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Tag Archives: systemic racism


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Transforming Campus Safety

Campus police forces are not immune to broader injustices in US law enforcement, and these injustices intersect with core AAUP concerns over shared governance and academic freedom. That’s why I agreed to serve on a working group charged with drafting a report on the role of police on campus.

We looked at the appropriateness of higher education institutions’ having their own police forces and considered the impact of systemic racism on campus policing—as well as the role of campus police in perpetuating systemic racism and inequities. We found that campus police forces have expanded and militarized at an alarming rate, and that there are clear tensions between the AAUP’s core values and the existence and function of campus police forces.

Our goal is to encourage and enable AAUP chapters to work in coalition with other publicly minded groups to transform campus safety into something more just, accountable, and effective, up to and including reorganizing campus safety in toto. Accordingly, we recommend changes needed to ensure that campuses are safe and welcoming for diverse peoples—especially those who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color—and provide tools for chapters to use when assessing the state of policing on your campus and organizing for change.

Download the report here. See questions we suggest chapters ask themselves to get started.

—Megan Horst, Portland State University
Chair of AAUP Campus Police Working Group


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New data on full-time women faculty and faculty of color

Today we’re releasing an in-depth look at the makeup and salaries of full-time faculty members in US higher education. Using data collected by the US Department of Education, this snapshot provides an updated demographic profile of full-time faculty by academic rank and institution type, highlighting disparities among women and people of color.

Graphic of data from snapshot

Click here or on the image above to share the graphic on Facebook.

Key findings are:

  • Women make up 46.7 percent of full-time faculty members, 53.8 percent of part-time faculty members, and 50.0 percent of faculty members overall.
  • Among women faculty members, 49.6 percent are employed part time, whereas only 42.5 percent of men faculty members are employed part time.
  • Women make up 42.5 percent of full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty members and 53.9 percent of full-time contingent (non-tenure-track) faculty members.
  • Salaries for full-time women faculty members are approximately 81.2 percent of men’s. Among tenured or tenure-track faculty members, women earn 82.4 percent of what men earn.
  • Among tenure-line faculty members, women make up 50.0 percent of assistant professors but only 45.0 percent of associate professors and 32.5 percent of full professors.
  • Among full professors, women’s salaries are approximately 85.1 percent of men’s. Among associate professors and assistant professors, women earn approximately 92.7 percent and 90.7 percent, respectively, of what men earn.
  • The percentage of full-time women faculty members varies by institutional category, ranging from 54.7 percent among associate’s (two-year) institutions to 42.3 percent among doctoral institutions. For full-time tenure-line faculty members, the percentage ranges from 54.4 percent among associate’s institutions to 36.3 percent among doctoral institutions.
  • Underrepresented minority faculty members make up only 12.9 percent of full-time faculty members across the country, despite making up 32.6 percent of the US population.
  • Only 5.2 percent of full-time faculty members self-identify as Hispanic or Latino, whereas 17.5 percent of the US population self-identifies as Hispanic or Latino.
  • Only 6.0 percent of full-time faculty members self-identify as Black or African American, whereas 12.7 percent of the US population self-identifies as Black or African American.

The AAUP’s analysis confirms that women faculty members continue to face unique challenges in academia with respect to employment, advancement, salary, and job security, and that higher education is by no means immune from systemic racism. The pay and opportunity gaps identified in this data snapshot are the result of many factors beyond gender, race, and ethnicity, and closing them will require innovative and sustained efforts.

This data snapshot draws upon data from the provisional release of the Fall 2018 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Human Resources survey component. Throughout the report, we have followed the terminology used by IPEDS for ease of data comparison.

Visit the AAUP website to download the complete data snapshot.

Glenn Colby, AAUP Senior Researcher
Chelsea Fowler, AAUP Research Assistant


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Solidarity Will See Us Through

We are heading into a new academic year in turbulent times. The coronavirus global pandemic has drastically altered our lives, our jobs, and the lives of our students and our staff colleagues, with no end in sight. The murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, among others, and now Jacob Blake fighting for his life in Wisconsin, have put systemic institutionalized racism in the United States into stark relief.

In the past few weeks, we have seen a number of colleges and universities move ahead with reopening in person for the fall semester. Rather than relying on scientific expertise regarding the pandemic and the likelihood of transmission in a residential campus environment and its surrounding community, administrations and boards of trustees have engaged in magical thinking. Few institutions appear to be doing enough testing, and, somehow, they expect all students to follow strict rules at all times. Reopening decisions are being driven by the bottom line instead of the health and safety of students, faculty, staff, and all campus workers.

The outcomes from these decisions and the lack of planning behind these decisions was predictable: a spike in cases on campus; the difficulty in feeding and housing students who must quarantine; the deficiency in mitigating risks for others due to a lack of testing and robust contact tracing; and a hasty retreat to remote learning, sending potentially infected students back to their families and communities. For most administrations and boards, the top priority is the bottom line. They continue to embrace the corporate model and to further a decades-long assault on higher education as a common good.

Disturbing instances of blatant police violence against and harassment of Black people, including on our campuses, continues. Just within the last few weeks, a Black faculty member at Santa Clara University reported that campus police knocked on her door and demanded proof that she lives in her own house, after harassing her brother as he worked on a laptop outside.

The problems we face are serious and will not be easily resolved. Some good news is that faculty are mobilizing across ranks and with other academic workers and students to forward antiracist activism and to ensure that hastily implemented austerity measures do not become the new normal. Here are just a few examples of faculty activism that are making me optimistic this Labor Day week:

  • After a long, intensive campaign by a broad coalition of faculty, students, staff, and alumni at Portland State University, the administration has agreed to disarm campus police.
  • The national AAUP has convened a working group to draft a report on the role of police on campus, including whether it is appropriate for institutions of higher education to have their own police forces; how systemic racism affects campus policing; changes needed to ensure that campuses are safe and welcoming for diverse peoples, especially Black, indigenous and other peoples of color; and how AAUP chapters and members can best work in solidarity with student groups, community social justice organizations, and unions on this issue.
  • Our faculty union at Rutgers University has been working closely with a coalition of other campus unions to center racial justice and to ensure health and safety and to negotiate with the administration on proposed cuts. “This is not something that naturally occurred,” one chapter leader told the Chronicle of Higher Education. “It’s a big investment and big strategic change to decide to build power together.”
  • The George Mason University AAUP chapter brought to light the fact that several Virginia universities entered into no-bid contracts with a company to provide students with COVID-19 tests that are not approved for that use.
  • New memberships in the AAUP are up this summer, signaling a new wave of campus activism. At our August meeting, the AAUP Council authorized charters for twenty-five new or reactivated AAUP chapters.

This Labor Day week, I ask you to join me and other AAUP members in recommitting to doing the hard work of ensuring that higher education is a public good available to all in this country. You can share our Labor Day graphic to help spread the message that solidarity will see us through.

Solidarity will see us through graphic

In solidarity,
Irene Mulvey
AAUP President

P.S. And remember to check out the resources and information on our racial justice and coronavirus pages.