Dear John,
With just a few days left in 2019, I urge you to make a tax-deductible contribution before the new year. We are grateful for the generosity of all who have given already. Special thanks go to our dedicated supporters who contribute every year—or every month by setting up a monthly recurring donation.
With challenges to the integrity and autonomy of higher education on the rise in an increasingly polarized political climate, the Foundation's advocacy for academic freedom, shared governance, and the scholarly profession is more important than ever. But even a small gift can have a significant impact when many join together to support academic freedom and the professional standards that make US colleges and universities among the best in the world.
Please donate today.
In the past year Nunez Community College terminated the services of professor Richard Schmitt, after he raised concerns about accreditation reports, in apparent violation of his academic freedom and without affordance of the protections of academic due process to which he was entitled as the result of having obtained de facto tenure. St. Edward’s University in Texas dismissed two long-serving, tenured associate professors, Shannan Butler and Corinne Weisgerber, without affording them due process for allegations of "unprofessional" conduct. In both cases the Foundation's Academic Freedom Fund provided urgently needed financial assistance.
Meanwhile, the targeted harassment of individual faculty members continues unabated, making online smear campaigns and death threats an occupational hazard for many whose scholarship or extramural activities address racism and other contentious topics. Intensified assaults on tenure, shared governance, and the rights of faculty unions threaten not only the faculty but American democracy itself. We need a strong AAUP Foundation to thwart these assaults and to ensure that AAUP principles and standards remain the norm in American higher education. Your contribution of any amount will help to make this possible.
As the charitable and educational arm of the AAUP, the Foundation enables work that membership dues alone cannot fund. The Foundation's Legal Defense Fund supports faculty members involved in litigation that protects academic freedom and professional rights. It also provides funding for the AAUP’s work on amicus briefs in cases with important implications for higher education. Recent briefs have included arguments against gender-based pay disparity and terminations of employees based on LGBTQ status and in support of affirmative action and the DACA program.
For the past several years the AAUP's critically important investigations of academic freedom violations, including those at Nunez Community College and St. Edward’s University, have been wholly sustained by the Academic Freedom Fund. The fund also supports AAUP Committee on College and University Governance investigations and reports, most recently at Maricopa Community College (Arizona) and Vermont Law School.
The Academic Freedom Fund underwrites publication costs for the AAUP’s Journal of Academic Freedom and for materials related to academic freedom in Academe and the annual Bulletin. Last year the Foundation sponsored a well-attended conference on academic freedom in California community colleges and will be supporting a second conference in May. The fund supports workshops on defending academic freedom and tenure on AAUP chapter campuses and helps state conferences and chapters bring prominent outside speakers to meetings.
"Academic freedom is essential to the current and future development of our nation and its contribution to the world," wrote one Foundation donor last year. "I have been increasingly dismayed—I'm now appalled—at the increasing corporatization of universities, and I want to help resist this deplorable trend," wrote another. "I have been targeted and lost my job," added a third person.
If the AAUP Foundation is to continue its important work, we must expand its efforts. Attacks on higher education and the common good are being felt by faculty across the ideological spectrum—regardless of tenure status, appointment type, or home institution—and in the past few years we have seen these attacks increase. The AAUP Foundation exists to safeguard academic freedom and to support higher education in a free and democratic society. In order to persist in this work, we depend on the generosity of AAUP members and other supporters.
Your contribution matters.
You can also remember the AAUP Foundation in your will and leave a legacy to protect academic freedom in the future. For more information about the Foundation, and about giving options, visit our website.
Thank you for your loyal and generous support! Please forward this email to friends and colleagues who may be interested in our mission.
Henry Reichman
Chair, AAUP Foundation
P.S. If you prefer to donate by mail, please make a check payable to "AAUP Foundation" and send to:
AAUP Foundation
1133 Nineteenth Street NW, Suite 200
Washington DC 20036
