On “AHA Job Ads and AAUP Censure”

To the editor:

Recognition and cooperation with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is vital for the profession, higher education, and social capital in general. “AHA Job Ads and AAUP Censure,” by Jacqueline Jones, Sarah Abosch, Mary Louise Roberts, Andrew J. Rotter, and contributor Robert Townsend (Perspectives on History, March 2013) is written in that high, laudable tradition.

We might add that the article mentioned “institutions under sanction” in the first paragraph and “censured institution” in the penultimate paragraph. The AAUP sanctions institutions for “infringement of governance standards.” It censures the administrations of institutions for “not observing the generally recognized principles of academic freedom and tenure,” but it does not censure the institutions themselves. The difference is significant and helps clarify some of the problems described in the article.