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The report, "In Defense of an Independent and Representative Faculty Voice: The Case of Faculty Senates," produced by the AAUP's Committee on College and University Governance, examines recent legislation in Indiana, Ohio, Utah, and Texas that has relegated faculty senates to advisory roles and curtailed their traditional decision-making powers over curriculum, personnel, and other academic matters.
"Such actions go against long-standing principles of academic governance and, in doing so, erode the ability of higher education institutions to carry out their mission," the report states.
The most dramatic example cited is Texas's Senate Bill 37, signed into law in June and implemented this fall, which declares that "a faculty council or senate is advisory only and may not be delegated the final decision-making authority on any matter." The legislation goes further by authorizing university presidents to appoint presiding officers and up to half of senate members, while limiting elected faculty representatives to two-year terms followed by mandatory two-year breaks.
In August, the University of Texas System Board of Regents and the University of Houston System Board of Regents voted to abolish existing faculty senates and establish advisory bodies consistent with the new law.
Similar measures have emerged in other states. Indiana legislation decreed that "faculty governance organization actions are advisory only," while Ohio's sweeping anti-DEI bill clarified "that all feedback and recommendations by the faculty senate, or comparable representative body, is advisory in nature." Utah law states that "a president may, in the president's sole discretion, seek input from the institution's faculty."
The report also highlights federal intrusion into faculty governance, noting that in July the U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into George Mason University's faculty senate for passing a resolution defending the institution's first Black president and diversity programs. The Justice Department demanded drafts of the resolution and communications among faculty members who drafted it.
The AAUP analysis grounds its concerns in the 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, which established that faculty should have "primary responsibility for such fundamental areas as curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, research, faculty status, and those aspects of student life which relate to the educational process." In these areas, the statement holds, faculty decisions should be "essentially definitive."
"The attacks on an independent and representative faculty voice substitute propaganda for education, ideology for inquiry, and authoritarianism and corporate management for a system of governance that values expertise and representation over politics or the depth of donor's pockets," the report states.
The document emphasizes that weakening faculty senates undermines not just governance but academic freedom itself. "Allocation of authority to the faculty in the areas of its responsibility is a necessary condition for the protection of academic freedom within the institution," it notes, adding that faculty members—not trustees or administrators—have the expertise needed to assess questions of faculty competence and whether speech constitutes breaches of academic principles.
The report calls for greater inclusion of contingent faculty members in governance structures, noting that 68 percent of all faculty in U.S. colleges and universities hold non-tenure-track appointments. "The exclusion of significant segments of the faculty from governance weakens the ability of all faculty members to unite and resist attacks on the governance system and, ultimately, the academic freedom of all," it states.
The AAUP also addressed the relationship between faculty senates and collective bargaining, asserting that "faculty senates and unions working together can mount a strong defense of an independent and representative faculty voice—especially in these times when attacks on those voices are coming from multiple fronts."
The report concludes with a stark warning about the long-term consequences of these legislative actions: "The curtailment of the faculty's authority in governing higher education institutions today will not only inevitably undermine the faculty's professional freedoms, but, more important, will also spoil the fruits of those freedoms—an independent, intellectually rigorous, and incorruptible education for future generations."
