Through this letter we call on JHU President Daniels to affirm the JHU Statement on the Principles of Academic Freedom.
Dear President Daniels,
We write to you as dedicated members of the scholarly community at Johns Hopkins. At an unprecedented pace and on a scope unseen in U.S. history, federal executive actions undertaken since January 2025 are undermining the principle of academic freedom and institutional self-governance that forms the bedrock of research and teaching in our nation’s universities.
As the nation’s first research university, Johns Hopkins has played a central role in shaping the academic values that have made our country’s institutions of higher education among the world’s greatest. The principle of academic freedom integral to the democratic exchange of ideas and to scientific progress was laid out in 1915 by JHU Professor of Philosophy Arthur O. Lovejoy along with other charter members of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). One century later, our Board of Trustees reaffirmed the University’s commitment “to the steadfast protection of the right to academic freedom.” Its words offer unambiguous guidance in this time of crisis: “Without a full and vigorous protection of this principle,” the statement reads, “the university’s capacity to discharge its hallowed mission would be compromised.”
In the words of our university’s 2015 statement, academic freedom affords “the broadest possible scope for unencumbered expression, investigation, analysis, and discourse.” It “protects the right to speak and create, to question and dissent, to participate in debate on and off campus, and to invite others to do the same, all without fear of restraint or penalty.”
We write now to affirm our collective responsibility to defend the right to intramural and extramural utterance, including the expression of political disagreements: a right aligned with U.S. First Amendment protections, which are now actively under attack. Targeting members or groups of our community for retribution, criminalization, or deportation based on ideological criteria that equate disagreement with discrimination, contravenes this core principle. To allow outside political powers to target and retaliate against JHU academic units engaged in the work of discovery and instruction, we believe, is likewise to betray our institution’s foundational values.
In the face of the present and future pressures by government authority, we believe that Johns Hopkins must maintain its historic commitment to central values of academic freedom and institutional self-governance. U.S. universities must not go further than any constitutionally legitimate order demands.
Absent academic freedom, the societal benefits of higher education are degraded, our ability to educate and train students for the challenges of tomorrow is disrupted, and discourse based on hypothesis, evidence, and sound reasoning becomes impossible.
We ask that you support the Board of Trustees and faculty whom you represent, and our university leaders who follow your guidance, to each act with these principles in mind. Now is the time to make public your commitment to academic freedom, in concert with colleges and universities nationwide.
Respectfully,
The Executive Committee of the JHU AAUP Advocacy Chapter
Juliana Paré
Clinical Associate Professor, School of Education; Chapter President
Photini Sinnis
Professor BSPH and JHU SOM, Deputy Director, Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute; Chapter Vice-President
François Furstenberg
Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of History; Chapter Secretary
Derek Schilling
Professor of French, Director of the Centre Louis Marin, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures; Chapter Past President
More information about Academic Freedom at Hopkins:
Signatories
Eric Rice, Assistant Professor, School of Education
Naveeda Khan, Professor, Anthropology, KSAS
Nancy Glass, Professor, School of Nursing
Shane Butler, Nancy H. and Robert E. Hall Professor in the Humanities, Professor, Classics, KSAS
Juliet Ray, School of Education
Yiannis Sakellaridis, Professor, Mathematics, KSAS
Tom Louis, Professor Emeritus, BSPH
Sarah Woodson, T.C. Jenkins Professor, Biophysics, KSAS
Soha Bayoumi, Medicine, Science, and the Humanities, KSAS
Alessandro Angelini, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, KSAS
Joel Andreas, Professor, Sociology, KSAS
Jeffrey J. Gray, Professor, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, WSE
Lisa Siraganian, Professor, J.R. Herbert Boone Chair of Humanities, Comparative Thought and Literature, KSAS
Suzanne Roos, Modern Languages and Literatures, KSAS
Sharon Achinstein, Sir William Osler Professor, English, KSAS
Michelle Muratori, Counseling & Educational Studies, JHU School of Education
Jennifer Culbert, Associate Professor, Political Science, KSAS
N. Peter Armitage, Professor, Physics and Astronomy, KSAS
Erin Wright, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing
Monet Jackson, School of Nursing
David Savitt, Professor, Mathematics, KSAS
Elizabeth Tanner, Professor Emerita, School of Nursing
Judah Adashi, Music Composition, Music Theory, Professional Studies; Peabody Institute
Denise Rucker, SON
Mary A. Favret, Professor, Department of English, KSAS
Paola Marrati, Professor, Comparative Thought and Literature KSAS
Dorcas Baker, School of Nursing
Michaela Bronstein, Associate Research Professor, English, KSAS
Richard S. Miller, Applied Physics Laboratory
Parvathy Prem, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
Tyreesia Johns, Business Office/ Finance&Administration, SON
Christopher Grobe, Associate Research Professor, English, KSAS
Kathy McDonald, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, School of Nursing and School of Medicine (GIM)
Drew Daniel, Professor, Department of English, KSAS
Nadia Nurhussein, Mary Elizabeth Garrett Chair in Arts and Sciences, Professor, English, KSAS
Lauren Russell, Assistant Professor, The Writing Seminars
Mark Christian Thompson, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor, English, Chair of English, English, KSAS
