April 2025: Faculty Letter to Yale University Administration
The FAS-SEAS Senate and the Yale chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP Yale) jointly present the following letter. We stand together urging Yale’s leaders to stand up for academic freedom and to protect all research, academic programs, and people at Yale.
Dear President McInnis, Provost Strobel, and Members of the Yale Board of Trustees:
We stand together at a crossroads. American universities are facing extraordinary attacks that threaten the bedrock principles of a democratic society, including rights of free expression, association, and academic freedom. We write as one faculty, to ask you to stand with us now.
We urge you to:
- Defend the values and ideals of higher education, and Yale’s specific mission of “improving the world through outstanding research and scholarship, education, preservation, and practice.”
- Resist and legally challenge any unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and university self-governance.
- Commit that no department, program, or structure of shared governance will be reorganized or eliminated in response to political threats.
- Protect science and other research at Yale from funding cutoffs, by providing legal and financial support to affected scholars and research units, mobilizing extraordinary resources as necessary.
- Defend the rights to free speech on campus recognized in the Woodward Report, including by assisting community members at risk of government infringement on this right, whether through immigration action or other means.
- Work purposefully and proactively with other colleges and universities in collective defense.
We stand united, asking for your courageous leadership. We look forward to standing alongside you in this work.
Signed,
[Yale faculty of all ranks can sign this letter here.]
A list of over 800 total signatories is available here.
2.5.2024: An Open Letter to President Maurie D. McInnis
Members of the Yale faculty, in collaboration with our AAUP chapter, have written to University President Maurie McInnis, requesting that she take specific actions in response to the new federal administration’s efforts to freeze or cancel research funding and censor scientific communications. We call on President McInnis to lead us in a broad and public defense of academic freedom, and to collaborate with other universities to defend our shared mission of education and research.
We submitted this letter to President McInnis with over 400 faculty signatories. See a copy of the letter and its signatures below.
12.3.2024: A Letter on Immigration Protections at Yale and in New Haven
Dear colleagues and students,
In the days since the election, many people have asked whether Yale will protect immigrant members of the Yale community. As the Executive Committee of the new American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Advocacy Chapter at Yale, we too hold those concerns, and write to share our understanding of the University’s current policy.
At least since 2017, it has been University policy to safeguard immigrant students, including recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). As then-President Salovey stated regarding DACA recipients, “You are an integral part of our community, and we remain committed to protecting your welfare and ensuring that you are able to participate fully in university life.”
The University is to be commended for this long-standing policy, which includes the following measures:
- Making legal support available to students who need advice about their immigration status and options, and ensuring that those who need legal representation will be able to obtain it;
- Admitting and providing financial aid to students without regard to immigration status; and
- Affirming that the Yale Police Department (YPD) does not enforce the civil provisions of U.S. immigration law; that any law enforcement agent who wishes to enter campus is expected to first check in with the YPD; and that Yale does not permit outside law enforcement officers to access the campus without a search warrant or other legal authorization.
The University has affirmed many of these commitments in its collective bargaining agreement with UNITE HERE Local 33, which represents graduate workers. Specifically, it has committed that, unless required by federal law:
- The University will not provide voluntary consent to an immigration agent to enter any non-public area where graduate workers work or live (including all classrooms, research and teaching labs, offices, dormitories, or housing); and
- The University will not provide voluntary consent to an immigration agent to access a graduate worker’s records without a subpoena or judicial warrant.
These well-established policies should provide some measure of reassurance to immigrant students.
At the same time, immigrants at Yale, in New Haven, and throughout the country are facing an unprecedented threat from the incoming administration. To meet the needs of this moment, the University should build on the important commitments it has made in the past by extending legal advice and representation to University staff and their families, particularly those who live in and around New Haven. Doing so would affirm the University’s commitment to the entire Yale community and to the city of which it is a part.
Finally, we welcome all interested and eligible members of the university community to join the AAUP and our Advocacy Chapter in our ongoing organizing around these and other critical issues.
Executive Committee of the Yale AAUP Advocacy Chapter
AAUP Yale 