AAUP president vows to counter Trump administration's higher education policies
The president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) expressed disappointment in the 2024 election results, voicing concerns over the future of higher education under the Trump administration.
AAUP President Todd Wolfson emphasized the importance of defending academic freedom and committed to countering policies he sees as threats to public education.
The president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) recently issued a statement calling the results of the 2024 election “disappointing” and committing to work against some of the Trump administration’s policy prescriptions.
“While the results of this presidential election are disappointing, we remain steadfast in our commitment to our principles and ensuring that future generations of Americans are afforded the opportunity that higher education provides,” stated AAUP President Todd Wolfson on Nov. 7.
“We are deeply concerned that the ongoing crisis in higher education of declining public funding, ballooning student debt, and attacks on academic freedom, will only be intensified under the incoming administration,” Wolfson’s statement continued. “Without a thriving, inclusive higher education system that serves the public good, the majority of Americans will be excluded from meaningful participation in our democracy and this country will move backwards.”
“The AAUP is committed to defending our campuses and the mission of higher education through organizing our communities to face the challenges that lie ahead,” Wolfson concluded. “Our collective power is needed now more than ever.”
Inside Higher Ed has reported that Wolfson called JD Vance a “fascist.”
Wolfson’s statement was critiqued by Alex Morey, the vice president of campus advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
Morey asserted that Wolfson’s statement “is the latest in the AAUP’s lockstep abandonment of its founding nonpartisan principles” which “has ramped up significantly under its new president and the highly partisan Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure.”
“Faculty who’ve long relied on the AAUP for its principled academic freedom advice should look elsewhere,” Morey added.
For his part, Wolfson has admitted that he is not attempting to be neutral. “There are massive political intrusions coming on, coming at us around academic freedom,” Wolfson has said. “There’s no way to be a neutral arbiter. We must stand for things in this environment.”
“The growth of repressive forces in American society, much of which is visible on the campus itself, is a source of continuing and acute alarm to the American Association of University Professors,” said Kelly Benjamin, media relations officer for AAUP, in an email to Campus Reform.
“The AAUP reaffirms our determination to preserve conditions for academic freedom and free expression in pursuit of truth,” Benjamin added. “We call on the academic community to resist all public & private assaults against this principle.”
Washington University in St. Louis offered counseling for those with anxiety over the election and Dartmouth College’s “Democratic Listening Circle” and “Decompress Dinner.”
One Michigan State University professor reportedly sent an email to her students in which she offered “free bonus points” to students who came to class the day after the election.
“It is unbelievable to me that so many Americans are so utterly naive and would fall for this and support misogyny, racism, xenophobia, hate, and violence,” the professor wrote in the email.
Campus Reform has contacted the American Association of University Professors for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
