Unlike government-funded public universities, Fordham is not logistically subject to the U.S. federal administration as a private institution.

Fordham University administrators hired an outside law firm to review faculty and university webpages, proposing changes to language related to teaching and research, without consulting faculty leadership. 

Starting on or before July 1, 2025, an unknown number of faculty received reports from senior administrators with suggestions for revising the content of their webpages, sparking concerns that the reviews infringed on academic freedom and bypassed shared governance, according to the Fordham Faculty Senate. Shared governance is a collaborative decision-making model between Fordham’s administration and faculty leadership.

Members of the Faculty Senate said they have not seen the reports from the law firm, which has not been identified, nor the proposed changes.

In response to the webpage reports, the Faculty Senate approved a resolution at a Dec. 19 meeting calling on the administration to publicly affirm protections for academic freedom (which consists of teaching, research, intramural speech and extramural speech), to disclose plans to resist federal funding pressures that could influence teaching or research, and to outline how they will support faculty and community members who face repercussions for exercising free speech or academic freedom, regardless of immigration or citizenship status.

It is the policy of Fordham University to encourage full freedom of teaching, discussing, research and publication and to protect any member of the instructional staff, whether tenured or non-tenured, against pressures and influences from within and without the University which would restrict the exercise of academic freedom. Article 4, Chapter 4 of Fordham’s University Statutes

The Faculty Senate expressed concern over the so-called “risk assessments” conducted by the law firm, warning that the process may conflict with protections outlined in university statutes and previous resolutions. Article four, chapter four of the University statutes on academic freedom states the following:

“It is the policy of Fordham University to encourage full freedom of teaching, discussing, research and publication and to protect any member of the instructional staff, whether tenured or non-tenured, against pressures and influences from within and without the University which would restrict the exercise of academic freedom.”

The statutes are not publicly accessible via the Fordham website.

The Senate resolution goes on to criticize administrators for making decisions without consulting the Senate, calling the episode another “failure” in shared governance. It cited past instances where faculty oversight was bypassed, including the administration’s handling of the closure of the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education.

The Senate outlined concrete demands. It called on the administration to provide a full archive of recommended and enacted website changes, a report explaining who initiated the review and why, and full disclosure of the risk assessment documents used in the process by Jan. 23. The Senate sought assurances that faculty will not be pressured to alter their teaching or research, and that professors will receive advance notice for and the right to an advisor at any meeting involving academic freedom or control over curricula.

Faculty Senate President Berish Rubin confirmed that the administration did not provide the requested materials at the Jan. 23 Senate meeting.

The Senate also called for  stronger partnership with the university administration, including appointing the Faculty Senate president to University President Tania Tetlow’s leadership team and creating a joint process to ensure faculty consultation on initiatives that could affect teaching, research or academic freedom in the future.

Faculty Senate President Berish Rubin confirmed that the administration did not provide the requested materials at the Jan. 23 Senate meeting and that he has not been appointed to a position on Tetlow’s leadership team, as the resolution had requested. 

The university provided no comment regarding whether Rubin was welcome in Tetlow’s leadership team and why the administration had not yet provided the Senate with the requested materials, and instead said the following:

“We conducted an audit of Fordham’s website — which consists of more than 8,000 linked pages — with the goal of ensuring that it includes the most up-to-date information and accurately reflects the values that we hold deeply. The University affirms its shared responsibility with the Faculty Senate to uphold academic freedom as an inviolable principle of our institution.”

I’m furious at the violation and at the failure of the administration to acknowledge the stupidity and the gravity of what they did in hiring a consultant to comb through websites. Anne Fernald, Former Fordham Faculty Senate President

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is a nationwide professional organization and union for all academic workers. The AAUP chapter at Fordham is an advocacy chapter that supports the priorities AAUP upholds, such as academic freedom and shared governance. Tom Beaudoin, Fordham AAUP president and professor of religion, believes that the rollout of the assessment process was uneven based on varying cases in which faculty were presented with reports.

“The rollout happened through different offices on slightly different timetables, and with different expectations and instructions to different people,” Beaudoin said. “Then, once flags started to go up about it, it was re-centralized and handled with a greater deal of caution or circumspection.”

