Hampshire Faculty Legal Services Fund
The Hampshire Faculty Legal Services Fund is a legal support fund formed by the Hampshire College chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in 2019 after Hampshire College, a private liberal arts college in Massachusetts known for its left-of-center ideology and protest culture, announced plans to seek a merger with another institution and not admit a fall 2019 class amid financial difficulties. The fund was formed to fund the faculty’s legal representation amid the dispute with the college administration, and is operated by the Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ), a far-left nonprofit organization with a history of supporting socialist and Marxist-aligned movements in Latin America and beyond. 1 2 3
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Background
The Hampshire Faculty Legal Services Fund was formed in 2019 by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter at Hampshire College. Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, that opened in 1970 as an experimental college facilitated by four colleges in the area: Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. The college focuses on self-directed learning, or independent study, and does not grade students, relying on “narrative evaluations.” 3
In February 2019, Hampshire College announced plans not to admit a freshman class in 2019, and its president sent a letter announcing plans to search for a “strategic partner” to merge the institution with to avoid closure. Faculty and staff objected to the proposed merger and the decision not to admit a fall 2019 class. 4
The college’s AAUP chapter stated that the decision would lead to layoffs of 30-50 percent of the faculty and staff beginning in April 2019, and formed the Hampshire Faculty Legal Services Fund through the Alliance for Global Justice to support the faculty’s costs of legal representation. 5
The AAUP chapter stated that “The senior administration has made it clear that it intends to break faculty contracts, leaving those laid off unemployed after the hiring cycles for academic positions have closed. For that reason, the Hampshire College chapter of the AAUP has sought out and identified a respected Boston labor firm to represent the faculty in the ongoing conversations with the administration.” Its website further stated that “Hampshire Faculty Legal Services Fund was established to support the costs of our legal representation and is a fiscally sponsored project of the Alliance for Global Justice, 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your donation is tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.” 2
Ultimately, the college remained independent, and the AAUP chapter reached agreements with the administration on salary reductions and separation plans in 2020 and 2021. 6 7 8
Alliance for Global Justice
The Hampshire Faculty Legal Services Fund operates under the umbrella of the Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ), a controversial fiscal sponsor that supports numerous radical-left causes and activist groups. AFGJ has sponsored groups with alleged ties to foreign militant organizations and far-left movements across Latin America and the Middle East. In January 2023, the Washington Examiner reported that the Ford Foundation ceased all grantmaking to AFGJ after “years of warnings” about the organization’s ties to a Palestinian group with terrorist designations under U.S. law. 9
Hampshire Faculty Legal Services Fund is not an independent nonprofit and operates under AfGJ’s legal and tax status. It does not file tax return with the IRS, publish audited financial statements, or disclose its internal governance. The group’s revenue sources, expenditures, and budget scale remain unclear. 9 10