The University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities chapter of the American Association of University Professors released a statement on Sept. 30 regarding concerns of academic freedom surrounding a resolution from the Board of Regents, which limits institutional statements that was adopted on March 14.
According to the Board’s docket materials, the resolution said some public concern statements could affect the University’s mission.
“The board shares the task force’s recognition that statements on matters of public concern carry risks that could undermine the University’s mission and its dedication to an inclusive climate and community,” the resolution read.
William Jones, the president of the University’s AAUP chapter, said he’s seen universities facing the impacts of academic freedom from the Trump administration as faculty members get terminated.
“We’re seeing attacks on academic freedom coming from the White House and from state legislators,” Jones said. “Faculty are being fired for their teaching and their research.”
Jones said he hopes to see the University’s administration issue a statement to support academic freedom, as it is important for the University to maintain itself even with the controversies surrounding it.
“I would like to see the administration make an affirmative statement of their support for academic freedom and for shared governance,” Jones said. “And an understanding that those two are really critical to the ability of the Universities to just thrive and to survive these attacks.”
The AAUP statement said as the resolution limits institutional statements, it also includes removal of statements on departmental websites and the cancellation of events on campus.
“That pattern includes administrators removing statements from websites of academic departments and centers on issues related to their scholarly expertise, pressuring departments and centers to cancel lectures and other public events on issues,” The AAUP statement read.
According to Jones, the AAUP has written many letters requesting the board not to pass the resolution, and they released their September statement due to the effects of the resolution and faculty members’ concerns about the resolution.
Jane Kirtley, a media law professor at the University, said she is upset with the existence of the Board of Regents’ resolution as it has issues, such as not including details of how the University community is going to be affected when it comes to their speech.
“I’m bothered by simply the existence of the policy, but I think the other problem with it is that it’s not very clear exactly what kind of speech or scholarly activities or events would be affected by this policy,” Kirtley said.
While it is within reason to talk about whether the University should limit academic speech, it is unlikely for regents to actually make the resolution, Kirtley said.
“There’s reasonable room to debate about whether a University as a whole should be issuing institutional statements on matters of current interests but which do not directly affect the University,” Kirtley said. “Reasonable people can differ on that, but it’s very different for somebody like the Regents of the University of Minnesota to adopt that on their own.”
Carrie Walling, director of the Human Rights Program at the University, said that the administration has been restricting speech that could be seen as problematic.
“The University of Minnesota seems to be kind of caught up in this trend of trying to limit what could be interpreted as politically controversial speech coming from members of the University,” Walling said.
Walling said she urges the regents to remove the resolution, as it goes against the University’s civil duties.
“My first desire would be to see them retract this resolution so that they should just end it,” Walling said. “Because I believe that trying to mandate neutrality chills the freedom of speech and is inconsistent with a University’s responsibility toward intellectual freedom, critical thinking and enhanced debate.”
Lazy Scholarship?
Oct 28, 2025 at 1:25 pm
Two fundamental problems plague so-called “unit statements” on current issues of social concern.
First, they embrace tyranny of the majority under the guise of academic freedom. By speaking collectively with one voice on contested social issues, these statements suppress the legitimate diversity of perspectives that exists within the unit, the discipline, and the public itself. They foreclose the very debate that should define academic inquiry—debate that lies at the heart of what we offer as a public good. The students and communities we serve deserve better.
Second, unit statements represent the laziest, most performative, and most self-aggrandizing form of scholarship imaginable. Posting strong opinions on a website—even those grounded in legitimate research—and declaring solidarity with groups deemed oppressed is no different from offering empty “thoughts and prayers” after tragedies. It is gesture without substance, proclamation without action, self-congratulation masquerading as engagement. Academics who sign onto such unit statements and believe they are “doing something” are deluding themselves. We must do better.
KG
Oct 28, 2025 at 7:20 am
Anonymous, if you’re so outraged by the KKK’s exterminationist policies, where is your moral outrage at Hamas’s exterminationist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023? That was genocide. Hamas unleashed its war machine on Israel in a premeditated assault that wiped out dozens of civilian villages. They committed rape, mutilation, torture, and murder—and took hostages. The extremist pro-Palestinian ideology that the U’s AACI legitimizes in effect whitewashes that genocidal attack on Israel!
Yes, in war, bombs fall. But Hamas started the war, launched thousands of rockets at Israel, and hid behind its own civilians, using them as human shields. Hamas bears full responsibility for the death and destruction in Gaza. And no—there was never a famine in Gaza. No credible evidence was ever produced; the few circulated “starvation” images were proven fabrications.
