November Update from the AFA
Today marks “Giving Tuesday” and we hope that you will consider the AFA if you are donating to a cause this year. As we approach our fifth year, the AFA has awarded over $400,000 in direct funding for legal assistance. This total has helped professors fight back against challenges to their academic freedom. Twenty of those cases resulted in complete victories, while some are still ongoing. As a lean organization that largely relies on volunteers from academia and the legal world, all donations are put to efficient and maximum use to fulfill our mission statement of “protecting the rights of faculty members at colleges and universities to speak, instruct, and publish without fear of sanction or punishment.” We have set a December fundraising goal of $100,000. We appreciate any and all help in reaching that goal. Please visit our donation page at this link.
In 2024 the AFA achieved six victories against threats to academic freedom. One of the more public cases involved John Strauss at the University of Southern California, which you can read about here. Many of our cases are confidential, but we can share recent praise from a professor that the AFA assisted at a public university in New York, who stated: “Your support was crucial. Your intercession effective. The time and effort you spent intervening in my case are truly appreciated. The work you do is important, and you have my most grateful thanks. Three cheers to you and the AFA.” Another professor at a private school in Louisiana recently offered this message: “The issue was dismissed with no action being taken. Since the matter has been adjudicated, I guess that my school cannot now use anything about the situation against me. Many thanks for your help!”
We continue to support AFA member Dr. Michael Joyner in his case against the Mayo Clinic. In July it was announced that the matter was moving forward in the courts. We have a few more professors that we are currently financially supporting. While we remain optimistic about a positive shift in the landscape of academic freedom, we are prepared to persist in our efforts to defend it.
Spotlight on Friends for Duke
In our effort to spotlight other mission-aligned organizations across the country, we called attention this month to the excellent work of Friends for Free Speech & Intellectual Diversity at Duke (“Friends for Duke”), which seeks to support and advance free expression, viewpoint diversity, and academic freedom on the Duke University campus. Friends for Duke advocates for the university to defend both faculty and students when their rights of free speech and academic freedom are challenged. It also supports institutional neutrality and other active measures such as making classes on civil discourse available to all students.
Continued Growth
We added three new members in November, bringing our total membership to 896. We continue to accept new members on a rolling basis. Please send any nominations to AFA Director of Operations Howard Muncy at hmuncy@academicfreedom.org.
We are looking forward to concluding 2024 on a strong note in December and will provide a comprehensive “year in review” in our next monthly update.