AAUP members just can’t help themselves. “Weakening faculty governance…undermines our ability to effectively address society’s most profound problems and challenges, from the inequalities of wealth and white supremacy to the political consequences of climate change.”

This is 100% true in my experience (as a phil prof). Relativism is a vehicle to dismantle opposing views, and not something anyone consistently holds. Relativism in the abstract (about "morality") is immediately abandoned when particular policy proposals are raised.

My latest on the politicization of scholarship: cityjournal.substack.com/p/t…

Kind of weird how Appiah is so dismissive of the idea that conservatives might face discrimination in the humanities and social sciences, given that the replacement of scholarly standards with progressive political criteria is the main conclusion of the report! Still, worthwhile interview, and it does highlight the absurdity of dismissing the report as a right-wing attack. chronicle.com/article/inside…

Turns out, the AAUP's higher ed summit started yesterday. I had no idea. Curious what those conversations look like right about now.

There is an alarming media report about an effort by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to target civics programs with the alleged help of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation... jonathanturley.org/2026/06/1…

Academic freedom exists to protect academics with dissenting or unpopular views from being steamrolled, not to paper over steamrolling. You can't just say the process was followed and shrug.

Some believe academic freedom is primarily a collective right. Others, including me, believe academic freedom is primarily an individual right — a protection often needed by lonely dissenters standing against the collective. Process matters for protecting both conceptions of academic freedom. But only one conception leaves open the possibility that the outcome of that process was wrong. When professors were punished for being communists or for refusing to sign loyalty oaths in the 1940s and ’50s, that was wrong, regardless of the rigor of the process that produced those outcomes. When people seek to vindicate their rights in court — and courts fail to uphold them — that doesn’t negate those rights. Sometimes the process fails us, and we should feel empowered to say so. The process failed to protect Amy Wax’s academic freedom rights, no matter how robust that process was.

'Academic freedom' to many does not, as you might expect, mean academics can speak and think without fear of retaliation (as is necessary for them to perform their function), it means university (administrator) self-government. The two tend to conflict, as with Wax.

Wow. The Mellon Foundation has some explaining to do. Thread:

“The university departments won’t hire anyone but leftists.” “Freedom of association. Make your own institutions.” “Okay” “And now we will spend millions to destroy your institutions.”

Well now, look what we have here. Something advertising itself as a "center for the defense of academic freedom" is gearing up a campaign of vilification against programs that are revitalizing civic education at colleges and universities around the nation and helping to ensure that students are exposed to a diverse range of viewpoints. I suppose it's not surprising that people who have enjoyed a virtual ideological monopoly would fight tooth and nail to keep it. That's how monopolists work.