very important for faculty in the South (and beyond as this will probably spread)

this is the same problem with admin at colleges and universities

Faculty First Responders Resources See below for some resources on digital security, academic freedom, and building institutional responses to support colleagues. unc-ch-aaup.org/assets/digit... unc-ch-aaup.org/assets/cdaf-... unc-ch-aaup.org/assets/rsc-t...

The 2025 Faculty in the South Survey asked if faculty had syllabi or curriculum choices questioned by their school. Almost 20% in Georgia said yes. That is hardly a ringing endorsement of the university system's proclaimed commitment to academic freedom. www.ajc.com/education/20...

Texas’s Angelo State University reportedly has an unwritten policy that bans faculty from discussing “transgender topics,” using students’ preferred names, or displaying LGBTQ flags. As a public university, ASU must allow faculty to teach students as they see fit.

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

We are proud of our students for reaching across the aisle and uniting against the suppression of free expression at Ball State University. Protecting free expression is a nonpartisan issue!

“If the leaders of these universities, charged with defending academic freedom, and the leaders of our state, charged with defending the Constitution and its free speech guarantees, cannot find a fraction of [Homer] Rainey’s courage, then all of us must do so.” ✊

Out today: Students went on strike, and 8,000 of them marched in a mock funeral procession carrying a coffin with a banner that read “academic freedom” from campus to the Capitol and the governor’s mansion.

More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

album of the day - Dance Called Memory from Nation of Language

Yes, many are looking to escape the attacks on faculty in Texas, but we are also organizing and fighting back. The number of AAUP members and chapters are growing across the state. Join us NOW as we fight to protect the future of #HigherEd in TX! Join ⬇️ connect.aft.org/app/memberfo...

this is completely illegal and no one should comply with it

22-year-old Ward Sakeik, a Palestinian woman who has lived in Texas since she was 9, says her experience in federal detainment could only be identified as “human trafficking.” And she’s not staying quiet about the women she was forced to leave behind. thebarbedwire.com/2025/09/22/w...

“In some ways, this bears a family resemblance to the Red scare,” Katherine Franke said. “In other ways, this is different…It’s an across-the-board exercise of the whole of government to bully universities, law firms, the media, all of us into a kind of obedience.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/u...

Charlie Kirk’s murder hit me harder than I ever could have anticipated, not because I liked or agreed with him but because I disliked and disagreed with him so vehemently. I felt as though I had a personal relationship with Kirk over the past decade, one that consisted of him making my life worse.

lol

get this guy on an NFL team!

understatement of the day

I'm shocked

The debate around what is or isn’t “cancel culture” really just obscures a simple truth that it’s BAD to be massively racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic and it’s GOOD to speak out against injustice. Some things are good and some things are bad and it’s okay to say which you think are which.

"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

"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

insert: Heartbreaking the Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point meme

"If you start giving into this environment, there is no bottom to this," AAUP chapter president Leonard Bright said. "They're never going to stop asking for you to give more." www.texastribune.org/2025/09/18/t...

Right. The pres of TXST is no dummy, he knows firing a tenured professor with no due process is against the law. Hi calculation is better to let them sue for reinstatement and win than face the political pressure from Abbott and the TX GOP. Scary times

This is really important, y’all.

this seems bad

One of the most important stories I write every year is on the annual death count of environmental defenders. They are people who peacefully try to protect the environment and their homelands from pollution, degradation and destruction. 🧵 insideclimatenews.org/news/1609202...

Two points on free speech: 1) Physical violence is not protected speech, and 2) if your principle of free speech is that people are free to speak so long as they agree with you (or the government you run), you do not actually believe in free speech.

it seems like beef is the great unifier of Americans.

BREAKING: A historic coalition of national & California labor unions led by the AAUP filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the illegal & coercive use of civil rights laws to attack the University of California system & the rights of their members.

faculty we are stronger together than as individuals. Join @aaup.org and other faculty unions and orgs

Lawyers and law profs should check out this letter, in which the attorney general of South Carolina purports to waive state law to allow Clemson to fire faculty over their political views. This is the logic of the TikTok ban spreading outward--that the executive branch can just waive criminal law.

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.

Album of the day - Hard Headed Woman from Margo price

For no particular reason, I’ve been thinking about the guy who obsessed about killing racial justice protesters, searched online about killing racial justice protesters, & told friends he may kill a racial justice protester. Then he killed a racial justice protester. And Gregg Abbott pardoned him.

This is the plot of Ministry for the Future

Just since yesterday, the President has engaged in more extrajudicial killings, promised to use the federal government's power to repress the political opposition, threatened to prosecute a reporter for asking him a question, and filed a baseless lawsuit to try to intimidate a leading news outlet.

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

album of the day - Brighter Days from Dwight Yoakam

www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty... The free speech crusade will continue until complete conformity and submission are achieved.

Wildly unacceptable violations of due process are happening with shocking regularity in this moment. 👀🚫👎 A faculty member accused of wrongdoing should be afforded an adjudicative hearing of record before a duly constituted faculty committee.

These guys are claiming Kirk as a nazi. I'm curious, from the right's perspective, is this unacceptable criticism, of the type that's getting liberals fired from their jobs, or is this honoring his legacy?

I hope nobody finds my tweets about how the Bears suck and sends them to my employer demanding my termination for speaking ill of the dead

man the Bears really Bearsed this game #BearDown

first play of the second half . . . and its a false start🤮 #BearDown

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.

If not for the penalties and turnovers the Bears could be winning this game! Same story for the last 40 years unfortunately #BearDown

Murder is wrong. Pogroms are wrong. Using a murder to incite a pogrom against a small and vulnerable group in society is wrong. (If I’m not mistaken, an assassination was the excuse for the wave of mob but state-sanctioned violence in Russia in 1881 that gave us the term “pogrom.”)