The American Anthropological Association (AAA) has long aligned itself with key national and international principles of academic freedom. It endorsed the American Association of University Professors’ Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure (AAUP), first issued in 1940 and updated in 1970. At both of these earlier junctures, conflicts in society prompted vigorous debate on and off campus. Today, as political and ideological attacks on higher education intensify, the Mellon-funded Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom at the AAUP is leading efforts to confront these challenges. Extending this commitment globally, the AAA also supports the UN Special Rapporteur’s Principles for Implementing the Right to Academic Freedom, finalized in 2024.
AAA leadership feels that in this context, it is necessary to reaffirm its commitment to the principles of academic freedom and tenure, and assert that researchers, teachers, and students should be free to challenge prevailing wisdom and accepted “common sense” in the pursuit of knowledge and as advocates in public policy debates.
Since these principles were first articulated more than eight decades ago, the vocabulary for talking about academic freedom has continued to expand. Today, new pressures have emerged: legislation in multiple states seeks to restrict what can be taught about race, gender, and U.S. history; diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives face legal and political challenges; and faculty have become targets of online harassment and disinformation campaigns. Meanwhile, the digital age amplifies threats of censorship and surveillance. At the same time, rapid technological change, from AI tools to online learning platforms, is reshaping what we mean by the “classroom,” expanding it far beyond its traditional boundaries.
The AAUP principles, accepted throughout the academy for several decades, remind us that academic freedom is an essential protection for researchers, teachers, and students at institutions of higher education. The freedom to teach, advise, advocate, and inquire cannot be restricted by political ideology or affiliation in a thriving democracy.
Academic Freedom: AAA’s Guiding Principles
To promote public understanding and support of academic freedom, the American Anthropological Association affirms that:
- Teachers and students must be free to pursue advances in knowledge based on systematic observation, analysis, interpretation, critique, publication, and commentary.
- College and university professors are entitled to complete intellectual freedom in the classroom (and other channels for teaching) in constructing syllabi, assigning readings, delivering lectures, conducting discussions with students and colleagues, giving assignments, and evaluating student performance, while avoiding introducing material that has no relation to a course’s subject.
- College and university professors are community members, members of a learned profession, and affiliates of educational institutions. When they express their personal views as individual community members, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline. As the AAUP statement indicates, they occupy a special position in their respective communities, a position that is accompanied by special obligations. As scholars and educational institution affiliates, they should be guaranteed academic freedom while recognizing that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. They should at all times take care to be accurate, show respect for the opinions of others, take care not to promote dehumanizing speech, refrain from speech that promotes interpersonal violence, and make every effort to indicate that their views as scholars do not necessarily represent the institution with which they are affiliated.
- Both the protection of academic freedom and the expectations of academic responsibility apply not only to the full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty, but also to all others, such as part-time faculty and teaching assistants, who exercise teaching responsibilities.
- Freedom of academic inquiry is a cornerstone of democracy and a necessary element of a free society. Everyone, including elected officials as well as administrators at all levels of higher education, has an obligation to preserve, protect and promote the pursuit of knowledge and the free exchange of ideas.