The AAUP has endorsed Democratic Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
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This year the American Association of University Professors is endorsing a candidate in Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary, in what the group’s president says is the first instance leaders could find of the national-level AAUP making an endorsement. It’s another sign that AAUP has become a political organization, at a time of hyperpoliticization of higher ed more broadly.
Todd Wolfson said Michigan arms of the AAUP asked the national organization to consider the endorsement. AAUP polled Michigan members, finding roughly 80 percent of those voting favored making an endorsement, and about 97 percent specifically favored Abdul El-Sayed, Wolfson said. The AAUP’s national council then signed off. Wolfson signaled there likely will be more endorsements ahead of the midterm elections.
In a news release, AAUP has trumpeted its “First-Ever National Political Endorsement” going to El-Sayed, a past AAUP member who’s on the ballot in Tuesday’s primary. The organization is also hosting a virtual rally today. The release called El-Sayed “a fierce champion for debt-free and tuition-free higher education” who “will be an invaluable ally for academic freedom and higher education as a public good in Washington.”
