Harvard’s AAUP Set Out to Reform the University. Instead, It Went National.

Harvard’s chapter was among a clutch of AAUP chapters that “mushroomed” amid the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against higher education. Membership ballooned after the group filed its lawsuits. The chapter grew from just over 40 members at the beginning of last year to 122 by April 2025. By February, the group had amassed 312 members, drawing faculty from across Harvard’s schools — tenured professors, non-tenure-track instructors, researchers, and a small number of graduate students.