The AAUW Public Policy Program

by Gudrun Hutchins

Who makes decisions about the AAUW Public Policy Program? Who decides for what issues our public policy staff should lobby? Who decides on priorities if several new issues come up at the same time? The short answer is: AAUW members. But rather than have a free-for-all during which individual members submit a large number of different ideas, AAUW has a national Public Policy Committee that is composed of AAUW members, not paid staff. The members of the Public Policy Committee have legislative experience and live in different parts of the country. They meet virtually several times each year and draft public policy priorities for the next biennium. All AAUW members vote for or against the draft during the AAUW election in the spring of every second year. This election is largely held on-line, but members may also request a paper ballot. During the same election, members also vote for national board members and on proposed bylaws amendments. Your branch newsletter editors will publish detailed information and instructions about the election when we are closer to the date.

I have included the entire text of the 2021-23  AAUW Public Policy Priorities document below (with the proposed additions in red and the proposed deletions crossed out). It answers the questions: “What do AAUW members stand for? What is the basis of the work of our paid staff?

AAUW Public Policy Priorities  

The Public Policy Priorities underscore AAUW’s mission to advance gender equity for women and girls through research, education, and advocacy. The work of AAUW builds upon responsible public participation, and the following priorities provide a basis for AAUW members’ actions at the local, state, national, and international levels. Implicit in each is support for government agencies administering programs, including adequate appropriations, effective and accountable administration, and provision for citizen participation. We advocate public discussion to ensure enlightened decisions on these priorities. We work to increase the number of women, and the diversity of backgrounds they represent, including race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity, and other underrepresented populations in policy- and other decision-making positions. Our positions are shaped by our commitment to being nonpartisan and fact-based, and to acting with integrity. We strive for our work to be inclusive and intersectional, collaborating with diverse allies and coalitions to achieve equity for all.

Basic to all of AAUW’s public policy efforts is the understanding that true equity requires a balance between the rights of the individual and the needs of the community. AAUW opposes all forms of discrimination and supports constitutional protection for the civil rights of all individuals.

AAUW believes that high-quality public education is the foundation of a democratic society and the key to improving economic prosperity and gender equality. We advocate equitable access to education and climates free of harassment, bullying, and sexual assault. We support academic freedom, civic education, protection from censorship, bias-free education, and responsible funding for all levels of education, including early childhood education and programs for students with disabilities. We advocate for increased and more equitable access to higher education, that is affordable and yields high quality credentials or degrees especially for women in poverty. We promote intentional, equity-focused equitable efforts to close the persistent learning and opportunity achievement gaps that disproportionately affect students from low-income and minority groups children and students from communities of color.

AAUW promotes the economic, social, and physical well-being of all persons. Essential to that well-being are an economy that provides equitable employment opportunities; reduction of poverty; a living wage; quality, affordable dependent care; paid family and medical leave; safe, livable, and affordable housing; quality, affordable, and accessible health care for all, including reproductive health care; and a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. We support a Social Security system that provides inflation-protected, guaranteed lifetime benefits with a progressive benefit formula, spousal and widow benefits, and disability and survivor benefits. We support robust and strong Medicare and Medicaid systems and oppose any efforts to undermine them, including privatization and block grant proposals. AAUW recognizes that gun violence is a public health crisis.

AAUW believes in the right to privacy and freedom from violence. We firmly believe in the separation of church and state. We support a fair, balanced, and independent judiciary. We support public budgets that balance individual rights and responsibility to the community. We see an urgent need for meaningful campaign finance reform, open and fair elections, and nonpartisan voter education efforts that will promote equitable political participation and representation in appointed and elected office.

AAUW supports believes in the need to end white supremacy and address structural and systemic racism. Efforts to improve racial, ethnic and gender justice must be embedded into every initiative and will work to eradicate intersectional bias as well. This includes working to eradicate intersectional bias and creating a diverse culture of involvement, respect, inclusion, and connection, where the richness of diverse ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives is fully appreciate, understood and utilized.

AAUW believes that global interdependence requires national and international policies against human trafficking and that promote peace, justice, human rights, sustainable development, and mutual security for all people. We support the civil and human rights of all immigrants, including a fair and just path to legal status. We support a strengthened United Nations and its affiliated agencies. We advocate implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action from the 4th World Conference on Women and subsequent declarations. We affirm our active participation in the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women and our commitment to ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). We support international family planning programs that are consistent with AAUW policy.

Commenting on the Public Policy Document

The AAUW Public Policy Committee will meet again before the election and potentially revise the draft to be approved. The current draft includes stronger language about racism, immigration, and minority stakeholders within our country’s population than the priorities published two years ago. I, personally, think the revision is excellent.

How does an individual member have input for this public policy document?  Individual members may comment or make a suggestion on an individual issue on-line. This year the comment period ends on February 5, 2021.

To comment on the Public Policy Priorities, click the image below. 

You can then scroll down and click the  “comment now” button to suggest revisions.

Note: You can also comment on the bylaws amendment that will allow National AAUW to accept members without an earned academic degree. Our branch has been accepting non-degree members with some college education for more than 25 years. This change would allow them to be national AAUW members as well. AAUW member in the Northeast have been lobbying for this change for at least 20 years. But we have never achieved the 2/3 majority that is required for a bylaws amendment.