UT Regents move forward with 'ultimate' power to oversee hiring, curriculum www.statesman.com/news/educati...

The federal “Compact for Academic Excellence” threatens to put UT-Austin under political control. Join Longhorns for Liberty in urging the UT President Jim Davis and Board of Regents not to sign this Compact. Sign and share: bit.ly/longhornsfor...

Yesterday, UT students, alumni, and allies showed up at the Regents meeting to demand no Compact and no political interference at UT! Academic freedom and free expression at UT must be protected.

Sociologists, including ASA members Justin J.W. Powell @uni.lu and Volha Chykina @chykina.bsky.social (U of Richmond), examine trends in academic freedom and global collaborations, highlighting the precariousness of future innovation. @us.theconversation.com

The administration is detaining international students with valid visas at airports, seizing their devices, interrogating them for hours, then holding some incommunicado for days or weeks, allegedly because of paperwork irregularities, traffic tickets, or old misdemeanors. Police state stuff.

We appreciate University Baptist Church!

Political attacks on universities are eroding academic freedom, and that threatens the global research collaborations behind major scientific breakthroughs. There’s a positive correlation between protections for academic freedom and the quality and quantity of STEM research. buff.ly/YGGZ4m4 🧪

“This narrative that faculty are indoctrinating students is a manufactured crisis,” she said. “You can trace it back to a network of right-wing think tanks, but it seems the university is treating it as if it is real”—our chapter president Karma Chavez www.texastribune.org/2025/11/17/u...

We appreciate University Baptist Church!

From guest columnist + UT faculty member Steve Wechsler: “I do not see evidence of intolerance to diverse views at UT. What I see is a range of departments seeking truth from different angles, creating a university that is greater than the sum of its parts.” ❤️ www.statesman.com/opinion/colu...

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...

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...

"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.'"

Tae Heung “Will” Kim, a U.S. permanent resident from South Korea, has been released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody after being detained for months. asamnews.com/2025/11/17/w...

If you and your colleagues are interested in starting or reactivating an AAUP chapter at your campus, check out our resources at our website.

Wonderful to see THREE new AAUP chapters in Texas! Let’s go!! 👏👏👏

Months. Lawful green card holder detained for months.

UT-Austin hasn’t said whether it will sign an agreement with the Trump administration that would tie preferential access to federal funding to a series of campus policy changes. Most other invited universities have rejected the administration’s offer.

Professors consider leaving UT over academic freedom concerns – The Daily Texan https://www.newsbeep.com/us-tx/54071/   Editor’s note: All faculty are speaking for themselves and not on behalf of the University of Texas…

University Leaders Must Act: An Open Letter on the Threats Facing Critical Interdisciplinary Programs Like Women's and Gender Studies msmagazine.com/2025/09/10/c...

"This narrative that faculty are indoctrinating students is a manufactured crisis...You can trace it back to a network of right-wing think tanks, but it seems the university is treating it as if it is real.” - Karma Chávez, President of AAUP UT-Austin @utaustinaaup.bsky.social

AAUP opposed this resolution at the university, state, and national levels. This is an attack on students’ freedom to learn and faculty’s freedom to teach. It has immediately impacted Texas A&M’s stature and credibility. We stand in solidarity with our Aggie colleagues.

“This narrative that faculty are indoctrinating students is a manufactured crisis,” she said. “You can trace it back to a network of right-wing think tanks, but it seems the university is treating it as if it is real”—our chapter president Karma Chavez www.texastribune.org/2025/11/17/u...

This school is having a historically good football season, but academic freedom & critical thinking, not so much: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...

AAUP opposed this resolution at the university, state, and national levels. This is an attack on students’ freedom to learn and faculty’s freedom to teach. It has immediately impacted Texas A&M’s stature and credibility. We stand in solidarity with our Aggie colleagues.

New Aggie Code of Honor: An Aggie does not lie, cheat, steal, discuss certain race and gender issues, or tolerate those who do.

The Texas State Board of Regents meet this Thursday and Friday to hear the final appeal of Prof. Tom Alter's case. If you are a faculty member anywhere, please sign onto the letter supporting his academic freedom case here: actionnetwork.org/letters/supp...

Penn's Title VI office failed to discuss allegations of violating academic freedom! “The administration does not answer in any meaningful way to faculty...to staff or students, but instead has shown repeatedly that it answers to donors, lobbying organizations, & politicians." - AAUP - Penn

UVA’s DOJ deal is making waves: bans on race-based scholarships, minority recruitment, and cultural spaces could gut diversity and academic freedom. “This guidance isn’t law — it’s ideology,” warns LDF’s Antonio Ingram, calling it a dangerous precedent.

Time after time we see that capitulation to the administration doesn’t work, but when we stand up to the bullies, we can win. This is a huge win for academic freedom and free expression. www.latimes.com/california/s...

BREAKING: Texas A&M’s Board of Regents is now requiring approval for courses on race and gender. This is a direct attack on academic freedom and civil rights. We urge Texas A&M to reverse course now and protect faculty and students!

· #AcademicSky · from UWN @uniworldnews.bsky.social “Without academic freedom and institutional autonomy, we cannot have high-quality learning, teaching and research. Without academic freedom and institutional autonomy, we also cannot have a fully functional democracy.” —Sjur Bergan

“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

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

“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.”

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

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.”

"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.'”

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

📢 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.

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.

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

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

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

"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...

🚨”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...