Takeaway: Click here to read the Executive Council open letter protesting the administration’s restrictions on free expression. Please share the statement with colleagues and discuss how it affects you and your students.
Dear colleague,
As you may have read in emails from the university, President Holloway’s administration has announced restrictions on the right to free expression at our university. We are extremely disappointed by this u-turn from a president who has been strong in his support of academic freedom and from an administration that was one of the few in the country to talk with protesting students last spring and reach a peaceful resolution to the encampments, instead of sending in the police and asking questions later—or not at all.
Last week, our union’s Executive Council issued an open letter to President Holloway concerning the new restrictions on free expression. The statement reads in part:
These restrictions have been decided on unilaterally, without input from stakeholders at the university. They participate in what the AAUP has described as a wave of “overly restrictive policies” being enacted at U.S. colleges and universities that “go beyond reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, impose severe limits on speech and assembly that discourage or shut down freedom of expression.” We reject these new rules, especially the Orwellian-named “Free Expression Permits.” These rules would unduly restrict protected speech, and political and academic expression at the University.
We urge you to read the full statement here and circulate it to your colleagues—and then discuss it with them.
Our union’s Academic Freedom Committee has compiled resources to help you know your rights under the law, under university policy, and under our union contract in these frightening times. We hope you’ll circulate these to your colleagues, too. Another vital resource is a town hall meeting we held last fall titled “Fighting for Academic Freedom: Past, Present, and Future,” featuring historian and veteran AAUP member Ellen Schrecker, which puts the questions we face today in historical context.
This is a fight for all of us—and we want you to know this: our union will fight for any one of you who faces sanctions, punishments, or worse under these very dangerous policies announced by the Rutgers administration.
In solidarity,
Audrey Truschke, Chair, Academic Freedom Committee, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Todd Wolfson, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Rebecca Givan, General Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Miguel Rodriguez, Secretary-Treasurer, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Rutgers AAUP-AFT Facebook page: https://facebook.com/RUaaup/
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Freedom School YouTubeChannel: https://rutgersaaup.org/YouTube