Dear Chancellor Perdue and Members of the Board of Regents,

Forcing faculty to publicly post their syllabi will harm faculty, staff, and students. It also threatens to damage relations between faculty and the system, as well as to undermine the educational quality of the USG. We, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members associated with the University System of Georgia, urge you to revoke the Posting of Public Syllabi and Curriculum Vitae policy for the following reasons:

1. Issuing a policy that presents syllabi as binding and more difficult to change harms the quality of our public university system. This policy requires faculty to predetermine readings and topics for a course months in advance. Most faculty deviate from the syllabus in response to students’ needs and desires, as well as to current events. This policy limits faculty’s ability to integrate current events and new research into the curriculum as the semester progresses. Faculty are less able to be flexible and responsive to students, including adjusting the pacing of the course.

2. As educational policy, publishing faculty syllabi for public consumption
appears to be a politically motivated outlier. There is no evidence of any accrued benefits for students, nor of goodwill being generated between the university and the public. Instead, providing public access to syllabi during a period of heightened partisanship and rising political violence looks like partisan pandering with a high cost to faculty and no benefit.

3. A syllabus publication policy creates a structure that invites criticism and could lead to misunderstandings with the public. Faculty are hired as experts and leaders in their fields, both in research and teaching. The public is exposed to gross caricatures of faculty; many do not understand the role of faculty. This type of “transparency” will lead to bad-faith attacks on USG courses, chilling free inquiry on campuses. Reading lists and course objectives will be weaponized against faculty and departments through complaints about “political” or controversial concepts.

4. This decision puts faculty, students, and the entire university at risk of technology-facilitated threats and physical harm. If “disfavored” information appears on syllabi, inexpert and politically-motivated actors will seek to harm faculty or disrupt classes. It may lead to a chill on research and expression from both faculty and students. Many professors across the state of Georgia are already receiving hate mail or even death threats from people who disagree with their academic work. Posting syllabi online without providing a fuller context will only increase risks for faculty and students.

5. Forcing the publication of syllabi violates academic freedom. Academic freedom is the freedom of an instructor or researcher in higher education to investigate and discuss the issues in their academic field, and to teach and publish findings without interference from administrators, boards, political figures, donors, or other entities who are not experts in the disciplines. The syllabus is a core site of faculty academic freedom. It reflects faculty members’ scholarly judgment about course content, structure, and pedagogy. Policies that force the public release of detailed instructional materials–especially in a national climate marked with accusations of “indoctrination” and resistance to teaching so called “divisive concepts”--risk significant misrepresentation of faculty work. For example, faculty may assign readings in an attempt to engage diverse scholarly and research-based perspectives to develop critical thinking, analysis, and debate, and inclusion of a reading does not necessarily imply endorsement.

6. It will make it harder to recruit and retain the best faculty, which diminishes the university experience for students and ultimately harms Georgia’s economy. A survey of faculty in the South, conducted annually by AAUP Georgia, found that in 2025 a majority of these faculty “would not recommend their state as a desirable place to work for colleagues.” A quarter of respondents are looking to teach in other states in the coming year, citing academic freedom and the “broad political climate” as the primary compelling factors. The state with the highest percentage of faculty considering leaving was Texas, which was also the first state to implement public release of syllabi.

7. In a context of scarce resources, adding a new system is unnecessary and burdensome. A better use of scarce resources is to use course catalogues and schedules of classes already available to students. Any additional information that would better guide student decisions should be added to these existing but closed options. Students often reach out to faculty for syllabi; likewise, syllabi are generally available to students online before the start of the course. If your concern is to guide students along their academic journey, then ask that syllabi be accessible only to students.

We are aligned with you in our mission to make the USG the best it can be, leading in research and knowledge production to serve students and the broader public. We will only succeed in this mission if students and faculty feel safe to do their work without political interference or threats of violence.

It is therefore imperative that the Board of Regents revoke the Posting of Public Syllabi and Curriculum Vitae policy.