Stuart Schrader, Associate Professor, History & Chloe Center for the Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, & Colonialism, KSAS
Claude Guillemard, Senior Lecturer, Modern Languages & Literatures, KSAS
Clara Han, Professor, Anthropology, KSAS
Rochelle Tobias, Professor of German, Modern Languages & Literatures, KSAS
Anand Pandian, Professor, Department of Anthropology, KSAS
Jared Hickman, Associate Professor, English, KSAS
Todd Shepard, Arthur O. Lovejoy Professor, History, KSAS
Charles A Hibbitts, Scientist, Space Department
Jane Bennett, Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities, Political Science/Comparative Thought and Literature, KSAS
Gabrielle Dean, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts and Adjunct Professor, Sheridan Libraries and University Museums/KSAS
Aja M. Lans, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Center for Africana Studies, KSAS
Joshua Simon, Associate Professor, Political Science, KSAS
Elisia Cassell, Post Award Administrator, Nursing Office of Research Administration/School of Nursing
Elizabeth McGraw, Instructional Technologist, SON
Steven R David, Professor, Political Science, KSAS
Elanor Taylor, Associate Professor, Philosophy, KSAS
Lindsay Muratore, Clinical Instructor and Nurse Practitioner, School of Nursing
Adam Sheingate , Professor, Political Science, KSAS
Sean Carroll, Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy, Physics & Philosophy, KSAS
Graham Mooney, Associate Professor, History of Medicine/School of Medicine
Lester Spence, Professor, Political Science and Africana Studies, KSAS
Rao Mohsin Ali Noor, Assistant Professor, History, KSAS
Karen Kruse Thomas, Staff Historian, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Bloomberg School Office of External Affairs
N. D. B. Connolly, Herbert Baxter Adam Associate Professor, History, KSAS
Andrew Miller, Professor, English, KSAS
Vadim “Vaadeem” Dukhanin, Assistant Scientist, JHBSPH, HPM
Christopher Nealon, John Dewey Professor, English, KSAS
Lan Li, Assistant Professor, History of Medicine, SOM
Adam Sitze, 1951 Professor in Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought, Amherst College
April Wuensch, Senior lecturer, MLL KSAS
Niloofar Haeri, Professor, Anthropology, KSAS
Ann Monihan, Instructional Designer, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
P.J. Brendese, Associate Professor, Political Science, KSAS
Beverly J. Silver, Professor, Sociology, KSAS
Toby Ditz, Professor Emeritus of History & Academy Professor, History, KSAS
Hilary Bok, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, KSAS; Berman Institute of Bioethics
Vesla M. Weaver, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Political Science and Sociology, KSAS
Robert Rynasiewicz, Professor, Philosophy, KSAS
Tarak Barkawi, Professor, Political Science, KSAS
Emily Agree, Research Professor, Sociology, KSAS & PFRH, BSPH
Zackary Berger, Associate Professor, School of Medicine
Joseph Aaron Joe, Mr., History of Medicine
Robert Moffitt, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Ahmed Ragab, Associate Professor, The Department of the History of Medicine, School of Medicine
Steven Farber, Professor, Biology, KSAS
Bruce Parrott, Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies Emeritus, SAIS
Ho-fung Hung, Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy, Sociology, KSAS & SAIS
Lydia Pecker, Associate Professor, School of Medicine
Ilya Shpitser, John C Malone Associate Professor, Computer Science, Whiting School of Engineering
Adria Lawrence, Aronson Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies, KSAS & SAIS
Steven Salzberg, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Biomedical Engineering, SOM; Computer Science, WSE; Biostatistics, BSPH
Peter R. McCullough, Adjunct Professor, Physics and Astronomy, KSAS
Allison Pugh, Research Professor, Sociology, KSAS
Jocelyne DiRuggiero, Associate Professor, Biology, KSAS
Adam K Webb, Resident Professor of Political Science and Co-Director, Hopkins-Nanjing Center
Daniel Schlozman, Joseph and Bertha Bernstein Associate Professor of Political Science, Political Science, KSAS
Collin Broholm, Gerhard H. Dieke Professor, Physics and Astronomy, KSAS
Stephen J Campbell , Henry and Elizabeth Wiesenfeld Professor, History of Art, KSAS
Dora Malech, Professor, Writing Seminars, KSAS
Patrick J. Connolly, Associate Professor, Philosophy, KSAS
Cass Crifasi, Associate Professor, Health Policy and Management, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Liesl Nydegger, Assistant Professor, Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Svea Closser, Professor, International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Amy Knowlton, Professor, Health, Behavior & Society, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Mitchell Merback, William Arnell and Everett Land Professor, History of Art, KSAS
Nino Zchomelidse, Associate Professor, History of Art, KSAS
Roger Raufer, Resident Professor, Hopkins-Nanjing Center, SAIS
Stephen Tamplin, Associate Scientist, Health, Behavior & Society, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Marian Feldman, W.H. Collins Vickers Chair in Archaeology, Professor of History of Art and Near Eastern Studies, KSAS
Chas Phillips, Associate Teaching Professor, Political Science, KSAS
Sarah Murray, Associate Professor, Department of Mental Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health
John Kim, Associate Professor, Biology, KSAS
Zophia Edwards, Assistant Professor, Sociology, KSAS
Kavi Rangan, Assistant Professor, Biology, KSAS
Will Cole, Associate Faculty, Health, Beahvior & Society, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Erin Jimenez, Assistant Professor, Biology, KSAS
Alison McManus, Assistant Professor, History of Science and Technology, KSAS
Chenery Lowe, Associate, Sr. Research Data Analyst, Health, Behavior & Society (BSPH) and Otolaryngology (SOM)
Zoobia Chaudhry, Assistant Professor of Medicine, GIM/DOM/ SOM
Carl Latkin, Professor, Health, Behavior & Society, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Michael Kwass, Professor, History, KSAS
Thomas Haine, Professor, Earth & Planetary Sciences, KSAS