Dear Colleague,
“I've been teaching for 34 years and I've never seen anything remotely like this, the willingness to hurt people, the willingness to hurt me, the willingness to stick a police club in the ribs of an 82 year old, the willingness to beat students. I saw one student from UCLA, wiping the blood off his face in an interview. We are in scary times and I'm really grateful to be part of AAUP. I hope that we can as a national organization make a concerted effort to work on these issues and respond to them.”
That’s Annelise Orleck, whose arrest at a May 1 protest at Dartmouth College garnered significant press coverage. She’s a professor of history and co-president of the Dartmouth AAUP chapter.
Annelise is just one of many AAUP members who’ve been fighting to ensure that academic freedom, free speech, and the right to protest are protected on campuses across the country, in the face of increasing crackdowns and violent repression.
Join the fight. Rejoin or join the AAUP today.
As we said in a recent statement,
The AAUP and its chapters defend the right to free speech and peaceful protest on university campuses, condemn the militarized response by institutional leaders to these activities, and vehemently oppose the politically motivated assault on higher education.
Our colleges and universities are places of free and open expression, inquiry, and debate. Even in sharp disagreement, our goal is communication in service of learning and understanding. The critical evaluation of different points of view and the questioning of even the most deeply held beliefs are essential to learning. So too is our students’ right to protest and to express their political convictions.
It’s not just words. You can find many resources on our website about campus speech rights. We’ve been talking to faculty about their experiences in the protests on our podcast AAUP Presents, as well as examining the history and people behind the current wave of political interference and crackdowns. We regularly address these issues in Academe, the AAUP’s magazine. These are just some of the resources you get as an AAUP member—and now, thanks to our affiliation with the American Federation of Teachers, all AAUP members also have access to all of AFT’s member benefits.
What’s your role in all of this? Become a member to help support efforts to protect free inquiry in higher ed and ensure that higher ed can serve the common good. We’d love to have you as part of the one of the strongest organizations fighting for the future of higher ed.
In solidarity,
Mariah Quinn, AAUP's digital organizer
P.S. If you're already a member and received this message, it means we have two or more emails for your in our system and our membership database needs to be updated. Reply to this email and we'll get it fixed. Thanks.
