AAUP National
March 19th, 2015
The American Association of University Professors is deeply troubled that the United Arab Emirates has denied New York University professor Andrew Ross entry to the emirate of Abu Dhabi. Ross has been conducting research on labor conditions in that country. The denial of entry has ominous implications for the state of academic freedom at NYU’s branch campus in Abu Dhabi.
In our 2009 statement “On Conditions of Employment at Overseas Campuses,” formulated jointly with the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the AAUP acknowledged that the “expansion of higher education opportunities is a welcome feature of today’s more internationally integrated world.” However, the statement warned that “as the U.S. and Canadian presence in higher education grows in countries marked by authoritarian rule, basic principles of academic freedom, collegial governance, and nondiscrimination are less likely to be observed. In a host environment where free speech is constrained, if not proscribed, faculty will censor themselves, and the cause of authentic liberal education, to the extent it can exist in such situations, will suffer.”