Collective Bargaining and Committee A: Five Decades of Unionism and Academic Freedom

In this article, I examine the relationship between unionism and academic freedom as revealed by 50 years of reports by the American Association of University Professors’ Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Written following investigations of significant and/or intractable situations, the reports demonstrate the complex interactions between two key aspects of modern academe. Findings include that collective bargaining can complicate but has not endangered Committee A’s work; organizing has been both a cause and effect of academic freedom violations; and, while bargained contracts can help establish faculty rights, shortcomings in provisions and administrators’ contract focus can raise new challenges.