American Association of University Professors

Please follow the AAUP on Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/aaup.b… Let’s build a strong national movement to defend higher education. We have a lot of work ahead of us.

UT has new student leaders, and they want to fight for students. As some of the only elected UT representatives left at @UTAustin after the end of faculty senates, the students want to expand ways for the student voice on top down decisions from core curriculum to departments⬇️

The inevitable result of attacks on the freedom to teach & learn. #BrainDrain Best of luck, Dr. Peterson!

#breaking Texas Tech University System will phase out academic programs "centered" on sexual orientation and gender identity, going beyond the classroom limits Chancellor Brandon Creighton imposed in December. Details here: texastribune.org/2026/04/10/tex…

Public university professors in Texas say a new law restricts their academic freedom npr.org/2026/04/08/nx-…

The Charlie Kirk Effect

Republicans want to exclude undocumented kids from public education. We've been here before. | Editorial houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editor… via @houstonchron

"What makes a school the right one? It’s not the prestige of a name or the campus amenities. First and foremost, it’s the teachers. Great teachers help make a college great because they themselves are never done being students" @nytopinion @AAUP @aacu nytimes.com/2024/05/05/opi…

Today is the last day for members to vote to accept our Tentative Agreement and ratify our first contract. These wins on academic freedom are just some of the reasons why they should vote YES to ratify!

SCOOP: @UTAustin to host U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in unpublicized April event. He will give a lecture for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. #highered #ut #txed statesman.com/news/education…

Julie Minich, AAUP UT Austin chapter executive committee member: “This timeline is really detrimental for students’ education..[It] effectively means that the primary consideration here is politics and not the education of students." kut.org/education/2026…

Texas is cutting undocumented immigrants off from school, work and driving texastribune.org/2026/04/02/tex…

Me: God what am I doing in this fracking hell hole of R1 insanity? Michael: Read these words and stop being maudlin. insidehighered.com/opinion/views/…

1/ Texas’ new higher ed ombudsman office can investigate public universities and recommend cutting off state funding. But nearly 3 months after it started taking complaints, it still has no written policies explaining how those investigations work. texastribune.org/2026/04/03/tex…

More wins from our TA: protections against harassment, bullying, and discrimination ✊

Last week’s Tentative Agreement includes a number of wins that will ensure faculty don’t have to choose between supporting and caring for their families—including the creation of an annual $1,000,000 family care fund.

Texas A&M refuses to acknowledge the contradiction at the heart of its Civil Discourse Symposium: restricting discussion of race, gender, and sexuality while promoting a forum supposedly dedicated to respectful dialogue. Not even the Dean of the Bush School, the primary organizer of the event, unequivocally acknowledged that these topics are in fact being restricted even in his own college. Rather than confronting this reality, he insists that “trying to tie this back to what may or may not be happening with university policy” is a canard. This response perhaps reflects a willingness to ignore the real consequences of banning topics that marginalize and effectively erase the identities and lived experiences of students in deference to political pressure. Invoking institutional values does not resolve the contradiction; it makes it impossible to ignore. We will not ignore this hypocrisy. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

AAUP President Todd Wolfson and AFT President Randi Weingarten statement "calling on Portland State University President Cudd and PSU’s Board of Trustees to halt their rushed and ill-conceived plan to impose deep cuts to academic programs and the academic workforce."

Maryland legislators are trying to exclude grant-funded workers and 12 of 14 USM campuses, including all HBCUs, from collective bargaining rights. ALL grad workers at ALL MD public universities deserve the right to negotiate their working conditions!

Texas A&M can’t promote “civil discourse” while silencing discussions of race and gender. That’s not dialogue—that’s censorship and cruelty. Join us:
📍 Rudder Plaza (on TAMU campus)
🗓 April 20
⏰ 3 PM Stand with AAUP College Station.
#AcademicFreedom #FreeSpeech #TAMU

We won significant job security and academic freedom protections in our Tentative Agreement. Here are just a few! Members: To enshrine these wins in our first contract, be sure to vote YES to ratify.