November Update from the Academic Freedom Alliance
Dear AFA Members and Friends,
We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We’ve had another successful month of getting our message out to new audiences, and we could use your help to continue advancing that message in the coming months.
National Day of Giving: Today is the annual National Day of Giving, a time to support the causes and organizations you’re passionate about. As a non-profit organization, the AFA is entirely supported by our members and outside donations from other individuals and foundations. Please consider donating through our website today so that we can support professors under fire for protected speech and continue to grow our educational mission of raising awareness about the importance of academic freedom.
Membership Surpasses 700: We sent out a new round of invitations for AFA membership based on nominations received. So far this month, we have added 27 new members, bringing our total membership to 702 faculty from all across the United States and the ideological spectrum. We’re proud to have achieved this milestone less than two years after launching with around 200 founding members. Our full list of members is available on our website.
Rolling Invitations: We are always accepting nominations for new members from our existing membership. If you would like to nominate someone, please email Howard Muncy, the AFA’s Director of Operations, at hmuncy@academicfreedom.org.
Member Appearances: This month, AFA members appeared as speakers at several notable academic freedom events. Stanford hosted an Academic Freedom Conference from November 4th – 5th, with videos of the event now available on YouTube. Several AFA members were speakers, including Dorian Abbot, Anna Krylov, Nadine Strossen, and Steven Pinker. In addition, the Free Speech Initiative run out of the James Madison Program at Princeton hosted AFA members Anna Kylov and John Tomasi, as well as AFA Advisory Council member Paul Clement for an all day event on November 11th to discuss academic freedom and the Kalven Report.
Public Engagement: The AFA this month passed 3,400 followers on Twitter and more than 600,000 impressions for the year. In addition, our website continues to garner thousands of unique visitors per month, which we help drive with original content such as our podcast and our interview series with experts on academic freedom.
Tracking Academic Freedom Controversies: As always, our committees have kept a close eye on controversies unfolding on campuses around the country related to professorial free speech. We encourage our members to continue bringing incidents to our attention so that we can consider stepping in on behalf of faculty under fire.
Thank you for your continued support of the Academic Freedom Alliance, and we wish you all a successful end to the fall semester.