On June 24, 2026, CalArts and CU-UAW met in the morning to continue bargaining for all faculty units. CU-UAW made counterproposals on (1) Discipline and Dismissal for Special Faculty, (2) Workspace and Materials for both faculty units, and (3) Intellectual Property for all faculty. The parties also discussed the academic freedom article.
CalArts is, and has always been, deeply committed to academic freedom. CalArts maintains a longstanding no-censorship-of-art policy that is much broader than the standard university academic freedom policy. While CalArts has not adopted a separately titled “academic freedom” policy, the Academic Council and Dean’s Council adopted a statement on academic freedom that is reflected in the Faculty Handbook. CalArts has historically taken—and will continue to take—a broad view of academic freedom, as it is inherent in CalArts’ mission grounded in openness, experimentation, critical engagement, and creative freedom.
As CalArts explained in its June 17 update, CalArts has proposed adopting the AAUP academic freedom standard, which is widely regarded as the gold standard and is used by higher education institutions across the United States. Although CU-UAW previously suggested that other art institutions do not follow the AAUP, CalArts’ research of comparator schools’ faculty collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) indicates otherwise: Institutions such as RISD, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Pratt, ArtCenter, and Minneapolis College of Art and Design all follow the AAUP closely or fully—research that CalArts shared with CU-UAW. The AAUP statement is also more protective of faculty academic freedom rights than the statement from the Academic and Dean’s Council currently set out in the Faculty Handbook.
The parties agreed to discuss scheduling additional sessions for the week after the July 4th holiday.