faculty who disagree politically. But there is no evidence at all for this. Even though the AAUP embraces certain values (most notably academic freedom), it protects professors who are not AAUP members and who oppose the AAUP’s values. If a professor denounces the AAUP and academic freedom, the AAUP will still defend them.

For example, when conservative professor John McAdams was suspended without due process by Marquette University, the AAUP spoke out in defense of his rights and wrote an amicus brief on his behalf. I served as an expert witness on behalf of McAdams, even though I disagreed strongly with McAdams’s right-wing views and considered him an opponent of academic freedom. The AAUP defends principles, and there is absolutely no contradiction between defending the principle of academic freedom and supporting candidates who defend academic freedom.

In fact, the AAUP’s endorsement makes an important stand about what neutrality really means. Neutrality is not an academic value; it is an institutional value. Universities need to remain neutral in very limited ways so that everyone else can exercise their fundamental right not to be neutral. But that narrow sense of neutrality must never be imposed on professors, or the groups that professors form to advocate for their interests.

The belief that higher education will be destroyed unless the AAUP remains devoted to neutrality on political candidates seems highly unlikely. For one thing, the AAUP has stayed neutral on politics for its entire history, and yet we have witnessed the worst attack on academic freedom in American history during the past two years.

Leo Welch, the late president of the Illinois AAUP, was also for many years our legislative expert, and he was a strong advocate for joining with other educators in a PAC. He recognized that higher education was part of politics, and unless academics participated in politics and fought for our principles, politicians would roll over us. (Leo’s political acumen led to him being appointed to the Eastern Illinois University Board of Trustees and becoming its chair, a position of authority few professors ever achieve.)

Supporting candidates was an essential part of getting candidates to support the AAUP’s interests. Being neutral on politics didn’t preserve our principles—it abandoned them to a political process that has undermined academic values.

Samuel Abrams at Minding the Campus has complained that “the AAUP has become a political agent”—which is an accurate claim, unlike his bizarre lie that the AAUP “has shamelessly become a deeply anti-Semitic organization.” But Abrams has this strange notion that the AAUP can and should be apolitical.

Abrams was particularly offended that AAUP President Todd Wolfson had called JD Vance a “fascist,” declaring that “such a public statement is simply not appropriate given his public role representing such an apolitical group.” I think telling the truth is always appropriate—and it seems absurd to claim that leaders of the AAUP should refrain from criticizing a politician who said “professors are the enemy” because it might undermine the neutrality that protects academia.

Jonathan Turley told Inside Higher Ed this week, “With the conversion of the AAUP as an advocacy organization, there is no truly neutral agent representing the interests of all professors.” The AAUP has never been a neutral agent for all professors; it has always protected academic freedom. And the only way the AAUP can represent the interests of professors is by being an advocate for those interests.

In the past, the AAUP didn’t get involved in politics because Republicans and Democrats alike recognized the value of higher education and largely supported academic freedom. Now that Republicans declare themselves the open enemies of professors, calls for neutrality seem more like pathetic capitulation. When higher education is under attack by partisan enemies, neutrality is just submission to authority and abandonment of principles.

The fact that Turley often supports (or stays quiet about) the Republican attack on academia doesn’t make him neutral; it just makes him political on behalf of the other side.

There is a view that if academics just shut up and submit, Republicans will stop trying to destroy higher education. This belief in appeasement as a political strategy isn’t neutral; it’s just a different kind of politics (and one that seems highly unlikely to succeed).

The AAUP is not and must not be neutral in defense of academic freedom. So when politicians attack academic freedom, the AAUP should take a stand against them and in favor of candidates who will protect academic freedom.

As an advocate of institutional neutrality, I think it’s important to point out that the AAUP is not an institution. It’s an advocacy group composed of professors. So the notion that it should never engage in advocacy strikes me as a little strange. But even institutions should speak out against the political attacks on academic freedom.

As the Kalven report put it, “From time to time instances will arise in which the society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry. In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and its values.”

That time is now. The cowardice of university leaders in speaking out against repression by the Trump administration may be understandable when their institutions face retaliation by political thugs who routinely threaten to seize their funding.

But to demand that the AAUP remain silent about the political attack on academia is ridiculous. To demand that the AAUP should do nothing to fight for academic freedom is wrong.