DEFENDING ACADEMIC INTEGRITY ● PROTECTING FACULTY RIGHTS
AAUP/AFT-CCU urges CCU officials to seek clear guidance on EO 2026-14
South Carolina’s Executive Order 2026-14 presents our public universities with a question that deserves considerably more thought than haste. Issued last month by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster the order establishes two statewide counterintelligence initiatives administered through the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Fusion Center: a Foreign Visitor Program and a Foreign Travel Program. The former requires state agencies and employees to notify SLED when hosting official foreign visitors or delegations, allowing the Fusion Center to assess potential security concerns and provide appropriate briefings. The latter requires state employees traveling internationally on official business to provide SLED with at least thirty days’ advance notice, cooperate with requests for additional information, and potentially participate in pre-travel security briefings and post-travel debriefings. The order is intended to reduce the vulnerability of state personnel and institutions to foreign intelligence collection, cyber threats, intellectual-property theft, and other forms of foreign exploitation while improving the state’s awareness of counterintelligence risks associated with international travel and official foreign contacts.
The AAUP/AFT-CCU recognizes the legitimate security concerns underlying the order. Foreign intelligence services do target American institutions, exploit international travel, cultivate relationships, and seek access to sensitive research and technology. Faculty should be cognizant of these risks, and universities have every reason to provide effective counterintelligence awareness and travel-security assistance.
But universities are not ordinary state agencies, and scholars are not ordinary government functionaries.
International engagement is woven into the fabric of academic life. Professors attend conferences abroad, conduct field research, interview foreign officials and dissidents, collaborate with overseas colleagues, and invite international scholars to American campuses. In some disciplines, interaction with foreign nationals—including nationals of adversarial states—is not incidental to scholarship. It is the scholarship.
This is why Executive Order 2026-14 warrants careful implementation. Among other things, it requires advance notification of official foreign travel and permits security briefings and post-travel debriefings. Important questions consequently remain unanswered. Are all faculty traveling with university support considered “state officials” for these purposes? What information may be requested during a debriefing? What protections exist for confidential sources, unpublished research, interview materials, and sensitive scholarly communications? Most importantly, is the process one of notification and security assistance, or could it evolve into a system of prior authorization?
The history behind the order provides additional reason for circumspection. Earlier this year, the General Assembly considered H. 5504, the proposed Foreign Influence Operations Out of American Education Act. That legislation would have imposed considerably broader restrictions upon public universities, including limitations on certain professional travel, foreign relationships, and academic organizations. The House passed the measure, but it did not advance beyond the Senate Education Committee. Executive Order 2026-14 followed in July. Although the order is materially narrower than H. 5504, the sequence makes it particularly important that universities implement only what the executive order actually requires—not restrictions contemplated by legislation that never became law.
The AAUP’s position on such matters has never required indifference to national security. Indeed, its landmark report on academic freedom and national security expressly recognizes legitimate security imperatives. But it also cautions that security measures should impose no greater constraint upon intellectual freedom than necessity requires and specifically identifies governmental restrictions affecting research, scholarly communication, and international collaboration as matters of concern. The foundational 1940 Statement likewise reminds us that the common good depends upon the free search for truth and its exposition.
The proper course, therefore, is neither defiance nor unquestioning compliance. It is institutional prudence. University administrators should seek clear guidance, consult faculty governance bodies, establish protections for confidential scholarship, and ensure that security notification does not quietly become academic permission. Counterintelligence awareness and academic freedom need not be adversaries. But keeping them from becoming so will require administrators to proceed with deliberation, restraint, and respect for the peculiar obligations of a university.
In Solidarity – Joseph Fitsanakis, PhD, President AAUP/AFT-CCU
AAUP-CCU 