The American Council of Learned Societies is an umbrella group of scholarly organizations in the US.  One page of its website lists its constituent organizations; this list, in turn, often leads to lists of the e-mail addresses of officers and even members of the constituent groups.  Here is the address of the master-list:

http://www.acls.org/ls-dir.htm

I have sent the following letter to officers of most of the organizations that have anything to do with literature (my home discipline).  Others on this board may wish to contact the officers of organizations in their own disciplines.  Here's my sample letter:

OPEN LETTER TO AFFILIATES OF THE AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES RE: THREAT TO TENURE AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Dear Colleague,

I am writing to call your attention to a situation you may have read about in a recent front-page article in _The Chronicle of Higher Education_ -- the apparent vendetta-firing of a tenured and highly respected professor of English, Gary Stringer, and one of his distinguished colleagues in another department (Sociology) at the University of Southern Mississippi.  Full details of the events leading to and arising from this firing, including the full text of the _Chronicle_ article, are available at a very comprehensive website established to protest the firings (www.geocities.com/fireshelby).  The website makes for some inspiring reading (and listening), as it records the efforts of the faculty, staff, and students at USM to protect their rights and dignity.  Their struggle would seem to have implications for the preservation of tenure and academic freedom in American colleges in general; in fact, the president of the national ACLU recently spoke at USM in defense of the fired professors.

Although things are beginning to look a bit better for Gary Stringer and his colleague (Frank Glamser) than they did in early March, the turn-around has been due in great part to the exertion of public pressure, especially from academics around the nation, on the educational bureaucracy in Mississippi.  I am writing in order to ask respectfully that you visit the website cited above and, if you agree that these firings are as much a threat to academic freedom, intellectual integrity, and the principle of tenure as they seem to many others, I hope that you will consider writing to the educational officials listed on the site, especially to the board of the Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL).  Continued pressure on these officials may help to turn this situation around and thus create a valuable precedent not only for USM but for colleges around the nation.

Thank you very much for considering this request; I promise that this is the one and only e-mail you will receive from me about this matter.

With best wishes,

Robert C. (Bob) Evans
Professor of English
Auburn University Montgomery
Montgomery, AL  36124-4023

PS: Please feel free to share this message with anyone else who may be interested in its contents.  Thanks!