Was it a win for the American Association of University Professors? On July 30, the organization announced that it was endorsing a political candidate for the first time in its 110-year history. Abdul El-Sayed, a left-wing Michigan Democrat running for the Senate, got the nod a few days before the Democratic primary. Last Tuesday, El-Sayed eked out a win over moderate Rep. Haley Stevens.
So was it also a win for the AAUP?
Any number of critics have sprung up to say no, it was an own goal. They make the point that I’ve offered repeatedly in recent columns: The perceived politicization of academia has eroded public trust, making universities vulnerable to unprecedented Republican attacks on higher education. Universities desperately need to regain their credibility as neutral institutions, not publicly position themselves on the Democratic Party’s leftmost flank.
The rejoinder of Todd Wolfson, the AAUP’s president, is that it’s too late for meek accommodation. Wolfson, who inaugurated his term in 2024 by calling JD Vance a “fascist,” recently told Inside Higher Ed that there’s a “radical, right-wing agenda coming out of the federal government” and the organization needs to engage in “politics proper” to protect the university’s prerogatives. He wants the AAUP to fight like a union, not jawbone like a genteel professional association.
Obviously I disagree. But I’m also conscious of John Stuart Mill’s admonition, “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.” So what’s the best case that professors should be in the fray, rather than above it?
Wolfson and his allies regard the GOP as a lost cause, leaving them no option other than counterattack. And I have to grant that conservatives really do seem bent on either destroying universities, or bringing them to heel. Rebuilding the public trust, and defusing conservative rage, will take years, at best. Much damage will be done in the meantime.
So I can see why the AAUP would rather make an audacious bet on aggressive self-defense: more politics, rather than less. But is it smart politics to join the left-wing insurgency that’s currently upending Democratic primaries?
Maybe the AAUP has earned some goodwill from El-Sayed, but Michigan is not some deep-blue congressional district where races are decided in the Democratic primary and progressives can afford to indulge their least-popular inclinations; the state went for Donald Trump twice. Frankly, I’m not sure the AAUP’s endorsement even mattered. But to the extent it did, the net effect probably meant a small boost for Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers. The endorsement of El-Sayed will also send a message about the AAUP to legislators in other, redder states, where races are often decided in the Republican primary and El-Sayed’s flavor of politics is poison.
Nor am I sure that this will get the AAUP much from Democrats. Will El-Sayed feel indebted? Will other Democrats fall in line on issues such as tenure protections for professors, for fear of losing the AAUP endorsement?
The most coveted union endorsements tend to come from large groups that can mobilize a big turnout, muster plenty of financial support and give politicians opportunities to stage rallies packed with blue-collar workers. Unions with concentrated memberships, like the United Auto Workers, that can significantly influence results in key states. The AAUP fits none of those descriptions: Its membership is a modest 57,000, scattered across the country, and it is poor compared with heavy hitters like the 2 million-member Service Employees International Union. Outside of a Democratic primary, I doubt “endorsed by America’s university professors” carries much weight.
If the AAUP wants to be in the political fray, rather than above it, the organization will have to learn to think of politics like professionals, rather than professors. (Yes, political science professors, I see you frowning at the back of the room. You may consider yourself exempted from the rest of my remarks, though I will suggest you have a chat with your friends at the AAUP.)
Engaging in “politics proper,” as the AAUP’s Wolfson vowed, is not a form of self-expression or group bonding. It is not a way to find meaning in an otherwise uncaring world. It is not a advocacy for a grand theory of radical change. Rather, it is the prosaic art of getting things done. Those other things are what happen before the real politicking begins — or, too often these days, instead of it.
In a fractious democracy such as America’s, success for an organization in practicing politics proper requires appealing to the public and building relationships with as many legislators as possible. Often that means focusing efforts on the policy positions that sound most appealing, rather than the ones the organization cares most about. For the AAUP, improving student loan terms would be an easier lift than convincing the public that professors require more direct subsidies for higher education, minimal oversight and ironclad job guarantees.
It isn’t impossible to make progress on an issue that has no great popular appeal, but it’s best if that issue is too minor for the public to notice, or too complicated for most people to understand. Unfortunately for the AAUP, the fight between universities and conservatives is already highly visible, and the politicization of academia is all too easy for Republicans to explain to the public. The AAUP won’t win that fight by making the GOP’s job even easier.
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