Tag: demonstration

By Posted on Posted in Events, News

On January 22, 2024, Penn faculty, students, graduate workers, staff, and allies from across campus, across local higher ed unions, and across Philly stood out in the cold together to rally for the basic principles that make a university a university: academic freedom, shared institutional governance that represents us all, open expression, and equity and diversity, all of which enable higher education to serve the purpose of generating new knowledge for the public good. “Universities don’t exist to serve private interests,” as AAUP–Penn President Amy Offner said in her opening remarks; “They are not tools for the business interests or political agendas of donors and trustees.’”

The lineup of speakers—including tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty from many departments and schools across Penn from Arts & Sciences to SP2 and from Wharton to Veterinary Medicine, as well as undergraduate students, medical students, grad workers in GET-UP, and colleagues and allies from other universities—spoke out powerfully in support of academic freedom and shared governance, open expression, and diversity and equity, all of which are under assault across the U.S. and at our own university.

Without academic freedom, higher education is impossible. This right—a right defined by the American Association of University Professors from its founding in 1915 and won through past mobilizations by faculty across higher education—has long been enshrined in Penn’s policies, but it is not self-enforcing. That is why so many members of the Penn community have committed to standing together in solidarity to insist that the freedom to teach is essential to the freedom to learn, and to claim academic freedom and practice it as a collective right.

Yesterday’s public demonstration marked the start of a campaign by faculty across the University of Pennsylvania not just to beat back the current assault by billionaire CEOs, trustees, and politicians, but to fight for and win positive institutional changes that will strengthen academic freedom and the forms of job security meant to protect it and that will democratize our university’s governing structures in order to make the freedom to teach and learn a reality for all of us who study and teach at Penn.

You can read press coverage from the DP here and from the Philadelphia Inquirer here.

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By Posted on Posted in Events

AAUP–Penn is organizing a public demonstration on Monday, January 22 at 2pm in support of freedom to learn, teach, and study; shared institutional governance; and diversity and racial justice. We are calling on faculty, staff, students, workers, and allies from across Penn, across institutions, and across Philly to stand together to defend and strengthen these principles.

This is a crucial time to push back against billionaires and politicians who are threatening all of us who work and study at Penn. You have undoubtedly seen that Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global Management and co-chair of the Wharton Board of Governors, has circulated a memo suggesting that unelected Penn trustees assume powers to unilaterally close departments, impose McCarthyite speech codes clearly aimed at suppressing protest, and change hiring and admissions policies to turn back the clock on gains in diversity and racial justice. These are serious threats to our institution’s educational and research mission and to the work that all of us do.

Now is not a moment to stand on the sidelines. Your participation is vital in demonstrating that the majority of Penn faculty, students, and staff believe in academic freedom, shared governance, open expression, and diversity. So come out to the button (in front of Van Pelt) on Jan. 22 at 2pm to say loud and clear that we will not let CEOs and politicians destroy these principles, and we intend to win positive institutional changes strengthening them.



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