"Smaller discretionary grants, awarded without scholarly review, have so far gone to scholars with ties to conservative or religious institutions... including $30,000 for a project called 'Meritocracy vs. Equity: The Declaration of Independence in Tension With Critical Race Theory and D.E.I.'"

truly orwellian .. presidents now can determine whether hundreds of courses are 'legitimate' ... censorship of the worst kind––how knowledge is constructed, validated, accessed Faculty, advocates react to Texas A&M University's new race and gender approval system www.npr.org/2025/11/15/n...

Alice Wong, a writer and activist who was born with muscular dystrophy and who fought relentlessly for equal rights and access for people with disabilities, died on Friday. She was 51. nyti.ms/4r9WqEr

the more you read about the new Texas A&M policy, the more insidious and outrageous it becomes: e.g. "This also includes course content that promotes activism on issues related to race or ethnicity, rather than academic instruction.” We're back to duck & cover www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

WE WON!!! The US District Court for the Northern District of California has issued a preliminary injunction in AAUP et al v. Trump et al (the wall to wall union lawsuit challenging the administration’s unlawful use of Title VI to reshape the University of California system. Read the order here:

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”

I'd guess that 85-90% of American scientists would be ineligible for future funding under this law, maybe close to 100% in the R1 universities. So much for funding proposals based on scientific merit. Apart from being sinophobes, the people pushing this have no clue how science or higher ed works.

“This represents saving higher education, saving public research and the standing up of faculty and staff and students”—AAUP, one of the parties that brought the case against the Trump administration

This order is a major win for students & academic freedom. The Trump–Vance admin tried to strong-arm the UC system and its faculty and staff into giving up their free speech rights — and they were stopped. Proud that AFT was part of the coalition that stood up democracyforward.org/updates/cour...

A huge district court victory for the University of California. District courts find facts. This one found "overwhelming evidence" that the Trump administration has pervasively violated the First Amendment in its efforts to coerce and intimidate the University of California. News story here—

WE WON. I am *begging* you to take note of who did this. *Not* UCLA admin—they’re still scuttling around behind closed doors, attempting to appease—but FACULTY AND STAFF, led by AAUP.

BREAKING: In AAUP et al v. Trump (wall-to-wall union lawsuit challenging the administration’s unlawful use of TItle VI to reshape the University of California system), the faculty and staff of the UC system WON!!! We were granted our preliminary injunction! @aaup.org

We fight where we stand

"It is cruelty & political indoctrination. I'd need to tell my students that ‘What you came here to learn, I’m unable to tell you, because I’m restricted to tell you that information, even though such knowledge is available at every major university in this world.’" — Leonard Bright, AAUP TAMU

"If anything, the response by university leaders may have brought to the fore what some of us suspected all along: Academic freedom is being eroded internally by university administrators & externally by politicians." — Laura Isabel Serna, President of University of Southern California AAUP

It really seems like this administration is trying to eliminate the field of public health. MPHs and DrPHs will no longer be considered "professional degrees" by the DOE and, therefore, will face limits to accessing federal student loans. aspph.org/department-o...

NIH scientist Dr. Jenna Norton was just placed on nondisciplinary leave. She led a team who wrote a sign-on letter critical of The Regime. A person at NIH asked to give a reason for her leave called her “radical leftist”; while the NIH Director has claimed that “dissent is productive”.

Yes, and some of us WANT to stay and fight for the future of higher education in Texas! We are not giving up and we are not going away!! 👊🏽👊🏾👊🏿 Join us! connect.aft.org/app/memberfo...

Jim Ryan's letter is not just surreal and troubling; it provides a series of deeply sobering lessons—about the perils facing public universities today; about what it means to "work with" this Department of Justice; & about what leadership does (and doesn't) entail at this especially fraught moment.

MAGA’s ongoing war on academic freedom, reflected in headlines from the last 24 hours.

🔔 Amy Ceritelli-Plouff, a sixth-grade world cultures teacher in North Texas: “When you study history, you look at prior conflicts and times in our history when there has been extremism and maybe too much government control or involvement in things; it starts with censoring + controlling education.”

🚨”Today it’s Texas A&M. Tomorrow it will be every public university in a red state. The day after that, it will be private universities bowing to billionaire donors who want to reshape campuses in their own image. And after that, it will be K–12.” drstaceypatton1865.substack.com/p/leaked-tex...

