From Repression to Hope within a Week in April 2025

One week after the Texas Senate passed SB 37, the University Death Star Bill that would crater longstanding norms of academic freedom, shared governance, and due process on Texas campuses, two things happened outside Texas that lifted our hopes.

First, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) released the 12^th edition of AAUP Policy Documents and Reports including longstanding statements of norms and principles that guide “academic freedom, tenure, and due process; academic governance; professional ethics; research and teaching; online education; intellectual property; discrimination; collective bargaining; accreditation; and students’ rights and freedoms.” Known as the professional Redbook, the new edition updates a section on contingent faculty appointments and includes rewrites of existing statements on “Academic Freedom and Outside Speakers” and the “Statement on Online Education.” In its announcement of the new edition from Johns Hopkins University Press, the AAUP also notes that:

Nine documents are included for the first time, including four on academic governance—Confidentiality and Faculty Representation in Academic Governance, Faculty Evaluation of Administrators, Faculty Communication with Governing Boards: Best Practices, and On the Use of Executive Recruiters in Presidential Searches—and a 2024 statement on achieving racial justice in higher education, On Eliminating Discrimination and Achieving Equality in Higher Education.

The 12^th edition of the Redbook is a timely reminder that academic professionals have cultivated a body of norms and principles for more than a century—the very norms and principles that Texas SB 37 tramples underfoot with complete disrespect.

The second thing that happened on April 22, 2025, is that 200 college presidents and academic leaders signed “A Call for Constructive Engagement” authored by the American Association of Colleges and Universities. While Texas was embarrassed in the near total absence of campus leaders who were willing to sign a statement “against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education,” the silence of Texas leadership did serve as evidence worth considering, when it comes to the intimidating effect that “government overreach” can instill.

Please be sure to visit the Texas AAUP blog on SB 37 and join the AAUP today.

PS: In other news pertaining to April 22, happy birthday to Immanuel Kant.