PROF. GARRETT: Why these professors are hypocrites on academic freedom

A former tenured professor at Bakersfield College, Matthew Garrett is the founder of Renegade Institute for Liberty, an organization dedicated to promoting intellectual diversity. He launched the California Curriculum Center shortly after retiring from academia to offer nonpartisan curricula for independent educators and charter schools. 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is in decline but some academics are doubling down on their commitment to its totalitarian orthodoxy. 

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) issued a statement shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration titled Against Anticipatory Obedience, warning against the erosion of faculty governance in the wake of “state legislation banning certain diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and practices.” The AAUP further quotes the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report emphasizing that attacks on institutional neutrality “threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry.” Where was this devotion when the state of California imposed DIE advocacy and campus governance abandoned neutrality for loyalty pledges? 

For over a century, the AAUP has been one of the most influential organizations in American higher education. Founded in 1915, the AAUP played a pivotal role in defining the principles of academic freedom, tenure protections, and faculty governance. The organization was once a bulwark against political interference, resisting pressures from both the right and the left to preserve open intellectual debate on campus. Given this legacy, one would expect the AAUP to oppose any effort to coerce faculty speech. 

Yet, the AAUP’s January 2025 statement suggests what has been increasingly apparent: the organization’s devotion to DEI has eclipsed its commitment to neutrality and individual academic freedom. 

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The AAUP’s commitment to neutrality has declined steadily over the past several years. As universities adopted “diversity statements” to filter out applicants who fail to demonstrate allegiance to DEI axioms, the AAUP praised such “diversity statements.” In an October 2024 statement, AAUP affirmed DEI initiatives as “a valuable component in the efforts to recruit, hire, and retain a diverse faculty with a breadth of skills needed for excellence in teaching, research, and service.”

When higher education institutions adopted “bias response teams” to retaliate against DEI dissenters, the AAUP looked away. And when California amended Title V regulations to explicitly obligate faculty to advocate for DEI under threat of termination, the AAUP ignored pleas for support. Faculty filed First Amendment suits (here and here) but the AAUP offered no public statement and no amicus curiae in support of besieged professors. Even worse, in the same release promoting “diversity statements,” the AAUP’s defended compulsory DEI advocacy as potentially “necessary” for “professional competency” and its imposition a legitimate function of faculty governance. So much for institutional neutrality. 

When Donald Trump entered the presidency, he swiftly signed executive orders dismantling DEI in federal agencies. The Air Force Academy and West Point operate under direct federal oversight, and immediately complied. However, these orders carried no binding authority over state and private institutions, which remain under the control of state legislatures and boards of trustees—some of whom may feel emboldened by the national shift, while others remain steadfast in their commitment to DEI. 

It was in this contested landscape that the AAUP issued its statement challenging state directives and seeking institutional neutrality. But only months earlier, the AAUP said it “rejects the notion that the use of DEI criteria for faculty evaluation is categorically incompatible with academic freedom.” DEI may even be “necessary for teaching a diverse student body.”

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How can an organization that once championed neutrality justify mandated DEI statements of support? To reconcile this cognitive dissidence, the AAUP employs two disingenuous arguments in its 2025 statement emphasizing neutrality and faculty governance. 

First, it claimed that institutional neutrality—a principle that AAUP ostensibly supports—somehow precludes the removal of compulsory DEI mandates. The organization conveniently ignored the fact that imposing DEI policies in the first place violated neutrality, while removing them restores the marketplace of ideas.

Second, the AAUP insisted that DEI mandates created through faculty governance were legitimate exercises of power—even “necessary.” Yet, when those same governing bodies moved to dismantle these policies, the AAUP suddenly reversed course, characterizing the rollback as an existential crisis threatening higher education. The message is clear: compelling faculty to advocate DEI is virtuous; removing that compulsion is reprehensible. 

The AAUP has abandoned its historic role as a guardian of open inquiry and transformed into a partisan advocate of left-wing orthodoxy. It refused to resist coercive DEI policies and then mobilized instantly when those mandates faced opposition. It claims to defend faculty governance, but only when such governing bodies advance preferred ideological preferences. The fall of the AAUP is a loss for us all. 

If academic freedom means anything, it must protect faculty from both government coercion and institutional ideological mandates. The true threat to free expression in academia is not the dismantling of DEI, but rather the years of policies forcing ideological compliance. The AAUP’s latest statements make evident the organization’s slide from defending academic freedom to merely peddling ideological conformity under the guise of academic governance.