Mission

The AAUP Foundation is organized to fund, through its grantmaking process, the charitable and educational purposes of the AAUP. The purposes of the AAUP Foundation include, but are not limited to, supporting principles of academic freedom and the quality of higher education in a free and democratic society. By promoting and protecting academic freedom, the Foundation’s activities further the charitable purpose of advancing education. Safeguarding academic freedom encourages free inquiry, promotes the expansion of knowledge, and creates an environment in which learning and research can flourish, thereby enhancing the quality of higher education and benefiting society. Safeguarding academic freedom also furthers the charitable purpose of defending “human and civil rights secured by law” as interpreted by the First Amendment to protect the exercise of academic freedom. 

The Foundation is a non-profit organization incorporated and operated exclusively for charitable and educational purposes of the AAUP within the meaning of Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.