AAUP Foundation

Do you need financial support for a legal case implicating rights of national significance in higher education? Are you developing a project that advances academic freedom or illuminates its role in a democratic society? The AAUP Foundation welcomes inquiries and applications for our quarterly grant deadlines on March 31, June 30, September 30, and December 31.

The AAUP Foundation received a gift from the Aca­demic Freedom Lecture Fund after the Michigan nonprofit corporation dissolved and transferred assets. The fund supported the University of Michigan Senate’s Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom, named for faculty members suspended after testifying before a House Un

The AAUP Foundation provides essential support for the AAUP's Journal of Academic Freedom. The 2024 volume examines the rift between propaganda and truth-telling, with articles organized into five thematic clusters—focusing on artificial intelligence, authoritarianism, gender, Black history, and philosophical frameworks—that consider the

A grant from the AAUP Foundation covered a portion of costs related to litigation through which the AAUP has collaborated with partners to respond to attacks by the second Trump administration on higher education. Two cases challenge the administration’s cutting of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding from Columbia and Harvard Universities in an attempt to compel those universities to restrict free speech and academic freedom. A third seeks to block executive orders that aimed to eliminate DEI programs at colleges and universities. And a fourth seeks to block the Trump administration’s “ideological-deportation policy” that targets noncitizen faculty members and students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests and other constitutionally protected activities. 

We assisted with chapter legal expenses when the University of Pennsylvania AAUP chapter enlisted the services of an attorney to protect the chapter from legal jeopardy as the university was being investigated by the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The AAUP-Penn chapter remained vigilant as, its executive committee said, "billionaire donors orchestrated a coordinated national assault on Penn faculty and students—slandering our colleagues as antisemites for speaking out against the war in Gaza, seeking to control what could be taught and studied in our classrooms, and attempting to strip us of basic rights to make academic decisions and speak on issues of public concern." 

Historians for Peace and Democracy engages history faculty members in developing educational resources that counteract legislative threats to academic freedom. "The AAUP Foundation's grant was very helpful for us in putting together our new Honest History for High School Teachers series, which we hope will promote critical inquiry in K–12 education."