The AAUP has a venerable history of both developing and vigorously defending concepts that have made American higher education the envy of the world. It is no accident that people from all over the world want to come to America to seek higher education. And, the relationship between the concepts of academic freedom, tenure, and faculty governance and the quality of American higher education is not accidental. We have a strong system of quality higher education in America because of how we have built that system, and the AAUP has played a major role in the way higher education has been defined in this country.
Academic freedom is the cornerstone.
Faculty members must be free to research topics of their choosing, and they must be allowed to teach those topics in an open and unfettered way. Faculty members also have a right to speak publicly without fear of reprisal. Only when academic freedom is protected is there a genuine accumulation of knowledge necessary for a free society. Citizens can make informed decisions only if they are allowed access to relevant knowledge. Academic freedom protects that precious knowledge and makes it available to inform the citizenry.