AAUP president Todd Wolfson (at lectern) cited a poll of Michigan AAUP members.
Ryan Quinn / Inside Higher Ed
Only about 40 Michigan members of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) attended a meeting last month during which they were polled on whether the national AAUP should endorse a political candidate. The meeting led to the national AAUP announcing last week what it says is its first-known national-level candidate endorsement.
AAUP national president Todd Wolfson told Inside Higher Ed last week that the AAUP polled its Michigan members before the group’s national council signed off on endorsing Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary, set for Tuesday. Wolfson said roughly 80 percent of those voting favored making an endorsement, and about 97 percent specifically favored El-Sayed.
AAUP didn’t immediately provide Inside Higher Ed last week the number of people who voted. After Inside Higher Ed published its story on the endorsement—which fed continuing criticisms that AAUP has abandoned its historical status as a politically neutral arbiter of academic freedom and other faculty rights—a few AAUP members raised concerns about Wolfson’s characterization of the poll.
