Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Rights and Responsibilities
The Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Rights and Responsibilities was founded to advocate for the general conditions of MLA members’ professional lives as well as for the mutual recognition of professional rights and responsibilities between members and their institutions. The committee aims to promote MLA members’ right to academic freedom and their rights and responsibilities to participate in institutional governance, planning, budgeting, and resource oversight. In particular, the committee upholds the faculty’s primary responsibilities for personnel decisions and for curriculum and pedagogy. The committee is also concerned with the responsibilities of educational institutions for equity, communication, and transparency. The committee takes a special interest in all aspects of academic and humanities careers, including letters of recommendation, interview and hiring protocols, and equitable recruitment and promotion procedures. Specific professional concerns include transparency in the funding of research and teaching, appropriate protocols for professional advancement, working conditions for per-course faculty members, and the recruitment, retention, and support of underrepresented groups in the profession. The committee attends to issues of discrimination, equity, and inclusion, as well as to inappropriate invocations of academic freedom whose effects are restrictive or retaliatory. The committee organizes two MLA sessions for the annual convention and, when warranted, drafts statements for Executive Council approval. In initiating relevant projects, policies, and publications, the committee distills the experience of its members to engage questions of ethics, but it is not empowered to investigate individual grievances.
Staff liaisons: Anna Chang and Jason Rhody (cafprr@mla.org)
Executive Council adviser: Leah S. Marcus
Eva Cherniavsky, 2023–26
Michelle A. Massé, 2023–24
Heather E. Ostman, 2022–24
Jesus A. Ramos-Kittrell, 2021–24, 2023–24 (Ch.)
Amy Reid, 2023–26
C.P. Haun Saussy, 2022–25
Nicole B. Wallack, 2023–26
Committee Resources
Academic Freedom
- Joint Statement Denouncing Florida HB 999 (2023)
- Statement Supporting Academic Freedom in Recent Cases of Faculty Employment (2023)
- Report on the Current State of Academic Freedom in US Education (2022)
- Statement Endorsing the AAUP’s Statement “Legislative Threats to Academic Freedom: Redefinitions of Antisemitism and Racism" (2022)
- Statement on Campus Reopenings and Challenges to Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Shared Governance (2021)
- Academic Freedom and Faculty Intellectual Property in the Era of Zoom and Learning Management Systems (2021)
- Statement on Administrative Overreach, Shared Governance, and Faculty Rights in the Time of COVID-19 (2021)
- CAFPRR Statement on Resource Allocation and Academic Freedom (2016)
- MLA Statement on Academic Freedom (2014)
- CAFPRR Tool Kits
- Ramifications of the Supreme Court's Ruling in Garcetti v. Ceballos
- AAUP Resources on Academic Freedom
- AAUP Academic Freedom and Tenure Investigative Reports
- AAUP Censure List
Staffing, Salaries, and the Job Search
- Advice to Graduate Students: From Application to Career
- AAUP Resources on Contingent Appointments
- Checklist for Job Seekers
- Recommended Guidelines for Interviews for Academic Positions
- Guidelines for Search Committees and Job Seekers on Entry-Level Faculty Recruitment and Hiring as well as Postdoctoral Applications
- MLA Recommendation on Minimum Per-Course Compensation for Part-Time Faculty Members
- MLA Recommendation on a Minimum Salary for Full-Time Entry-Level Faculty Members
- Statement on Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Members
Publishing
Diversity
- Committee on Disability Issues in the Profession
- Final Report, MLA Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity and Tolerance
- Report of the Task Force against Campus Bigotry