Associate Vice President of Equity and Inclusion James Felton told The Observer that his office did not lead the assessment process. The lack of transparency about how this process began and was conducted has fueled faculty frustration.

“I’m furious at the violation and at the failure of the administration to acknowledge the stupidity and the gravity of what they did in hiring a consultant to comb through websites,” Anne Fernald, former Faculty Senate president and current professor of English, said.

In the resolution, the Faculty Senate emphasized its role as the elected representative of tenure-stream faculty, cited AAUP principles of tenure that safeguard teaching and research from external pressure and underscored tenure’s importance in protecting academic freedom. 

The knowledge that one can lose their job fairly easily tends to limit what contingent faculty are willing to say or do in the classroom. Diane George, Co-chair of Fordham Faculty United

“If faculty members can lose their positions for what they say in the classroom or for what they write in an article, they are unlikely to risk addressing controversial issues. The common good is not served when business, political, or other entities can threaten the livelihood of researchers and instructors, and thereby suppress the results of their work or modify their judgements,” the AAUP tenure webpage says.

Diane George, adjunct professor of sociology and anthropology and co-chair of Fordham Faculty United, said that the review has a chilling effect on non-tenure-track faculty, who have little job security.

“The knowledge that one can lose their job fairly easily tends to limit what contingent faculty are willing to say or do in the classroom,” George said. “I’ve been at Fordham for 10 years now. I have a two-year contract, which is the longest contract an adjunct can have, and I know for myself that I still censor what I say.”

In the resolution, the Senate reaffirmed solidarity with instructional staff, the Fordham AAUP and the broader university community and reiterated its commitment to shared governance and collective responsibility for protecting freedom of inquiry, a pillar of Fordham’s mission statement.

I would hope we are an institution where anyone who is an academic worker at Fordham, and has questions about what they’re being asked to consider revising in the public presentation of their research or teaching, would feel able to raise a concern about that to the people for whom that concern ought to be raised. Tom Beaudoin, Fordham AAUP President

Since the start of President Trump’s second term, higher education has become a target. The Trump administration has paired federal investigations with cuts to federal funding to pressure universities into preemptively policing teaching, research and speech, limiting academic freedom and effectively leveraging federal dollars to influence academic priorities.

Many universities nationwide have responded to the threats by rebranding diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, including Ohio State University and St. Louis University. Large research institutions like the University of Chicago have halted enrollment in certain graduate programs for fear of cuts to federal funding. Texas A&M University cut its women’s and gender studies programs as part of an effort to eliminate DEI-related teaching.

In response to what kind of precedent an assessment like the one conducted by Fordham sets, George cited the “slippery slope” theory she learned in law school:

“Our government is heading in an authoritarian direction,” George said. “Once (Fordham) makes any concession to that authoritarian direction in higher ed — and higher ed has been one of President Trump’s targets — there is no telling where it stops.”

As a private institution, Fordham is not bound by the constraints of a government-funded public institution and therefore has the freedom to run the school the way it chooses to, George said. However, the webpage assessments conducted by the hired law firm raise alarms that Fordham is falling into the same trends as universities subject to the federal government’s ideals regarding how higher education should be conducted.

“The fact that (Fordham) was concerned enough to pay a consultant to come in and search through our websites and the things that we put online and strongly suggest that we scrub those things if they could run afoul of the (federal) administration’s anti-DEI stance suggests that they might not stand up to the federal administration, should it pressure them to take more drastic action,” George said.

Until the university administration provides the transparency requested by the Faculty Senate, what triggered the content reviews and who was directly impacted remains unknown.

“I would hope we are an institution where anyone who is an academic worker at Fordham, and has questions about what they’re being asked to consider revising in the public presentation of their research or teaching, would feel able to raise a concern about that to the people for whom that concern ought to be raised,” Beaudoin said. “So by saying that, what I’m saying is, we don’t know how many people were affected by this and have chosen not to say anything.”

The next Faculty Senate meeting will be conducted on Feb. 27 at Rose Hill.