I recently debated Todd Wolfson, President of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), over the loss of institutional neutrality in higher education. In the debate, I raised AAUP’s own abandonment of neutrality principles, which Wolfson acknowledged. While the viewers overwhelmingly supported a return to neutrality principles, Wolfson was undeterred. Indeed, this week Inside Higher Ed reported that the AAUP had moved forward with its first political endorsement in its history and would make more endorsements going forward. The first endorsement captured the radical agenda of the AAUP: Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

As I discuss in my book “The Indispensable Right,” there has been a systematic purging of conservative, libertarian, and contrarian voices in higher education in America. This viewpoint intolerance has been fueled by the AAUP, which was created to foster intellectual exchange and diversity.

I previously criticized the selection of Wolfson who promised to make the AAUP more of a “fighting organization” for liberal causes. A Rutgers University anthropologist and former union leader, Wolfson is a political activist who doubled down on the ideological intolerance that now defines higher education.

As promised, the AAUP quickly became a more radical and activist organization. It adopted an anti-Israel boycott policy and unleashed attacks on Trump supporters as “fascists.” It has targeted civics centers as conservative breeding grounds. Trinity College Professor Isaac Kamola, the director of the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom (CDAF), explains that they want to unleash “naming and shaming and discrediting and undermining the legitimacy” of such programs.

He is quoted as declaring:

“I would really love to see kind of a robust research project on these right-wing centers and individuals—like, naming and shaming and discrediting and undermining the legitimacy. I would love to strategically map who these f—ers are, and figure out what the weaknesses are, and design a research agenda that just goes through them and tries to knock them out.”

The group has also sponsored anti-ICE programs. The AAUP Journal has adopted the same ideological bias.

The move to issue political endorsements is the final severing of the AAUP from even the pretense of neutrality. Previously, Wolfson made no secret of whom he and the organization supported in the last presidential election, denouncing the results of the 2024 election.

As trust in higher education hits new lows, the AAUP is accelerating that decline by doubling down on ideological bias and political activism. In reality, the AAUP represents only a small fraction of university professors but is often viewed as speaking for the teaching academy as a whole.

I have previously written about the similar liberal agenda of the American Bar Association despite plunging membership among lawyers. The ABA now represents just 17 percent of the bar.

The AAUP currently has roughly 50,000 members. There are an estimated 1.5 million university and college professors in the United States. Both the ABA and AAUP have become captive to the most ideological elements of their membership. That agenda has overwhelmed the original apolitical mission of these groups.

The loss of the AAUP as a neutral arbiter for academic freedom is tremendous. As Wolfson acknowledged in our debate, it was once a voice for neutrality, avoiding ideological and political causes. It was central to the articulation of neutrality principles and core academic freedom values. We need such an organization now more than ever.

Instead, the AAUP has become captive to the most radical elements in higher education. That is evidenced by the endorsement of El-Sayed, who has campaigned with virulent anti-Semite Hasan Piker and is associated with Democratic Socialists such as Bernie Sanders.

Notably, Wolfson told Inside Higher Ed that AAUP had to move even further into political advocacy because “Higher ed is under threat and the threats are coming from the government.”

It is a telling remark. Higher education is facing plunging support and revenue. The political bias of universities was recently ranked as the top reason for avoiding higher education, just ahead of economics in a Gallup poll. The response of the AAUP is to become even more overtly biased and political.

The ideological intolerance of the AAUP is evident on campus, where conservatives and libertarians have been virtually purged from most departments.

My debate with Todd Wolfson was cordial and, frankly, I found him personable and engaging. Moreover, he has been open about his political agenda at AAUP. The tragedy is that this once revered institution has become just another rabid, radical element in higher education. Many professors continue to ignore public backlash and are doing untold harm to our institutions by yielding to their own political impulses.

It is not surprising that many professors support radical and anti-Israel candidates such as El-Sayed. Few, if any, professors support Republican candidates after the purging of academic ranks in the last couple of decades. Yale recently secured the distinction of achieving such ideological purity that not a single professor gave money to a Republican candidate or cause.

Yet, there was hope that institutions from universities to the AAUP could preserve at least a pretense of neutrality. Even that, however, is now intolerable as professors again yield to their own ideological impulses at the cost of higher education.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”