As members of the public grow increasingly concerned with the politicization of American universities, one of the nation’s largest academic organizations is adopting yet another politically divisive position on an issue that has little to do with education. 

The president of the American Association of University Professors, Todd Wolfson, stated on Tuesday that his organization believes “strongly” that “no weapons should be sent to Israel, at all. Not defensive or offensive, nothing.”

The remarks came in response to a question from Inside Higher Ed: “What position, what action, if any, does national AAUP need to take on Israel and Palestine at this moment?”

Only after raising the AAUP’s opposition to America’s arms sales to Israel did Mr. Wolfson add, “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.” 

Mr. Wolfson’s remark was criticized by a fellow at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, Steve McGuire, who argued that the AAUP — which has some 44,000 members at more than 500 campus chapters across the United States — is overstepping its educational mandate. 

 “The AAUP is supposedly an American faculty union committed to defending academic freedom. It shouldn’t have a position on this at all,” Mr. McGuire wrote online. His organization advises universities on academic freedom and free speech. 

An author and constitutional law professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, David Bernstein, questioned the organization’s priorities given higher education’s broader challenges. 

“Higher education is going into long-term crisis, between a massive loss of political support from Republicans (who control a good % of funding) and the demographic cliff facing enrollment. Faculty employment nationwide will be at risk,” he wrote. “But AAUP leaders have decided that their priority is anti-Israel leftist virtue-signaling.” 

The latest statement continues a series of politically charged decisions by the AAUP.

In 2024, the organization reversed its longstanding policy against academic boycotts following Hamas’s October 7 attack and the subsequent wave of campus protests. The organization also criticized Columbia University’s former president, Minouche Shafik, for calling the police to intervene when students violently occupied a campus building and threatened university employees. 

The shift in tone at the association has drawn sustained criticism from some academic observers. A professor and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Samuel Abrams, has accused the AAUP of becoming “a political agent” that “seemingly only speaks to progressive proclivities.”

“The actions taken by the AAUP represent a massive stain on higher education’s reputation and understandably feed into the declining confidence in higher education,” Mr. Abrams wrote in August 2024. “The views espoused by the AAUP do not square with how Americans see the Israel-Hamas war or the related diversity, equity, and inclusion-fueled hatred toward particular groups in perceived positions of power.”