The AAUP formed the Academic Freedom and National Security special committee last week. The committee is parented by the AAUP's standing committees on government relations and academic freedom and tenure.
The special committee has yet to meet but is slated to begin meeting before Thanksgiving and to prepare its findings for the AAUP's annual meeting in June.
Robert O'Neil, chairman of the special committee, said members plan to examine how events that have occurred within the past year have affected universities and academic freedom on a national scale.
"We're not sure if anyone else is gathering this information or looking across the field for this," he said. "We're looking at policy changes, and there will be a lot of climate assessment."
O'Neil, also the director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, said members will perform open-ended information gathering.
"No issue is off-limits," he said. "There is not a sense of crisis, but there is an increased need to know what the aftermath of September 11 has been."
Committee member Mark F. Smith, director of government relations for the AAUP, said members will examine policies pertaining to controversial speech and teaching.
He said the members will assess the impact of restrictions imposed on foreign scholars and students, specifically in the proposed USA Patriot Act, and explore the controversy over the UNC-Chapel Hill summer reading -- "Approaching the Qur'
