American Association of University Professors (AAUP).The late nineteenth‐century growth of the university and of academic specialization triggered notable clashes between academics and administrators. William Graham Sumner's controversial use of Herbert Spencer's
The Study of Sociology at Yale in the late 1870s, the economist Richard T. Ely's 1894 quarrel with the University of Wisconsin regents over his support for labor
strikes and boycotts, and Stanford University's dismissal of the economist Edward Ross in 1900 under pressure from Mrs. Leland Stanford underscored the threats facing
academic freedom. In 1915, after the outbreak of
World War I, John
Dewey of Columbia University and the historian Arthur O. Lovejoy of Johns Hopkins University called a meeting at Columbia of academics concerned about academic freedom. Those attending founded the AAUP, the first professional organization for protecting academic freedom and tenure, with Dewey as first President. The organization's inaugural statement, issued by a committee of well‐known academics, defended the freedom of inquiry and research, of teaching, and of academics' public statements and actions.
Academic freedom remained the association's cornerstone principle, reflecting the belief that scholarly excellence depends on unfettered intellectual inquiry. To this end, the organization developed guidelines for tenure procedures and due‐process requirements in personnel cases, including peer review of charges prior to dismissal. Through various committees, the AAUP compiled academic statistics, investigated complaints of unfair dismissal, and censured institutions that violated its standards. In the 1990s it also targeted the erosion of tenure through the increasing use of adjunct and part‐time faculty, arguing that job security is essential to true academic freedom. With a $4 million budget in 1999, the AAUP had some 45,000 members organized in thirty state associations and some five hundred local chapters.
See also
Beard, Charles A.;
Civil Liberties;
Education: Collegiate Education;
Education: Rise of the University;
Education: Education in Contemporary America;
Professionalization.
Bibliography
Walter P. Metzger , Origins of the Association, AAUP Bulletin 51.3 (1965): 229–37.
Louis Joughin, ed., Academic Freedom and Tenure: A Handbook of the American Association of University Professors, 1969.
Carole J. Trone and and William J. Reese
