At the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), one of the influential professional associations for professors, a center on “academic freedom” is seeking to undermine the many newly created schools of civic leadership.
Over the past half-decade, dozens of universities have created “Civics Centers,” such as the University of Florida’s Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education and UT Austin’s School of Civic Leadership, which aim to encourage viewpoint diversity and teach a classically oriented curriculum. Often backed by Republican legislatures, these centers have become a hallmark of higher education reform.
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In a recording that I obtained, Isaac Kamola—the director of the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom (CDAF)—repeatedly states his desire to delegitimize the upstart civic centers.
“I would really love to see kind of a robust research project on these right-wing centers and individuals—like, naming and shaming and discrediting and undermining the legitimacy,” Kamola said during the meeting (around the 1:34:50 mark). “I would love to strategically map who these f---ers are, and figure out what the weaknesses are, and design a research agenda that just goes through them and tries to knock them out.”
Through a public records request, I have acquired emails sent to a CDAF program fellow, which include links to agendas, brainstorming documents, grant records, and meeting audio recordings. The documents reveal the group’s idiosyncratic understanding of academic freedom. They also reveal how the CDAF’s funder, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has bankrolled a sprawling public-relations operation to block conservative efforts to reform higher education.
Created in 2024, the CDAF owes its existence to a $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. Per the center’s grant proposal, CDAF was designed to launch a public-relations campaign defending academic freedom. In practice, it seems to prioritize institutional autonomy above all—including, of course, viewpoint diversity.
CDAF reserves special ire for “civics centers” like the University of Florida’s Hamilton School. In a brainstorming document, Kamola identifies the centers as a key target. “Bring together faculty from different campuses that have dark money-funded, or legislature-imposed, ‘free enterprise,’ ‘civics,’ or other imposed centers,” the document reads.
In a meeting, Kamola expanded on the idea. “If we’re thinking about a five-year research agenda, I think unmasking, naming, and shaming, and just increasing the political costs and decreasing the legitimacy of these centers is going to be really important,” he said.
Kamola criticized how external funders seed faculty through new centers while eventually making universities pick up the bill. “The funding is only for five years,” Kamola said, describing a Charles Koch Foundation initiative. “So these centers are building out these tenured faculty at a time when, as we know, tenure is being cut all across the country.”
Kamola’s objection is ironic. As I’ve reported, the Mellon Foundation functions in a nearly identical manner, funding the initial hiring of faculty but leaving universities to support them long-term.
CDAF appears to be part of a larger but covert “rapid response” project funded by Mellon. In one meeting, Kamola described how he suggested that Mellon set up a fully staffed organization that could fight conservative legislation. According to Kamola, Mellon took interest in the project.
“Mellon took that seriously and came back and said that they—this is not public, so don’t share this anywhere, please—but that they have approved that or they’re in the process of approving it,” he said. “They’ve gotten a budget that looks like it may be something like $10 million to create a new organization that would do rapid response.”
CDAF’s initial grant was set to end in 2026, and it hasn’t publicly announced whether it received more Mellon funding. But it did apply for a grant renewal, and its webpage advertises a fellowship application for CDAF 2026–2028.
CDAF’s efforts do little to protect what many people consider a core pillar of academic freedom: free expression. In one meeting, CDAF Fellow John Warner praised the University of Pennsylvania for disciplining law professor Amy Wax over her controversial remarks. “What UPenn did is an example of the process of academic freedom,” he said.
No one in the meeting raised concerns over punishing a professor for her speech. In fact, Warner derided the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) for publicly doing so. “FIRE, on the other hand, said that this is a threat to professors everywhere and you got to watch your backs,” he added. “I just think that’s absurd.”
All of this might sound odd coming from an organization purportedly devoted to defending academic freedom. Reformers will need to get used to it. With its deep-pocketed funders, the academic resistance is just getting started.