You claim to believe in equal rights? Then look at democratic Israel—where all citizens have one vote. Jews, Arabs, Christians, Bedouins, Druze, and others live side by side, with full rights under the law. Arab doctors treat Jewish patients; Arab judges sit on Israeli courts; Arab students attend Israeli universities in proportion to their population. LGBTQ+ Palestinians routinely seek and receive asylum in Israel to escape persecution in the Palestinian territories.
The land “from the river to the sea” is already free for all who wish to live peacefully with equal rights. Israel’s existence doesn’t deny anyone’s humanity—it guarantees coexistence. The real denial comes from those who chant for a Palestine without Israel and without Jews.
So, Anonymous, your problem isn’t with “supremacy.” It’s with the fact that the indigenous Jewish people—after millennia of exile, genocide, and persecution—are home again and will defend their homes.
@KG
Oct 27, 2025 at 11:24 am
What KG fails to understand is that institutional statements were made on the basis of academic research. For instance, the research on the war between Russia and Ukraine shows that Russia instigated the war. There is no evidence to support Putin’s claim that Ukraine started the war. And yet, UMN department statements supporting Ukraine were taken down by the administration even though these statements were supported by academic research. This violates academic freedom.
Anonymous
Oct 27, 2025 at 10:37 am
KG, I find the comparison of anti genocide activists and the KKK to be quite disingenuous. The KKK follow an exterminationist policy of anyone but white, cis het, able-bodied, and at times christian people. I, as an anti genocide activists, on the other hand believe in a diverse state of Palestine where Palestinians do not exist as second class citizens, where all people get one vote. The fact is, Israel is creating a man made famine and dropping tens of thousands of bombs on the Palestinians. If it were anyone else, including the Palestinians, I would be as opposed to that as I am to Israel doing it because my politics are based not on the supremacy of a group but it the equal rights of all groups. I believe there can be a peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians in the historically secular state of Palestine (yes historical Palestine had Christians, Jews, and Muslims, as well as other religious people and secular people all living together peacefully). I do not believe one group has special rights like the KKK, in fact it is the facists in Israeli Parliment that believe that. From the River to the Sea is not a call for the extermination of Jewish people, it is a call for the liberation of all people from supremacy of any kind.
SH
Oct 24, 2025 at 9:01 pm
I definitely feel like an open dialogue is important, everyone should hear what everyone else has to say about a topic, even (or especially) when they don’t agree. And really, who defines “problematic” or “controversial”? Is there an objective rubric one can use?
@KG
Oct 23, 2025 at 9:37 am
You’re awfully bossy. Have you been this way all your life? All your comments direct us to imagine terrible things that are not actually happening. It’s very, very odd behavior. Maybe you should seek help for your irregular tendencies. Or just keep them to yourself.
KG
Oct 22, 2025 at 7:53 am
If you were new on campus and read this article, you might wonder: Gee, what’s the big deal? My professors want to express their ideas. What’s wrong with that?
You’d be right to ask—but that’s because you’ve been deprived of crucial context. If you remain in the realm of rarefied talk of “academic freedom,” “shared governance,” and “scholarly expertise,” you’ll let clever AAUP professors manipulate you into supporting a blatantly political agenda.
Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that the U’s AAUP and its academic units were dominated by KKK white supremacists. Would you want these “experts” publishing racist manifestos under the U’s banner, dictating course content, controlling grades, and determining faculty hiring? Of course not.
Now, replace white supremacy with an extremist pro-Palestinian agenda that supported the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Well, that’s exactly what’s happening. These professors demand the right to use the University’s name and platforms to advance anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda—an agenda that denies Israel’s existence and calls for “Palestine from the river to the sea.” Other U faculty have already called these department statements, which the administration rightly removed from official websites, antisemitic. Make no mistake: antisemitism is racism. Complaints were filed with federal authorities long before Trump entered the picture.
The timing of this AAUP initiative is no coincidence. With four new Regents on the Board, these professors see an opening to reverse the current policy. Their goal isn’t “academic freedom.” It’s permission to re-inject extremist politics into the classroom and official University channels.
For years, these same faculty have promoted student demonstrations, disrupted classes, poisoned campus climate, and placed Jewish students in real danger—all while trying to silence any expression of Jewish identity or affinity for Israel. The truth is simple: these antisemitic professors are now reaping the consequences of what they’ve sown.