2027 AALS Annual Meeting

January 5–8, 2027

Emancipate. Academic. Freedom. focuses the lens on higher education and law schools as sites of connection between the values of intellectual inquiry and the public good, creation and advancement of knowledge, and the foundational centering of education as an essential part of the democratic project.

In this moment, institutions of higher education are convenient targets of political polarization, ideological censorship, and state interference and intimidation. Specifically, over the past three election cycles, the political climate has resulted in the weaponization of truth, facts, data, and knowledge, which, in turn, has fanned the flames of culture wars, provided cover for the ideological purging of members of our teaching and learning communities, and has caused the public to distrust institutions, like law schools, that are premier democratic organs.