We are pleased to announce the publication of volume 16 of the AAUP's Journal of Academic Freedom. Our call for papers, "Philanthropy and Academic Freedom," invited scholarly articles that address the impact of large private donations on academic freedom and the educational mission of colleges and universities at a time when fiscal constraints—resulting from decades of disinvestment in public higher education—form the backdrop for increasing dependence on philanthropy. The concerns we raised when we released the call for papers, just weeks before the 2024 election, have magnified dramatically since then, with a new presidential administration increasingly weaponizing federal funding as an instrument of ideological control in its broader attacks on higher education. Colleges and universities are more vulnerable—and susceptible to private donor influence—than ever.

This year’s volume brings together articles that probe this uneasy relationship between philanthropy and academic freedom. Our introduction, “Philanthropy, Public Funding, and the Future of Academic Freedom,” organizes the volume’s fourteen articles, which represent a range of disciplines and perspectives, into four sections that examine whether neoliberalism has proven compatible with academic freedom, how donor-influence campaigns shape higher education, how philanthropy intersects with racial capitalism to “whitewash” knowledge, and how tensions between private interests and the common good continue to reconfigure the academic landscape. Collectively, the contributions show that academic freedom cannot be defended without critically examining the financial infrastructures and political economies that sustain or threaten it.

We encourage readers to forward this email to friends and colleagues and to share links to article web pages on social media. You can access the complete volume at https://www.aaup.org/JAF16 or click on titles in the table of contents below. Please also read the call for papers for next year's volume, "Academic Freedom as a Practice of Democracy." The 2026 volume will be edited by incoming faculty editor Karim Mattar of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Submissions are due by March 9, 2026.

—Michael Dreiling and Pedro García-Caro, Faculty Coeditors

The Journal of Academic Freedom is supported by funding from the AAUP Foundation.

Editors' Introduction: Philanthropy, Public Funding, and the Future of Academic Freedom
By Michael Dreiling and Pedro García-Caro

Table of Contents

Was Neoliberalism Compatible with Academic Freedom?

Donor-Influence Campaigns

Whitewashing Knowledge

Tensions and Schisms Between the Private and the Common Good