Faculty Association Speaks Out on Three Top Issues

Washington, D.C.— Meeting in Washington, D.C., the national Council of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) adopted new policy statements on three issues of concern to faculty and others in the academic community. The policy statements address corporate funding of academic research, background investigations on faculty, and academic freedom and electronic communications.

Corporate Funding of Academic Research: Noting the longstanding practice of mutually beneficial collaboration between industry and research universities, the statement raises cautions about improper pressures on the design and outcome of research that may arise from financial ties between the corporate sponsor and either the researcher or the institution. The policy recommends that faculty should have a major role in developing, assessing and disseminating information about institutional policies on corporate-sponsored research. “There should be emphasis,” the statement continues, “on ensuring that the source and purpose of all corporate-funded research contracts can be publicly disclosed,” and that these contracts “should explicitly provide for the open communication of research results, not subject to the sponsor’s permission for publication.”

The statement further recommends that faculty call for periodic review of the overall impact of corporate-sponsored research on students, research faculty, and postdoctoral fellows, insist on appropriate due process protections in the context of any alleged violations of university policies in this area, and regularly review and update institutional policies on these matters.

For the full text of the policy statement on corporate funding of academic research, please visit the AAUP’s Web site.

Verification and Trust-Background Investigations Preceding Faculty Appointment: With increasing frequency, colleges and universities are now requiring extensive background checks on all prospective employees, including faculty members. The new Association policy finds these new requirements to be “quite out of proportion” to actual problems facing the academy, and urges restraint in their adoption. While recognizing that there may be instances in which the nature of a particular faculty appointment may justify a more extensive background check of faculty credentials than is customary in higher education, the policy concludes that “for an ordinary faculty appointment, the likely benefits of a background criminal investigation... are dwarfed by the grave invasions of privacy caused by such investigations, as well as by the misuse of sensitive information.”

The statement includes a recommendation that three basic protections of the Fair Credit Reporting Act should be adopted as governing principles whenever an extensive background check prior to a faculty appointment is found to be necessary. The three protections are: (a) the candidate must be informed of the proposed background check, and must authorize it in writing, (b) the candidate must be given a copy of the final report, and (c) no adverse action should be taken on the basis of the report until the candidate has had an opportunity to contest its accuracy.

For the full text of the policy statement on background investigations, please visit the AAUP’s Web site.

Academic Freedom and Electronic Communications: This major policy statement offers a review of the application of basic principles of academic freedom to electronic and digital communications. The key principle is that “academic freedom, free inquiry and freedom of expression within the academic community may be limited to no greater extent in electronic format than they are in print...” Several specific applications of the principle are examined in detail, including the freedom of research and publication, freedom of teaching, freedom of artistic expression, acceptable use policies, sanctions for abuse or misuse of electronic media, and responsibility for “extramural utterances.” Also discussed are the application of academic freedom principles to campus speech codes, harassment policies, and the privacy of electronic communications.

For the full text of the policy statement on Academic Freedom and Electronic Communications, please visit the AAUP’s Web site.

These new policies will join more than seventy other Association policies, statements and reports in the next edition of the AAUP “Redbook” (AAUP Policy Documents and Reports), a nationally respected compendium of standards and guidelines for faculty and their institutions.

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