"History professors Ben Wright and Rosemary Admiral argue they should not have been arrested at the 1 May 2024 demonstration, where they were standing between their students and heavily armed law enforcement." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The college president has to approve each syllabus and there is a HOTLINE for students to report course content.

@tamu.bsky.social Faculty Council Says Professor’s Dismissal Violated Academic Freedom https://bit.ly/43v8DJA #EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd

Here is the statement on the initial TAMU system proposal. The adopted rule apparently prohibits "advocacy" of "race and gender ideology" without approval.

Let me fix that for you: Texas A&M is limiting how instructors may discuss gender identity and race in classrooms in an assault on academic freedom unseen in America since the Red Scare.

📢 Hope our colleagues across the country recognize—just as with Texas’s ban on DEI in higher education—this will NOT remain in Texas. What is happening here is a blueprint for the rest of the country.

Conservatives claim that structural racism does not exist while simultaneously creating innovative new forms of structural racism like banning discussions of the concept.

"In an interview, Ms. Adams said that she worried her job might be in jeopardy. But she said she was speaking publicly nonetheless because 'I feel this is an important issue to talk about — censorship, stifling of academic freedom and this real overreach through this legislation.'”

The proposal would require faculty to receive the president’s approval before teaching lessons that could be considered as advocating for “race ideology”…or “gender ideology,” defined as “a concept of self-assessed gender identity replacing, and disconnected from, the biological category of sex.”

Trans people belong in Texas. Trans people belong everywhere. Happy #TransAwarenessWeek! 🏳️‍⚧️

“Market intelligence firms that assist institutions with optimizing degree offerings often identify small interdisciplinary programs as an asset. These data…have increasingly led firms to question strategies such as cutting small programs simply because they are small.”

List of invited speakers:

Gov. Greg Abbott is promising to destroy public schools by making it almost impossible for districts to raise taxes. He also said voters should have the power to reduce or eliminate school funding entirely. #txlege www.houstonchronicle.com/business/col...

Today at 9:30am, the Senate and House Select Committees on Civil Discourse & Freedom of Speech in Higher Education is meeting to discuss academic freedom and censorship at public universities. Leave public comment now: tinyurl.com/3xpzdyjt Watch the hearing live: tinyurl.com/ypp8x3zm

In case you missed it: Fearmongering against Trans persons is just the latest round on attacks on Universities. Universities should not be complicit.

AAUP/MESA Report: 'Most government investigations of antisemitism are prompted by complaints received from outside campuses... Of the 102 complaints filed with the Office of Civil Rights that the report analyzes, all but one focus on speech critical of Israel.' www.aaup.org/news/new-rep...

The ICE raids in Chicago harm students’ ability to learn and the faculty’s ability to teach at Hispanic-serving institutions like the University of Illinois - Chicago. Aaron Krall, President of University of Illinois Chicago Faculty United, discusses this & more in our recent AAUP TV episode.

wp.me/pejn4k-1nU Severe restrictions on the teaching of race, gender, and activism being considered tomorrow by the Texas A&M board of regents. They want to control university education the way they control K-12. Our statement ⬇️

Indiana University removed a Lecturer from her "Diversity, Human Rights, and Social Justice" course after a student filed a complaint about a graphic the instructor showed in class, which included "Make America Great Again" as an example of "Covert White Supremacy." www.wfyi.org/news/article...

Happening today! Register here ⬇️ sharemylesson.com/webinars/vit...

Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. " www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...

Faculty panel determined Dr. Melissa MCoul’s firing was based on the content of her course and a violation of her academic freedom. Administration ignored the finding. Another violation of due process in this egregious case.

The AAUP condemns proposals before the Texas A&M Board of Regents that require the college president to approve “course content & materials” for courses that cover topics on “race, gender ideology, or gender identity.” Full statement: aaup-texas.org/blog/f/natio... @texasaaup.bsky.social

The National AAUP urges the Texas A&M Board of Regents to reject the proposal & protect the reputation, integrity & ability of Texas A&M to …remain an institution dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge & committed to safeguarding students’ rights to learn. aaup-texas.org/blog/f/natio...

““It was Black people in the military, many of whom were enslaved persons, who freed this nation because of the Civil War,” Smith told The Informer. “It is because of Black soldiers that we have the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.””