I previously criticized the selection of Wolfson as the head of the AAUP. Wolfson, a Rutgers University anthropologist and former union leader, is a highly political activist who doubled down on the ideological intolerance that now defines higher education. His election was a defiant statement by faculty members that they will not yield in preserving the current ideological echochamber in our universities and colleges. He promised to keep AAUP as a “fighting organization” for liberal causes.
Wolfson has made clear that there is little tolerance for opposing views on this far-left agenda. Many have analogized Wolfson to teacher union figures like American Federation of Teachers (AFT) chief Randi Weingarten in making the organization an extension of the Democratic Party. Wolfson used his position to oppose Trump’s reelection and has remained an outspoken voice in support of Democratic causes.
One of the issues that has been most divisive on our campuses is the support of Palestine and Israel. Rather than support the free speech rights of both sides, Wolfson and AAUP have abandoned neutrality to call for a weapons boycott of the Jewish state.
A recent interview with Inside Higher Ed contains Wolfson’s signature radical rhetoric in declaring that “Vance and Trump and [Christopher] Rufo and Stephen Miller and the ilk that run our government are fascist in a 21st-century variant.”
Wolfson also echoes the identity politics that have long characterized policies in higher education:
“Faculty and the press and people of color and women and gay people and trans people and anybody that’s not white, Christian nationalist, in the end, is othered. And then even within the white Christian nationalist community, if you’re not MAGA, or you care about a free press, or care about free inquiry, you’re othered.”
One notable element was how Wolfson explained the new foreign policy of the AAUP. He makes clear that the AAUP now believes that Israel must be cut off entirely from any weapons by the United States:
“We believe strongly that no weapons should be sent to Israel at all. Not defensive or offensive, nothing.
What do we do in the U.S., where antisemitism has been used as a weapon, in many ways, by the Trump administration to bring universities to heel—and many times stripping out, or threatening to strip out, hundreds of millions of research dollars that often affect Jewish faculty members? Versus what our position should be on the conflict in the Middle East?”
Notably, he stresses that Israel is guilty of genocide while pushing the new jingoistic term “scholasticide”:
“First and foremost, our job is to safeguard ourselves at home and to set a vision that aligns with what we’re trying to do in the United States. We need to stand up for academic freedom, for freedom of speech, for freedom of assembly for our students so they can protest the war—the genocide, excuse me—that’s taking place in Gaza.
We need to stand up to the weaponization of antisemitism in the Title VI process. And we need to make sure that we defend our members…
The number of universities and faculty and university presidents [in Gaza] that have been killed and universities that have been destroyed in this war is mammoth. We are certainly educating our members on this concept of scholasticide.
It seems pretty evident that they are—but if, in fact, Israel is purposefully destroying the educational infrastructure, both K–12 and higher ed, of Palestine, and of Gaza, that stands against our values of academic freedom. And if that’s the case, and we can unify around that, then we will take a stand and call for an end to the scholasticide.”
So now the AAUP is advocating a weapons boycott, including defensive weapons for a nation that its neighbors have repeatedly attacked? Many countries and groups have dedicated themselves to Israel’s destruction. We have protests in the United States calling for liberation “from the river to the sea,” a mantra viewed as a call for the eradication of Israel. Rather than call for peace and support for academics on both sides, the AAUP is seeking to disarm one side.
The new sloganeering about “scholasticide” would be more convincing if Wolfson were not the very face of ideological orthodoxy and intolerance in higher education. This generation of faculty and administrators has destroyed the intellectual diversity of our campuses. Just last week, the leading AAUP publication ran a long column against intellectual diversity.
What Wolfson and faculty members are doing today is the very definition of scholasticide by effectively purging conservative or libertarian faculty from departments and maintaining the current academic echo chamber. Applications and trust in higher education are plummeting. Yet, the response from the AAUP has been to double down on its political agenda and even adopt a foreign policy targeting Israel.
Given years of hiring faculty from the left to the far left, Wolfson can expect ongoing support from the ranks of the AAUP. However, the public, donors, and many legislators have had enough with the ideological agenda in academia. They are supporting programs that return to core educational priorities and promote a diversity of thought.
Unfortunately, the result will be the increasing balkanization of higher education. However, with Wolfson and the AAUP leading higher education off an ideological cliff, many will choose to get out of the car in this game of chicken. Regrettably, others will decide not to go into academia. We cannot allow this orthodoxy to lead us to give up on the academy. We have to stay and fight for the restoration of intellectual diversity and tolerance in higher education.